Gold Discovery Rate Declines?

The gold discovery rate has apparently dropped off, according to Jamie Sokalsky, chief executive officer of Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s largest gold producer. While in 1991 there were 11 gold discoveries, in 2011 there were just three, none of which are categorized as “supergiant” or containing more than 20 million ounces.

Barclay’s forecasts that the physical gold supply could shrink .4 percent next year.

“I don’t see a surge in gold production if we saw a gold price of $3,000,” Sokalsky said. “At a higher gold price, we’d still be experiencing the same challenges. I’d suggest there’d be very limited response to that higher gold price.”

“It’s getting harder to find large deposits and to get those deposits into production takes at least twice as long as it might have taken a decade ago,” Sokalsky said in an interview. ”We’re not going to see new mines coming in as fast as we thought to replace old mines that are closing.”

Moreover, global scrap supply is expected to decline by 1,636 tonne, thus reducing the entire total supply to 4,308 tonne in 2013 from 4,323 tonne, says Barclays. “Getting mines permitted, dealing with the government and the communities, environmental issues , all of that takes so much longer,” said Sokalsky. ”It also costs multitudes more to build a mine and to finance that.

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