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by Stockwatch Business Reporter

New York spot gold rose $1.40 to $1,814.70 Wednesday as the TSX Venture Exchange lost 1.58 points to 625.23 and the TSX gold index added 0.03 point to 261.91. Most Canadian gold miners had a better day today than yesterday, but none did better than Franco-Nevada Corp. (FNV) -- at least early on. Franco leapt as high as $192.63 in the minutes following a brief halt called so investors could hear that the company and its co-venturer, Tristan Pascall's First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (FM), have an agreement with the Panamanian government regarding the Cobre Panama gold mine.

Well, not quite an agreement yet -- just a "proposed concession contract" -- and the word concession appears to have a double entendre. While the agreement would give the partners a 20-year term on the Cobre concessions, with a 20-year-extension option, the arrangement also gives the Panamanians everything they were after -- concessions related to revenues, environmental and labour standards. And so, Franco ended the day up $4.09 to $183.09 on 1.04 million shares, while First Quantum managed just a 20-cent gain to $29.99 on 5.21 million shares.

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