Over 18 mln ounces of new gold seen set for market
PRAGUE, June 16 (Reuter) -- About 18.8 million ounces of new gold mining production could be coming on to the market within a few years and another 15.6 million a few years after that, the Financial Times Gold Conference heard on Monday.
Paul Burton editor of Mining Journal said he had a ``high degree of confidence'' about the initial new supply.
``Thereafter there is exploration activity aplenty which should lead to further discoveries,'' he said.
Activity has been booming despite a low gold price and the traditional producing regions still see the majority of the expenditure, he said.
Most mining prospects drop out at a fairly early stage in the develoment decision cycle. Even so, worldwide exploration expenditure last year totalled $4.6 billion of which 55 percent was spend on gold exploration, an increase of 30 percent over 1995.
Australia and Latin America dominate the expanding exploration budget and account for almost a third of all new discoveries.
Further up the pipeline towards production, Burton said there were 43 projects around the globe representing 6.7 million ounces a year of potential production with 44 percent of this potential spread equally between Africa and the CIS.
Undergoing feasibility studies were a further 49 projects amounting to a potential 8.9 million ounces of new gold.
Gold reserves available as a by-product of copper mining totalled 145 million ounces in 63 ongoing late stage copper development projects, he said.
In the final stages of development there were 53 new mines due to open between 1998 and 2000 collectively totalling 10.2 million ounces of new gold, 22 percent of which would come from Latin America.
Due on stream or already started this year were 61 mines with a collective annual output of 8.6 million ounces. New U.S. mines will account for 20 percent of the total but there will be no new mines in the leading producer South Africa.
Last year world gold production totalled 75 million ounces of which South Africa produced 22 percent, the United States 15 percent and Australia 13 percent.
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Unless I miscalculated this would still put production at less than demand.
