5 Largest Gold Mines in the World

Gold mining is actually a major lucrative business. As such, mines which are filled with the history of the mining world and the gold mined therein are a very attractive destination to explore to extract minerals from.  There are mines on earth on every single continent (excepting Antarctica) where gold can be found and mined. Some are reserved for corporate business mining, others are available even for recreational use and visits. There are still gold mines that are constantly in use, one way or another, and are busy sites for the year round.

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What is gold mining? 

Exploration, drilling, geological study, financing, development, extraction, initial refining and delivery of gold to a refinery are stages of gold mining. With the market for the material made from the product generated by mining in high demand, companies deploy technology to make the process faster and produce more output and profit. So there are a few different ways that gold and other such materials can be mined, water can be used and dredging can be done, open pit mining can be done, but not all of them are the ways that are being utilized. 

World’s largest gold mines

The world’s ten largest gold mines are hosted by South Africa and the US (2 gold mines each), and Indonesia, Russia, Papua New Guinea, Chile, Australia and the Dominican Republic host the rest (2 each). South Africa’s second biggest gold mine, South Deep, is also the second biggest gold mine in the world. According to Mining Technology, the top 5 biggest gold mines by contained gold reserves are counted here.

Olimpiada gold mine – 26 Moz

Polyus Gold owns and operates the Olimpiada gold mine, in the Krasnoyarsk region of Eastern Siberia, Russia. As of December 2018, the mine had a proven and probable reserve of 26 Moz (281Mt grading 2.88g/t gold). The technique is the use of a conventional open pit method with shovel and truck. Upon extraction, the ore is processed at two near-by plants that have a combined annual capacity of about 13 mln tonnes each. The first production at the Olimpiada gold mine came in 1996. The mine produced 1.3 Moz of gold in 2018. It became able to operate autonomously on its own in January 2019.

Lihir gold mine – 24 Moz

Lihir gold mine was put into production in 1997 and is located 900 km northeast of Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea's New Ireland Province. LGL was a self described diversified multinational natural resources and minerals company that was merged with Newcrest Mining in August 2010 and currently owned / operated by Lihir Gold Limited (LGL). Lihir gold mine is owned and operated by Newcrest Mining. At December 2018, Lihir mine had in situ gold reserves 24 Moz (330 Mt of 2.3g/t gold). Pressure oxidation, and conventional leaching are applied to almost all of the ore received from Lihir. The mine produced 933,000 oz of gold in the year to June last year. The mine is anticipated to produce 1 Moz of gold in 2020 from completion of a prefeasibility study for the Lihir pit optimisation in February 2016.

Carlin Trend gold mine, 12.46Moz.

As of December 2018 Newmont's Nevada US Carlin Trend gold mine had 12.46Moz of gold (5.6Moz open pit reserves; 4.87Mozx underground reserves; 1.25Mozx underground stockpile) combined reserves. Each of the world’s biggest gold mines contain 1,672.5 tonnes according to Mining Technology.

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Olimpiada gold mine – 26 Moz

Polyus Gold owns and runs the Olimpiada gold mine in the Krasnoyarsk region of Eastern Siberia, Russia. As at 31 December 2018, proven and probable reserves are 26 Moz (281Mt @ 2.88g/t gold). The technology is shovel and truck — a conventional open pit technology. Two nearby plants, with about 13 mln tonnes each capacity, process the ore. The first production at the Olimpiada gold mine was developed in 1996. In 2018, the mine produced 1.3 Moz. In January 2019 it started using autonomous machine operation.

Carlin Trend gold mine contains 12.46Moz

At year's end 2018, Newmont’s Nevada US Carlin Trend gold mine had combined gold reserves of 12.46 Moz (5.60 Moz open pit and 4.87 Moz underground) and underground stockpile of 1.25 Moz gold.

In the end

Gold being so important, with the value and demand so high, about 209,000 tons of gold have been mined throughout the history of mankind, and most of that still remains .All over the globe, mining operations are spread out. Gold mining was responsible for about three quarters of the world’s supply and the remainder from recycled gold.

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