How much is gold's real global production cost?

pdkbffwleo said:
Gold's depletion will take a long time, since about 80% of its use is for jewelry. I think there is a small amount of gold in each cell phone, about $.50 cents, and with a billion cell phones being produced every year, most of which isn't recycled...
Click to expand...

When I mentioned gold running out, of course I was thinking of gold reserves in the ground. Yes, that's a very important factor in gold's price. Eventually it will be very hard and it will cost very much to extract it.

Jewelry, bullion and other physical forms of gold (not thinking of ETF's, of course...) are preserved. But: if gold depletes from the soil, then less and less of it will be added year-by-year. So eventually we will remain ONLY with the gold extracted in the past. New gold will eventually almost entirely disappear.

I think the production costs are already partly increasing due to more effort needed to exploit.

Gold will be very expensive in the long term. The industry is making a very good job in exploiting it. Just like with petrol... only that we burn petrol and make plastic out of it... and jellies and pudding and other products :D

As for peak gold figures: 2,689 tons (2010) and only 2,649 tons (2011), but 2,700 tons (2012). I wonder how much 2013 will bring?
So far these figures aren't that horrific. There seems to be a lot of "new gold", but as you see, it's rather "horizontal". I guess once the biggest mines start getting overexploited, it will reflect in these figures and in the price as well.

But now in 2013, as prices went down, many mines have become less productive. If price continues to dip, then some mines may decide to close down/pause activity. So if because of the price, they reduce activity, then we will see less tons exploited this year. But that still wouldn't necessarily mean gold has peaked.

The "Peak Everything" book is interesting. The author touches some interesting points in it. However, I just started reading it and have only read about 20 % of it.

Everything is going to peak some time. Perhaps some of the natural resources are already peaking...

But no-one will announce "hey, we're at the peak". The peak will most probably pass unnoticed to the vast majority of people.
The "crash", decline coming after the peak will be a cascade-like cataclysm.

I just hope we won't end up in a Mad Max or Waterworld-type World...
 
TreasureHunter said:
Earlier I tried underlining one key fact - gold may be getting overmined. It's getting rarer. Perhaps that's also part of the reason why its production costs have risen. Not sure, but I want to take this into account as well...

Right now I'm reading this book:

http://wordpress.richardheinberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/PeakEverythinglarge.jpg

There are some very interesting facts in it about how natural resources will peak/have peaked...

Gold is no exception. Like petrol, it will deplete. Of course - bullion and jewelry will preserve it. But if they mine less and less and that less is harder and harder to mine, then production costs increase, thus leading to a higher spot price as well...

Then there are ETF's... let's not forget.
Click to expand...
Not another Malthusian trap book :rolleyes:
 
bordsilver said:
TreasureHunter said:
Earlier I tried underlining one key fact - gold may be getting overmined. It's getting rarer. Perhaps that's also part of the reason why its production costs have risen. Not sure, but I want to take this into account as well...

Right now I'm reading this book:

http://wordpress.richardheinberg.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/PeakEverythinglarge.jpg

There are some very interesting facts in it about how natural resources will peak/have peaked...

Gold is no exception. Like petrol, it will deplete. Of course - bullion and jewelry will preserve it. But if they mine less and less and that less is harder and harder to mine, then production costs increase, thus leading to a higher spot price as well...

Then there are ETF's... let's not forget.
Click to expand...
Not another Malthusian trap book :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Did you read it?
I don't think there's any "trap" in it. So far what I've read was very well, professionally put together. I also think the peaking of resource exploitation is a very interesting idea.
 
TreasureHunter said:
Did you read it?
I don't think there's any "trap" in it. So far what I've read was very well, professionally put together. I also think the peaking of resource exploitation is a very interesting idea.
Click to expand...

Have only read the blurbs/reviews. I'll add it to the pile of other professionally put together, well argued peak resource, we're all doomed books including:
Malthus (1803) An essay on the principle of population
Jevons (1865) The coal question
Erlich (1968) The population bomb
Club of Rome (1972) The limits to Growth
etc

Making projections of likely near-term constraints is one thing (and generally a very useful thing), forgetting Say's law and the basic fact that nothing cures high prices like high prices is another. The biggest threat of the Malthusian trap coming true is Government's coercively interfering in markets in the anticipation that the trap will happen. As per the last 11,000 years or so, intelligence is the key resource that will be tapped in place of any natural resource constraints to escape the trap.
 
bordsilver said:
TreasureHunter said:
Did you read it?
I don't think there's any "trap" in it. So far what I've read was very well, professionally put together. I also think the peaking of resource exploitation is a very interesting idea.
Click to expand...

