Ten Largest Gold Mines Worldwide

Mining can be a very exciting operation but perhaps one of the most exciting mines that many of us would consider is likely to be a precious metals mine or a gold mine. Since the gold rush in the United States, there has always been a curiosity about mining gold in the US and worldwide. While the US gold mining market is not what it once was, it is amazing to consider the size of the mines that are found across the world producing most of our modern gold supply.

 In this article, we are going to count down the 10 largest gold mines worldwide:

1. South Deep gold mine, South Africa:

By reserves, the world’s largest gold mine. South Deep is located 45 kilometers south of Johannesburg in the Witwatersrand Basin, South Africa, and it is also the seventh-deepest mine in the world, with a depth of 2,998 meters below ground.

2. Grasberg gold mine, Indonesia

The GBC underground mine began mining operations in the third quarter of 2019. Ore output at the GBC open-pit operation began in 1990 and was scheduled to be finished by the end of this year. The underground mine’s ore production started in the third quarter of this year. By 2022, ongoing upgrades at the mine are expected to raise production to 240,000 t per day.

3. Olimpiada gold mine, Russia

As of December 2018, the mine’s proven and probable reserves are believed to be 26 million ounces (281 million metric tons grading 2.88 grams per ton gold). It employs a conventional open-pit approach with a shovel and truck. The processed ore is transferred to two nearby plants with a combined annual capacity of 13 million tonnes.

The other honorable mentions include:

4. Lihir gold mine, Papua New Guinea
5. Norte Abierto gold mine, Chile
6. Carlin Trend gold mine, USA
7. Boddington gold mine, Western Australia
8. Mponeng gold mine, South Africa
9. Pueblo Viejo gold mine, Dominican Republic

10 Cortez Gold Mine, USA:

As we can see, gold mining really is an international affair and as these top mines ramp up their production further, we are bound to see some fluctuations in the overall price of gold moving forward.

This post was written by Justin Tidd, Director at Becker Mining Communications! For over 15 years, Becker Communications has been the industry’s leader in increasingly more sophisticated electrical mining communication systems. As they expanded into surface mining, railroads, and tunneling they added wireless communication systems, handheld radios, tagging and tracking systems, as well as gas monitoring. Click here to learn more!