Here is an article that is beneficial for Noront shareholders.  Pretty soon we will just lift the bars of gold from the ramp and finance all our other projects including DE and Burn Hill.

Bullion sprinted to a record high just below the key $900 (U.S.) an ounce level Tuesday, with investors jumping into the gold rush as one report described the yellow metal as the new global currency.

Gold futures for February delivery rose to a record $884 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange on Tuesday, surpassing a previous high of $875 set in 1980. It closed the session at $880.30, up $18.30.

Spot prices for the precious metal jumped more than $23 to $881.10 an ounce in London trading, topping last week's historic high of $869.05. (When adjusted for inflation, however, gold remains well below its all-time high. An ounce of gold at $875 in 1980 would be worth more than $2,000 today.)

John Ing, president of Maison Placements Canada Inc., expects bullion prices will hit a medium-term peak of $1,000 in 2008. “One catalyst will continue to be the decline of the U.S. dollar,” he said. “But the resumption of inflation will be what eventually sends gold to its new highs. That is something the market has not seen in more than 20 years.”

Central banks, which have been lowering interest rates as they struggle with a global credit crunch, are “laying the basis for a whopping bout of inflation,” Mr. Ing said.

Gold is off to its best start to the year since 1980, according to Bloomberg data. The most recent surge in bullion comes as crude oil prices touched a record $100 a barrel last week, the U.S. dollar struggles against other major global currencies, and ongoing geopolitical tensions between the United States and Iran, among others.

Buying of bullion was also boosted by the launch of the Shanghai gold futures contract, traders and gold analysts said. A growing middle class across China and India has increased demand for gold at a time when companies are struggling to increase output.

“Markets are betting on big demand for gold coming out of Chinese investors, having seen what they are capable of in the stock market,” said Stewart Hall, strategist at HSBC Securities (Canada).

Lending more support, an editorial comment published Tuesday in the Financial Times described gold's recent popularity as a return to its traditional status as a safe haven and urged investors to think of bullion not as a commodity, but as another currency.

Gold has been strong not only in U.S. dollar terms, but also when counted in euros, in Canadian, Australian and New Zealand dollars, and in the Chinese renminbi, said Dennis Gartman, an influential U.S. trader who writes the The Gartman Letter.

“This, we believe, is proof that gold has become the world's third major reservable currency,” he said. “That has been, and likely shall continue to be, the major thesis driving our long-standing bullishness of gold.”

Andrew Montano, director of precious metals at Scotia Mocatta in Toronto, said stagflation, a dreaded combination of stagnant economic growth and rampant inflation, is a current concern. Stagflation was a factor in the 1980s, when gold rose to its previous record highs.

“We are also seeing a flight to quality starting to emerge,” Mr. Montano said. “The perception of what quality is in the market changes from time to time and right now, gold is being seen as quality.”

Analysts said exchange-traded funds, already major gold owners, are boosting their bullion holdings early in 2008. “Some of the momentum hedge investors are also looking at their portfolios, which have been badly mauled by the credit problems, and they are adding assets with momentum,” Mr. Ing said.

Canadian gold producers are riding the rally higher as well. Gold companies on the TSX global gold sub-index surged 3.8 per cent Tuesday even as North American stock markets tumbled, with Kinross Gold jumping 5 per cent, Barrick Gold Corp. rising 4 per cent and Iamgold Corp. rising 6.4 per cent.

Goldcorp Inc. stock added 2 per cent after it said its gold production increased 35 per cent in 2007 to 2.29 million ounces — the high end of its forecast. “Goldcorp ended the year with its highest quarterly gold production ever,” chief executive officer Kevin McArthur said. The company also forecast that production would rise by 14 per cent this year.

The move towards $900 an ounce bodes well for Canada's gold producers, which as a sector underperformed last year's 31 per cent gold price surge because of modest growth in production and a lack of profitability, Mr. Ing said.

“Under a different pricing metric, with gold at $850 an ounce, some of these gold miners will be exceedingly profitable and their reserves will be upgraded,” he said. “The story of 2008 will be very much that of gold stocks outperforming bullion.”