Have only read the blurbs/reviews. I'll add it to the pile of other professionally put together, well argued peak resource, we're all doomed books including:
Malthus (1803) An essay on the principle of population
Jevons (1865) The coal question
Erlich (1968) The population bomb
Club of Rome (1972) The limits to Growth
etc

Making projections of likely near-term constraints is one thing (and generally a very useful thing), forgetting Say's law and the basic fact that nothing cures high prices like high prices is another. The biggest threat of the Malthusian trap coming true is Government's coercively interfering in markets in the anticipation that the trap will happen. As per the last 11,000 years or so, intelligence is the key resource that will be tapped in place of any natural resource constraints to escape the trap.
Click to expand...

Let me tell you: this is not a "Malthusian trap" book. Although I've only read about 30 % of it, I'm finding it a useful resource that goes through the history with clear facts and it's up-to-date as well!

This is a book from 2010: fresh with facts and modern graphs with the evolution of resource exploitation. You can also watch Heinberg's videos on YouTube.

Malthus created "An Essay on the Principle of Population" in 1789...
Other sources you stated are very old...

"Peak Everything" is not a book that predicts a "coming doomsday", but many people whom I told about thought I was scaring them and that "oh, it can't be that bad"...
Well it can...

This book makes you think about the peaking issue. Petrol and wood/forests are the only peaking resources that most people are aware of (or rather: want to be aware of!). But there are more... copper, silver, phosphorus, food production (growing population, over-fishing are just two of the many causes), natural gas,
carbon, agricultural land area... and why not gold?

This book caught my eye and I enjoy it (so far, at least...). But some people tend to reject whatever is "too new to understand" or "too scary". Yet, some still watch scary fictional movies, but when it comes to reality, they reject it.

Climate change is another thing many are rejecting it, but it's there. The obvious undeniable.

Of course, there are other interesting books that I read as well ;)
 
^ The problem with judging a book by its cover ;)

Edit: RE Malthus, I was referring to the second, expanded release (subsequent ones then were "tweaks").
 
There's a video on TED which explains this well. What happens is we always go up an exponential curve. But then rather than crashing we move to a different paradigm and basically start again. That's why the doomsters always get it wrong.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyCY6mjWOPc[/youtube]
 
bordsilver said:
^ The problem with judging a book by its cover ;)

Edit: RE Malthus, I was referring to the second, expanded release (subsequent ones then were "tweaks").
Click to expand...

Ha ha :D Now, seriously speaking, the cover itself (not metaphorically) for "Peak Everything" is rather metaphorical, I guess... the cards make me think of gambling. Gambling our limited resources away (including fossil fuels).
 
hawkeye said:
There's a video on TED which explains this well. What happens is we always go up an exponential curve. But then rather than crashing we move to a different paradigm and basically start again. That's why the doomsters always get it wrong.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyCY6mjWOPc[/youtube]
Click to expand...
That's really good. (And as a bonus for AnCap people it's inherently natural.) It'd be interesting to tie it into the other frameworks showing how the cities are fed.

My one knee jerk thought (which no doubt he knows about but only had a limited amount of time) was that the theory/prediction that the rate of innovation needs to increase is presumably predicated on a fixed resource feeding the city, but although true in certain circumstances some paradigm shifts can substantially move the resource boundaries as well (simple examples are innovation around energy sources or adding new frontiers to exploitable resources).

The epidemiology implications are slightly depressing though :(

The ageing of cities also reminded me of THIS and how regulations around preservation of historic sites etc play a big role in killing the efficiency of a city's renewal by exacerbating the infrastructure costs.
 
Q2 Preliminary Production Results

Centamin is pleased to announce preliminary production results from its Sukari Gold Mine ("Sukari") in Egypt for the quarter ended 30 June 2013.

Total gold production for the quarter was a record 93,624 ounces (year to date 180,640 ounces), a 39% increase on the corresponding quarter in 2012 and 8% higher than Q1 2013. Formal guidance for the current year was provided on 14 March 2013 and remains at 320,000 ounces gold at a cash operating cost of US$700 per ounce.

http://www.centamin.com/centamin/investors/news-media/news/q2-preliminary-production-results-1
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top