DENVER GOLD FORUM

Tye Burt: “This is the gold business. It is cyclical. The demand fundamentals are strong. The supply fundamentals have never been better for our metal.”

RENO, NV -

Kinross President and CEO Tye Burt Wednesday proved to be a beacon of reason and optimism piercing through the gloom of a Denver Gold Forum wallowing in the depths of despondency due to depressing metals prices and a lack of financing for junior mining projects.

In a good news/bad news pep talk, Burt exhorted analysts, institutional investors, and his mining peers to "do not lose hope."

"This is the gold business. It is cyclical. The demand fundamentals are strong. The supply fundamentals have never been better for our metal."

"Not only are major mines in Peru, South Africa and the United States slowing. Not only are new mines not coming into production whether they're in Argentina, in Alaska, in Romania and in Venezuela. But it's never been tougher to permit, build and finance a new gold mine."

"Global mine production in gold has been in decline for the last nine or 10 years," Burt said. "We don't see that stopping any time soon."

"To me that's symptomatic of an industry that is going to be in severe supply constraint in the not too distant future," Burt declared.

While it may be hard "to explain the difference between Comex and physical demand today," Burt asserted that "it isn't hard to look into the future and see a world of dramatically constrained gold production and gold supply."

"That's the time to buy good stories," he declared. "That's the time to look at the discounts we see in our market today and say, ‘I can load up on a good story.'"

"It's not the time to climb into a foxhole today," Burt advised. "These are markets where risk takers are rewarded."