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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

New York spot gold closed up $11.40 to $1,194.50 Thursday, after reports that manufacturing in the U.S. has dropped so far this month. The TSX Venture Exchange added 1.13 points to 783.57 and TSX Gold Index rose 4.15 points to 153.62.

Gold miners in Canada followed bullion higher. Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) rose 44 cents to $14.53, Goldcorp Inc. (G) gained 61 cents to $23.34, Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. (AEM) gained 91 cents to $30.47 and Eldorado Gold Corp. (ELD) added 24 cents to $7.24.

Nevsun Resources Ltd. (NSU) climbed to an intraday high of $5.30 before closing up 48 cents to $4.72 on 4.27 million shares, thanks to rumours the company is going to receive a $1-billion bid (about $5 a share). The rumoured bidder is QKR Corp., an investment company run by Lloyd Pengilly, a former JPMorgan banker, and jointly owned by Qatar Holding LLC and Kulczyk Investments, a private fund belonging to Polish businessman Jan Kulczyk. In response to the rumours, Nevsun said it has received expressions of interest recently, but all talks are preliminary. QKR has one gold mine, Navachab in Namibia, which it acquired from AngloGold Ashanti for $110-million earlier this year. Nevsun's Bisha mine in Eritrea is currently producing copper. It used to be a gold mine, because the Bisha deposit is layered. The gold was on top, so Nevsun spent its first 18 months of production mining that before transitioning to copper late last year. By mid-2016, it will transition from copper to zinc. Nevsun owns only 60 per cent of the mine; the other 40 per cent belongs to the government of Eritrea. (It helped itself to a 10-per-cent free-carried interest, but paid $60-million for the other 30 per cent. It borrowed the money from the China Import-Export Bank.)

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