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Canadian Malartic mine in Quebec at dusk. Image: Agnico Eagle
The top 10 gold producing countries mined out 1,920 tonnes of the precious metal which is 2.3% more than in 2013 (1,876 tonnes).
Among them, five countries — China, Australia, Russia, Canada, Uzbekistan — increased their gold output and four — USA, South Africa, Peru and Mexico — fell in production. Gold output in Ghana was in line with 2013 totals (90 tonnes).
Source: USGS
China has been at the top of the rankings for the past eight years with 450 tonnes of gold produced in 2014 (+4.7%) followed by Australia (270 tonnes, +1.9%) and Russia (245 tonnes, +6.5%).
Russia climbed to third place while the US fell from third to fourth position with gold output nosedived by 8.3% in 2014 (211 tonnes).
Canada achieved the record gold output in 2014 (160 tonnes, +29%) and jumped two positions up, from seventh to fifth place, surpassing South Africa for the first time.
South Africa ranked number one in the world for a century before losing the top spot to China in 2007. At its peak in the late 1960s the gold fields of South Africa produced more than a 1,000 tonnes of the yellow metal per year.
Table 1. World gold production, by top producing countries, tonnes (USGS preliminary data).
Medium and small gold-producing countries increased their gold output in 2014 by 1.7%, from 924 tonnes of gold in 2013 to 940 tonnes in 2014.
Comments
Under the volcano
You know, it’s no wonder that the US doesn’t want to go back to a gold standard or a gold backed dollar, because if they did they would have to seriously stop buying so much on credit. Just to meet the annual trade deficit, if payment was demanded in gold would require the US to somehow come up with 2,000 tons of gold per year, or, 70% of total world production, which of course isn’t going to happen. Based on a gold price of $ 10,000.00 US per ounce. If they wanted to reduce that amount due, in gold, they would have to allow the gold price to rise to 100,000.00 US per ounce. Then they could meet their trade deficit through their domestic production, with nothing left over for savings. And that assumes that the rest of the world would accept a US dollar gold price that high, which is a big assumption. Most countries simply couldn’t afford to trade with the US if the gold price was realistic.