[miningmx.com] – GOLD exploration had fallen 55% year-on-year, according to a report by the UK’s IntierraRMG, a market consultancy, which added that the gold price was still above most cash operating costs.
Drilling reports were received from only 355 prospects in March with gold exploration especially weak: just 172 prospects reported in March 2013 compared to 382 reports in March 2013, IntierraRMG said.
The weakness in the gold price was likely to lead to another downgrade in exploration, but IntierraRMG added that at $1,000 per ounce, the gold price remained at historically high levels.
“Indeed, the last time the UK saw gold at over £1,000/oz, in real terms, was in 1489 when the Royal Mint issued sovereign coins valuing an ounce of gold at £2,” said InteirraRMG in its report.
Gold was still priced at well above the cash extraction cost of a large part of the world’s production. “Even at the recent two-year low, fewer than 9% of the 235 gold mines monitored in the Raw Materials Group database (RMD) had average cash operating costs higher than the metal’s price,” IntierraRMG said.
“Of the gold mines in RMD’s cash-cost module, 215 operations had average costs under US$1,350/oz in 2012 operating costs.
“These mines produced a combined 1,268t (40.8 million oz) last year at a weighted average operating cost of just US$693/oz. These operations produced 97% of the gold output from the monitored mines,” it said.
