Spot gold continued its upward trend overnight and briefly pushed through the US$1700 an ounce technical barrier, before easing back to US$1697.
Gold has been the star commodity performer of late spurred on by the potential of more stimulus by the Federal Reserve.
In just the past month the yellow metal has climbed 5.8% or around US$93.
Although still well down from the peak of just over US$1900 an ounce around a year ago, Australian gold producers and near term producers are set to benefit.
One prime example of a company benefiting from the high gold price is Silver Lake Resources (ASX: SLR), which earlier in the week announced a bumper set of results for financial year 2012, with net profit almost doubling to $31.175 million.
Silver Lake's gold sales were up 28.8% to 83,347 ounces for the period.
The possible upside for Silver Lake is even greater, considering the recent $426 million offer for Integra Mining (ASX: IGR) would create a company with the potential to produce between 255,000 to 295,000 gold ounces in FY13, and a further increase to 400,000 gold ounces in FY14. This would transform the company into one of Australia's largest gold producers.
