Monday, 21st May 2007 (2220 views)

New gold producer countries are overtaking the traditional "big four" in the gold world because of massive changes in the global gold market.

There was a time when South Africa, the US, Australia and Canada commanded the majority of the world's gold output but now it seems new producers are becoming more prevalent.

Countries like China, Russia and Peru are taking the share of production from the big four, according to Paul Burton, a gold analyst who spoke at the 2007 Paydirt Australian Gold Conference held in Perth earlier today.

"China, for example, is now the third-largest producer in the world and will increase that further as the thousands of small domestic gold mines which have been unconsolidated, undercapitalised and inefficient, give way to foreign ownership and modern exploration, mining and processing," said Mr Burton.

He added that few discoveries had been made by the big firms lately and that this, coupled with the low gold prices until 2001, has led to a poor show by the big four.

 

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