Gold prices drop 5 percent on week

Metals prices were mostly down on Friday. In precious metals, gold was down 5 percent over the week to $648 per troy ounce after having been as low as $645 per troy ounce in morning trade. Silver also declined, by 10.7 percent during the week to $12.98 per troy ounce.

Base metals were mostly lower as well, with the exception of nickel, which added 0.1 percent on the week to $40,850 per tonne on Friday after reaching a new record high of $42,100 Thursday. Inventories are very low. Traders have looked to the Goro project in New Caldeonia, but costs have risen there and rumors have circulated that Brazilian miner CVRD, which owns the project, will delay start-up in favor of assets closer to home.

Copper dropped 4.6 percent during the week to $6,105 per tonne even though the third month in a row of higher Chinese imports in January indicates that demand is going up. In other copper related news, state-owned Chilean company Codelco said that it had record profits in 2006 even though its output dropped by 2.6 percent.