Rob Keeble
Member
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- Location
- GTA Ontario Canada
Thought some might like to know about where that gold you wear comes from.
Just for interest sake seeing as how i come from the city of gold as it is sometimes called and I married a mine engineers daughter.
South Africa has the deepest Gold mine in the world.
This is a new mine relatively speaking and bottomed out (which ever way you wish to look at it) the previous one by an additional few meters.
Place is called Tau Tona Mine depth 3.8KM approx 2.36 miles down
Previous Mine that was famous and still going is ERPM ( East Rand Mine btw i grew up in their backyard just about) its depth max depth is 3.5km or 2.18 miles down.
Deepest i been in my time.....220m (chicken man).
More interesting is the tonnage they have to mine to get a gram of gold and the cost of production of that gram
Note we typically refer to an ounce of gold. Its normally troy ounces and there are 31 grams roughly to one ounce
So Tau Tona harvests around 7 to 8 grams per ton of rock taken to the surface and processed today with modern processing methods.
ERPM today yields around 1.1 grams a ton and declining.
Cost to produce the $559 per ounce. at Tau Tona and sold for average of $974 during the period of 2009 yet due to the financial hedging these guys do only ended up being $751.
At ERPM its a mess though. At that low yield its a joke to mine and it was closed down in 2008/9 Their cost to produce grew so high their was no net gain.
Factor in todays gold price for spot is around $1163 per ounce. Now who is making money?
Just for interest sake seeing as how i come from the city of gold as it is sometimes called and I married a mine engineers daughter.
South Africa has the deepest Gold mine in the world.
This is a new mine relatively speaking and bottomed out (which ever way you wish to look at it) the previous one by an additional few meters.
Place is called Tau Tona Mine depth 3.8KM approx 2.36 miles down
Previous Mine that was famous and still going is ERPM ( East Rand Mine btw i grew up in their backyard just about) its depth max depth is 3.5km or 2.18 miles down.
Deepest i been in my time.....220m (chicken man).
More interesting is the tonnage they have to mine to get a gram of gold and the cost of production of that gram
Note we typically refer to an ounce of gold. Its normally troy ounces and there are 31 grams roughly to one ounce
So Tau Tona harvests around 7 to 8 grams per ton of rock taken to the surface and processed today with modern processing methods.
ERPM today yields around 1.1 grams a ton and declining.
Cost to produce the $559 per ounce. at Tau Tona and sold for average of $974 during the period of 2009 yet due to the financial hedging these guys do only ended up being $751.
At ERPM its a mess though. At that low yield its a joke to mine and it was closed down in 2008/9 Their cost to produce grew so high their was no net gain.
Factor in todays gold price for spot is around $1163 per ounce. Now who is making money?
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