Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/142338
industryfocus Gold as an export Gold was among our top three exports in 2010. 36.8% of the total gold exported in 2010 went to India. Exports exceed gold production due to the processing and re-export of gold imports (2010). "Gold miners are like terriers, gripping onto hope as if it were the precious quarry itself." of mine to be undertaken before it gives a green light. "The type of mine is determined by the depth below surface of the resource," Roberts explains. "In many cases, there is a combination of open-cut and underground mining within the same operation." Core samples can give you a good idea of what to expect, but you don't know until you start mining whether what's down there will make you money or not. If the grades of ore detected, measured in grams per tonne, are low compared with the costs of extraction, it may not be worth your while. If the cost of mining goes up or the price of gold goes down, producers mining low-grade deposits might decide it's better to not bother. Currently, for instance, the 'Super Pit' in Kalgoorlie is mining about two grams per tonne and Boddington Gold Mine, a Newcrest operation near Perth, is mining about 0.7 grams per tonne. Compare those outputs with the high-grade deposits of between 30 and 1,800-plus grams a tonne that Australian mining company Beadell Resources has identified within its operations in Brazil; or the high-grade deposits ABM has found in WA's Tanami Desert, where meagre access to infrastructure will ensure that mining here will be an expensive operation. Some might look at the odds and say it's not for them. But gold miners are like terriers, gripping onto hope as if it were the precious quarry itself. A statistical example Bills likes to use is that of the Zipf curve, used to model distributions of data in the physical sciences. When the amounts of gold extracted from historical projects around Tennant Creek are arranged from largest to smallest, anyone applying the logic of the Zipf curve would immediately conclude that the biggest deposit of all remains, as yet, unearthed. "Chances are it's still down there," Bills says. Top 10 gold producers of 2013 April 2013 (Cum. rank) Company NAME BASE COUNTRY 2013 revenue (billion USD) 2013 profits (million USD) 2013 assets (billion USD) 1 Freeport-McMoRan USA 18.0 3,000 35.4 2 Newmont Mining USA 9.9 1,800 29.6 3 Goldcorp CANADA 5.4 1,700 31.2 4 Barrick Gold CANADA 14.5 700 47.3 5 Newcrest Mining AUSTRALIA 4.5 1,100 20.8 6 Anglogold Ashanti SOUTH AFRICA 6.1 800 12.6 7 Yamana Gold CANADA 2.3 400 11.8 8 Polyus Gold RUSSIA 2.8 900 5.6 9 Gold Fields SOUTH AFRICA 3.4 700 11.2 10 Kinross Gold CANADA 4.3 2,500 14.9 Source: www.forbes.com/global2000/list