World top 10 #gold producers - countries and miners @Mineweb

China remains number one. USA down more than 10%.

World top 10 gold producers – countries and miners

Lawrence Williams | 3 February 2015 09:01 

It is interesting to see how the major producers of gold are faring in the grand scheme of things – both nationally and by company, given the continuing lowish gold prices pertaining over the past two to three years. While one may sometimes argue with the methodology, and findings, of GFMS’ global gold supply/demand statistics the consultancy’s latest report on gold includes its estimates of the world’s top gold producing nations and companies which are not so controversial and there are some changes in position and outputs which are certainly worth noting.

We last produced a similar listing based on 2012/2013 figures from rival precious metals consultancy, Metals Focus, last May (see: World top 10 gold producers – countries and companies) and while some of the GFMS statistics may vary a little from those of Metals Focus they broadly follow the same pattern and the overall figures are comparable – perhaps not too surprising given that Metals Focus was started by ex GFMS analysts and marketers.

Let’s take the top 10 country-by-country producers first, showing changes in position based on GFMS 2013 figures and 2014 estimates:

Table 1. Top 10 World Gold Producing Countries 2013/2014 (tonnes) 

Rank	Country	2013 output	2014e output	Change Y/Y
1	China	438.2	465.7	+6%
2	Russia	248.8	272.0	+9%
3	Australia	268.1	269.7	+1%
4	USA	228.2	200.4	-12%
5	Peru	187.7	169.3	-10%
6	South Africa	177.0	164.5	-7%
7	Canada	133.3	153.1	+15%
8	Mexico	119.8	115.7	-3%
9	Indonesia	109.2	109.9	+1%
10	Ghana	107.4	106.1	-1%
	World	3049.5	3109.0	2%

Source: GFMS

Notably here, according to the GFMS estimates, China has continued to see increased gold output and remains comfortably the World No. 1. But the No.2 position is now occupied by Russia, which appears to have leapfrogged over Australia to attain this ranking with 9% output growth last year. Former World No. 1 for many years, South Africa, is nowadays only in sixth place – and is now in danger of being overtaken by Canada, which has seen particularly strong growth in the past couple of years while South African output continues to slip. Indeed Canada provided the strongest growth (15%) amongst the major producing nations.

Among the top producing companies, there have been some substantial gold output drops from the biggest miners, mainly due to divestments and closures – see table below.

Table 2.World Top 10 Gold Miners 2013/2014 (tonnes)

Rank	Company	2013 output	2014e output	Change Y/Y
1	Barrick Gold	222.9	194.4	-13%
2	Newmont	157.5	151.2	-4%
3	AngloGold	127.7	136.9	+7%
4	Goldcorp	82.9	89.3	+8%
5	Kinross	77.7	80.4	+3%
6	Navoi (Uzbek)	70.5	73.0	+4%
7	Newcrest	73.5	72.0	-2%
8	Gold Fields	58.1	62.6	+8%
9	Polyus Gold	51.3	50.8	-1%
10	Sibanye Gold	44.5	50.1	+13%

Source GFMS

As can be seen, Barrick has recorded the biggest fall, while Newmont is in danger of being surpassed by AngloGold Ashanti as world No. 2 if 2014’s percentage increase and decrease figures are replicated this year. Others which showed good production rises are Goldcorp, Gold Fields and the latter’s South African spinoff Sibanye Gold. Indeed if these two miners had remained combined they would together have been comfortably in the world No. 4 slot, well ahead of Goldcorp. The only change in ranking here is that GFMS reckons Uzbekistan’s state mining company, Navoi MMC, with a 4% increase in production, mostly from its massive Muruntau operation, has moved above Australia’s Newcrest, which appears to have recorded a small fall in output.

With GFMS now reckoning that the pent-up growth in global gold output may well have peaked last year with the various big, and small, new gold projects in the pipeline having mostly now reached full capacity, we could well see some further production downturns from some of the big miners this year, although their financial positions could be improving regardless given the recent concentration on cutting all-in costs – aided in many cases over the past year by the big fall in oil prices and the strength of the U.S. dollar.

UPDATE: World top 10 gold producers - countries and miners - Mineweb



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