January 26, 2008	Saturday	Muharram 16, 1429

CAPE TOWN, Jan 25: The price of gold hit a record high on Friday as production ground to a halt in South Africa on the back of a spiralling electricity crisis the government has labelled a national emergency.

The three main companies operating in a country with a long record as the world’s biggest gold producer announced they had suspended production because of unreliable energy supplies.

Gold Fields, Harmony and AngloGold Ashanti said in separate statements they had been notified by state energy utility Eskom that it could not guarantee supplies to their mines, adding they did not know when operations would resume.

Their announcement propelled the price of the yellow metal to a record high $923.73, and that of platinum to $1,701 per ounce.

On the London Bullion Exchange, an ounce of gold was traded at $921.25 in the morning.

Tens of thousands of miners in South Africa were on Friday told not to bother reporting for shifts in a move the three companies said would cost hundreds of millions of dollars in production.

A spokeswoman for Harmony, which operates 22 gold mines and employs 43,000 miners, estimated that around 300 kg (10,600 ounces) of production would be lost after the morning and afternoon shifts were cancelled.

“That’s around 600 million rand ($85m) in Friday’s market,” spokeswoman Amelia Soares told AFP.

Ian Cockerill, chief executive of Gold Fields, which produces about 200 kg a day, said the situation would “have a serious effect on the South African operations and will negatively affect our gold production.” —AFP