Who produces the world’s gold?
Gold mine production was up modestly in 2022, but it remains below the prepandemic peak.
Gold mine production was up modestly in 2022 as mining operations normalized post-pandemic. But mine output still hasn’t returned to the peak we saw in 2018, boosting speculation that we have possibly reached “peak gold.”
How much gold is there in the world?
The simple answer — not much!
Scarcity is one of the characteristics that give gold value.
Who produces the world’s gold?
Gold production fell again in 2020. According to the World Gold Council, gold production came in at 3,478 tons last year. That compares with mine output of 3,597 tons in 2019.
It’s been a crazy, volatile week for precious metals. The Reddit Raiders pushed silver to over $29 an ounce and the white metal took gold up with it. But the run was short-lived and we saw a big sell-off in both metals later in the week. In this episode of the Friday Gold Wrap, host Mike Maharrey tries to cut through all the smoke and mirrors and talks about the underlying fundamentals in both the gold and silver markets.
Total gold supply fell 4% year-on-year in 2020 to 4,644 tons. It was the largest annual decline since 2013, according to data from the World Gold Council.
The decline was primarily driven by disruptions in mine production due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Gold mine output fell 4% on the year. More significantly, it marked the second straight yearly drop in mine production and continued a trend of flatlining gold mine output.
World gold production dropped by 5.4% in 2020 according to preliminary estimates released by GlobalData last week.
Global data projects gold production came in at 108 million ounces last year. The sharp decline was largely due to mine closures during the coronavirus pandemic. But it also fits into a broader trend of declining mine output we’ve seen over the last several years.
Last year, an Australian family found a gold nugget just laying on the ground. Needless to say, this doesn’t happen every day. In fact, finding a gold nugget is quite unusual – even a small one. But every once in a while, somebody discovers a massive nugget. The biggest nugget ever discovered was over 600 pounds!
The Federal Reserve held its first FOMC meeting of 2020. It was mostly met with yawns as the Fed held rates steady, and despite a somewhat dovish tone, indicated that it probably wouldn’t make any moves on interest rates this year. We’ve grown so used to low interest rates that it barely registers that the Fed is actually engaged in extreme monetary policy. Extreme has become the new normal. In this week’s Friday Gold Wrap podcast, host Mike Maharrey talks about it. He also touches on the Q4 GDP report and some interesting gold supply and demand trends.
Which countries produce most of the world’s gold?
Gold mine output has flatlined over the last several years and that trend appears to be continuing in 2019. Gold production rose fractionally in 2018 by about 1% totaling 3,346.9 tons. That compared with 3,318.92 tons mined in 2017 — a modest 28-ton increase year-on-year. According to the World Gold Council’s Gold Demand Trends Q3 report, on a year-to-date basis, mine production ended the third quarter at 2,583 tons. That’s virtually identical to production levels at this point in 2018.
