The World's Biggest Gold Mines

Driven by geopolitical tensions, economic uncertainty and sustained central bank buying, the price of gold has reached record levels, gaining nearly 60 percent this year to pass the $,4,000-per-ounce mark this month (closing price average from October 1st to 27th). The level of demand for gold is now prompting questions about whether reserves of the commodity are being exhausted and if humanity has reached "peak gold". Indeed, some analysts believe that global mining production has already reached or is close to its peak, having stagnated between 3,000 and 3,300 metric tons annually over the last decade. While new gold deposits are still being discovered, as recently reported by CNBC in the Hunan province of China (Wangu gold field), large reserves are gradually becoming scarce, with the majority of production still happening in older mines that have been in use for decades.

So which mines are producing the most gold every year? Data from company reports published by the website Mining.com states that gold mines in Nevada produced 2.70 million ounces (76.5 metric tons) of the precious metal in 2024, which is a similar output to the estimated production of the Muruntau gold deposit (2.68 million ounces that year), which has been exploited since the late 1960s in Uzbekistan. Discovered in the 1980s, the Grasberg gold mine, located in the Indonesian province of West Papua, is the world's third largest supplier (1.86 million ounces or 59 tons in 2024), followed by the Olimpiada deposit (1.44 million ounces or 40 tons), discovered in 1975 in the Severo-Yeniseysky district of Russia.