Emerging global superpower China may snatch South Africa’s crown as the world’s top gold producer this year.
South Africa has thus far managed to hold on to the crown, but China, which has established itself as the world’s second-largest gold producer after seven years of continued growth, now looks set to overtake South Africa in the production stakes.
In the nine months to end September, China’s output of gold reached 191,5 tons, which is just fractionally behind South Africa’s output of 192,8 tons.
“It will be very interesting to see how the world’s largest gold-producing countries rank at the end of this year,” said Australian mining consultants Surbiton Associates.
“It looks like China could overtake South Africa to become the world’s number one producer for 2007 … Australia will probably take third place, followed by the United States,” it said.
This echoes the view of precious metals consultancy GFMS, which in September predicted that Chinese gold production may outpace that of South Africa.
It said production announcements at three notable operations in China were expected to add to China’s full-year production profile, while South Africa’s gold production profile was not expected to grow because the majority of its producing mines were reaching maturity.
South Africa, whose output comprised about 66% of world production in the 1970s, produced 275 tonnes of gold in 2006. — I-Net Bridge