Loading ...Another key gold story last week was a report that China has upped its estimate of proven gold reserves to 12,100 tonnes. This report was the source of a lot of confusion among those who follow China, Russia, gold and the status of the U.S. dollar.
Some readers took the word “reserves” to refer to China’s official gold reserves held by the People’s Bank of China and its off-the-books sister entity, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). That’s incorrect.
China’s official gold reserves are about 1,800 tonnes, but may be as high as 5,000 tonnes once off-the-books gold is counted. Some think it’s even higher.
But the report refers to “proven reserves,” which is a geologic (and engineering) concept familiar to the mining community. Basically, it’s an estimate of how much gold is buried in the ground in China and could feasibly be mined at current prices with current technology.
12,000 tonnes is still a lot of gold, but it will take 10 years or more and billions of dollars to dig it up and refine it. Even at 1,000 tonnes per year (double China’s current rate of production), this only increases gold supply about 0.5% per year. That would happen in conjunction with a diminution of gold output from traditional sources such as South Africa.