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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

New York spot gold closed down $4.30 to $1,290.30, a three-week low on lighter trading Monday, as stock markets in Europe and Asia closed for Easter Monday. Here in Canada, the TSX Venture Exchange lost 1.56 points to 997.21 and the TSX Gold Index slipped a fraction to 179.41.

Major Canadian gold miners ended the day inconsistently. Goldcorp Inc. (G) rose 52 cents to $26.53, after the company said it would not increase its $3.6-billion hostile bid for Osisko Mining Corp. (OSK), down 27 cents to $7.73. Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) lost 78 cents to $19.03, after rumours of a potential merger with Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM: $25.05 (U.S.)).

The Wall Street Journal broke the Barrick-Newmont news on Friday, reporting that an unnamed source said merger talks had broken down. Today, Bloomberg confirmed the merger talk, and said the deal is not dead. Apparently, the miners are hoping to close before their annual meetings. Newmont meets this Wednesday, while Barrick meets the following Wednesday, April 30. Both companies have declined to comment. Each of them has many gold mines around the world with multiple mines in Nevada. Two mines have been causing Newmont trouble recently. At Batu Hijau in Indonesia, the company has just completed an expansion that would have increased production significantly. That was until earlier this year, when the Indonesian government decided that miners can no longer export concentrate. Newmont must first process its concentrate into gold before it leaves the country. It has started building a processing plant, but it will not be finished until 2017. Until then, the government has granted Newmont some reprieve. It can continue exporting concentrate, just so long as it pays a tax of up to 60 per cent of the concentrate's value. Then there is the company's protestor-plagued Yanacocha gold mine in Peru. Newmont had to suspend a $5-billion expansion project in 2011 because of violent protests. The company has spent the past three years working on environmental studies and pleasing the people. In 2013, it spent $56-million on community development projects, $16-million of which was spent on locals in Peru and $27-million was spent on locals in Indonesia.

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