Gold May Have The Attention Of More Investors Than Any Previous Time in History

Financialnewsmedia.com News Commentary

PALM BEACH, Fla., Aug. 4, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Gold.org, Gold mining is a global business with operations on every continent, except Antarctica, and gold is extracted from mines of widely varying types and scale. Mines and gold mining operations have become increasingly geographically diverse, far removed from the concentrated supply of four decades or so ago when the vast majority of the world's gold came from South Africa. The report said: "China was the largest gold producer in the world in 2016, accounting for around 14% of total annual production. But no one region dominates. Asia as a whole produces 23% of all newly-mined gold. Central and South America produce around 17% of the total, with North America supplying around 16%. Around 19% of production comes from Africa and 14% from the CIS region. Overall levels of mine production have grown significantly over the last decade, although substantial new discoveries are increasingly rare and production levels are increasingly constrained."     Active mining stocks mentioned in today's commentary include:  Ridgestone Mining Inc. (TSX-V: RMI) (OTCQB: RIGMF), Vista Gold Corp. (NYSE: VGZ) (TSX: VGZ), B2Gold Corp. (NYSE: BTG) (TSX: BTO), Sandstorm Gold Ltd. (NYSE: SAND) (TSX: SSL), Yamana Gold Inc. (NYSE: AUY) (TSX:YRI).

The Gold.org article continued: "Gold mining and mine production does not respond quickly to prices. The project development timeline and mine lifecycle is a very long one – it often takes decades to move from discovery to production. The best estimates currently available suggest that around 197,576 tonnes of gold has been mined throughout history, of which around two-thirds has been mined since 1950. And since gold is virtually indestructible, this means that almost all of this metal is still around in one form or another. If every single ounce of this gold were placed next to each other, the resulting cube of pure gold would only measure around 21 metres on each side.  Each year, global gold mining adds approximately 2,500-3,000 tonnes to the overall above-ground stock of gold. While gold production has shown an upward trend in recent years, this is likely to level off in coming years."