The WGC estimates that there are 54,000 tons of “underground gold reserves” waiting to be extracted. These underground reserves represent less than 30 percent of what has already been extracted. Although new gold mines are still being found, discoveries of large deposits are increasingly rare, experts say. Estimates of all the gold mined in the world to date are around 165,000 metric tons.
With so much gold available, it's no wonder why many investors are looking for the Best Gold IRA Account to invest in. Some estimates are as high as 1 million tons, but most experts agree that less than 200,000 is accurate. Global gold supplies are difficult to quantify. This is because gold reserves are not always accurately declared. More than 50% of the gold found above ground is used for jewelry, making it difficult to trace.
Gold rings, necklaces and others can change hands without registration. About 35% is stored as ingots for investments and reserves. Large gold holders give misleading figures on their reserves, presumably for security reasons, but who knows? While gold prices reached an all-time high in August, this does not automatically translate into an increase in gold mining activity. Thanks to the large amount of gold used in electronic devices, which is generally considered disposable, efforts to recycle gold extracted from electronic waste are now well advanced.
Once the peak of gold is reached, global gold production will gradually decline until all economically exploiting deposits have been extracted. The peak of gold is defined as the point at which world gold production reaches its historical highest point. In terms of companies, Nevada Gold Mines, which is majority-owned by Barrick Gold, is the largest gold mining complex in the world and produces around 3.5 million ounces a year. One aspect of gold mine depletion that is very difficult to predict is how it will affect the spot price of gold.
This suggests that if new technologies were developed that would allow the profitable extraction of gold with lower than usual gold densities, there could be much more gold left in the world (discoverable, extractable and refinable) than seems to be the case today. Rather, the gold industry will move from mining to recycling, allowing for the recirculation of the world's gold supply. The California gold rush, from 1848 to 1855, brought the world's total historical gold production to more than 20,000 metric tons. He mentioned the gold that can be found at the bottom of the ocean itself, but he forgot to mention all the gold that could dissolve in ocean water itself.
With current extraction rates, some analysts believe that South Africa, which is one of the world's largest gold producers, could run out of accessible gold in 40 years. And since gold is practically indestructible, most of the gold mined is still here today in the form of jewelry, gold coins, gold ingots (i. In fact, about 50% of all gold mined has been mined since 1967 and 80% of all the gold that has been brought to the surface has been mined since 1910, according to the U.