Gold Mining Output 'Starts Decline'
Tuesday, 1/26/2016 18:21
Negative "all in" margins see global gold mining output turn lower from new record...
GOLD MINING production dropped at the end of 2015, according to leading analysts, marking "the beginning of the decline" from a run of new all-time record highs.
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New output worldwide fell 4% in the last 3 months of 2015, precious-metals specialists Thomson Reuters GFMS said Tuesday – the "largest quarterly reduction since 2008," when the global financial crisis hit all minerals output.
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Capping a run of 7 years of new
record highs for global gold mining output, end-2015's drop comes thanks to a "lack of investment since 2013," said GFMS mining analyst Will Tankard on Tuesday's call, with GFMS head of metals Rhona O'Connell predicting that global production will fall "by an order of several hundred tonnes per year" for the next half-decade.
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Notably, they added, gold mining supply from China – the world's No.1 producer nation since 2007 – will show a drop for the second-half of 2015 when final data are released, breaking a trend of growing output in place since the early 2000s.
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The impact on prices will depend on "who" announces these cuts, said O'Connell, explaining that large cuts from a gold mining major would improve investor sentiment on gold's supply/demand fundamentals in a way which piece-meal cuts from several smaller players would not.