For a while now, gold market analysts have been telling everyone that we are running out of gold. Reaching peak gold was big news a couple of months ago and the statement was validated by the news of gold mines all over the world closing down because of problems with low-grade output. The big mining countries in the world like Australia and South Africa are aging and it is expected that the output will keep falling in the next five years.
Australia is the second biggest produced of gold in the world, followed closely by China. According to market intelligence the rate at which the reduction of the mining output in Australia will put the country in fourth place by 2024 whilst Russia and Canada rises.
Russia’s gold mining output is expected to equal that of Australia in 2020. Canada has had something different. Canada’s new start-up, Meliadine mine continues to ramp up operations at Rainy River, Hope Bay and Eleonore. These have driven the growth of gold output in the country. This is expected to be the case for the next couple of years.
The biggest reason for the drop in gold production in Australia is the reduction in high grade gold produced by older, long-lived assets like St. Ives, Telfred, Southern Cross, Paddington and more. These mines have had excellent productive years, but we know that gold is not an infinite commodity, it was only a matter of time for the world to face the fact that nothing lasts forever. This is why more efforts need to be made to recycle the gold that is unused, old and broken. The reason to sell gold jewellery Brisbane has never been clearer than it is now. Without scrap gold going back into the gold refining process, it will be hard to meet the demand for gold from the gold jewellery market, the tech and bullion markets.
The spread of the demand for gold
Jewellery
The demand for jewellery has declined in the last couple of years in 1016-17, the demand was at 52% in 2018 the demand dropped to 50%. India and China are still the main consumers of gold. Asia and the middle east are dominating demand for high-carat gold.
Investment demand
Gold might be a unique asset class but it still makes up less than one percent of global investment portfolios. This is changing as more investors are becoming weary of the state of affairs in the global economy and geopolitical tensions plaguing the world. They realise the value of gold. So far, the volume of gold that investors have bought went up by 235% in three decades as more investors are buying gold to protect their portfolio’s value and minimise losses when the market is facing a crisis.
Central bank demand
Over the last decade, central banks have been buying more gold than ever before. Banks in emerging markets are increasing their official buying decreasing what they sell. Between 1987 and 2009 central banks sold 7,853 tones and only sold 3,297 tonnes of gold in their vaults from 2010 to 2016.
Technology
Gold has been important in electronics as well as in various scientific and innovative technologies like highly-targeted nanotechnology for delivering medicine. And then there is the gold that is used in billions of smart devices that are manufactured everyday.
Overall, the global production in 2019 is expected to be 109.6 million ounces with Canada being the biggest contributor. The rise in production in Canada and new mines tapping into the unmined gold deposits has led to the question of how sure are we that we have really reached “peak gold”. For the reasons mentioned above is why many gold buying businesses are appearing in the market especially in Brisbane Australia. Another factor is environmental reasons, when you sell gold jewellery Brisbane not only are you helping with gold demand but also helping in recycling and saving the planet.
