Gold, which last week plunged below $1,800 an ounce, was worth $1,818/oz at the time of writing.

Among the market movers, dual-listed SolGold closed down 16.3% in London (LSE: SOLG) after announcing it was delaying the prefeasibility study for its Alpala project in Ecuador again.

It said the revised PFS covering the entire Cascabel concession needed more work "to sufficiently address a number of mine development and metallurgical alternatives and potential upsides".

Elsewhere, Brazil miner Vale closed up 3.8%, with its $7 billion settlement last week over the 2019 Brumadinho tailings dam failure which killed 270 people said to reduce uncertainties over its balance sheet.

Among the majors, Glencore gained 4.77% in London, Fresnillo rose 3% and Barrick Gold closed up 1.1% in Toronto.

Finally, Freeport-McMoRan shot up 6.48% on Friday following reports China's Tsingshan Holdings might cover the bulk of the cost of a $2.8 billion copper smelter, which the Indonesian government had last year asked the miner to build.