Will the World Run Out of Gold in 15 Years?

The latest annual report by the US Geological Service (USGC) revealed important changes in the global gold production patters. The report's key insight is that there only 50,000 tons of mineable gold left in the world.

The US Geological Service published gold market data for 2019, including the quantities mined by the leading gold-producing countries. The report also gives an estimate of the amount of gold left to mine for each country, thus indicating each country's gold-mining potential.

Similarly to previous years, China remains the top gold producer with 420 tons, which is 19 tons less than in 2018. Next are Australia, Russia, the US, and Canada: these countries' positions on the list remained unchanged. Surprisingly, Indonesia managed to gain several spots by mining 160 tons of gold in 2019, or 25 tons more than in 2018. The world's largest gold mine, Grasberg, is found in Indonesia; it's also the world's highest.

By contrast, South Africa ended up as the chief outsider of 2019. The country used to be the world's largest producer, but last year it managed to mine only 90 tons of gold, or 27 tons less than in 2018. South Africa now occupies the 12th place on the list of gold-producing countries. USGC experts have even cut their estimates of the country's gold supply from 6,000 tons to 3,200 tons.

The USGC estimates that the world currently has circa 50,000 tons of mineable gold, at the current technological level. Compared to last year, the forecast was cut by 4,000 tons. If the global gold production remains at 3,300 tons a year (as in 2018 and 2019), the known supplies will last for only 15 years. This is called a geological horizon.

These are all theoretical calculations, whereas the geological horizon is adjusted regularly. Even though there have been no major new gold discoveries in the past few years, gold mining will proceed for many decades onwards. The reason is that as the price of gold grows, mining companies will be motivated to invest in less accessible mining sites. This will increase the geological horizon. According to the World Gold Council (WGC), a total of 190,040 tons of gold have been mined over the course of human history (2017 data, which 21.4 meters cube on the side.

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