Last year, we published a roundup of the top 10 gold producers for 2019.
The results are in for 2020, and here are the winners:
China - 368.3 tons
Russia - 331.1 tons
Australia - 327.8 tons
The United States - 190.2 tons
Canada - 170.6 tons
Ghana - 138.7 tons
Brazil - 107.0 tons
Uzbekistan - 101.6 tons
Mexico - 101.6 tons
Indonesia - 100.9 tons
So what changed between 2019 and 2020?
- China, Russia, and Australia remained the top 3, accounting for 31% of global gold production. However, China’s production fell from 383 tons to 368 last year, representing the fourth consecutive year of decline. This is largely due to tighter environmental policies imposed by the government.
- The U.S. has held the number four spot but its gold output fell below 200 tons for the first time in several years.
- Ghana is now the only African country to appear in the top 10 and is the largest gold producer in the region, beating out South Africa.
- Peru also lost its spot in the top 10, making room for Uzbekistan, which significantly increased its output last year — from 94.6 tons in 2019 to 101.6 tons.
- Finally, Indonesia made it to the top 10 with a 9.3% increase in gold production — from 92.3 tons in 2019 to 100.9 tons in 2020.
As a whole, global gold mine production in 2020 was 3,478.1 tons, down slightly for the second year in a row, from 3,652.8 tons in 2018 and 3,597.2 tons in 2019.
Obviously, the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to this slowdown, but the World Gold Council says global supply and consumer demand for gold continued to recover from 2020 levels.
And since supply and demand are among the key driving forces for the gold price, it will be interesting to see how this improving situation will move the price of gold in the months to come.
We’ll keep you posted.🤓
