I noticed that as well. Looks like there is a market maker sitting on the ask. If he got slapped with a big enough order he would probably move up. I have seen very few commercial orders on the ask side. Seems bid support is mostly commercial right now, resistance is mostly market makers.
I would love to see some speculator at a big company swallow their tongue when a private party slapped that ask with 20mil shares at this price and they had to buy back at 80% higher.
I see no problems with this company being able to produce. Even if cost is high, gold is at $1680ppo and headed higher if we can't fix our political system.