Chinese gold company declared 144,593 ounces in 2024

Jan 20, 2025 News

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—-gold sector is expected to grow by 17.2% this year—finance minister

Kaieteur News- Zijin Mining Group Co. Ltd, a Chinese state-owned mining giant operating in Guyana through its subsidiary Aurora Gold Mine (AGM), reported a 32.3% increase in declarations, reaching 144,593 ounces of gold produced in 2024. This was disclosed by Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, during his Budget 2025 presentation in the National Assembly on Friday.

In 2023, Zijin recorded higher declarations by 7.8% to 109,358.4 troy ounces. The company had made some US$185 million from its operations in Guyana that year. Within the first six months of 2024, AGM produced 1,949 kilograms (over 68,000 ounces) of gold. This information was revealed in Zijin’s interim half-year report on its global operations.

The Bank of Guyana 2024 Half-Year report had stated that AGM’s gold declaration within the first 6 months of the year had increased due to continued favourable performance in their underground mining operations.

Minister Singh said, “At the large-scale end of the industry, the sole current operator at Aurora continues to meet and exceed projections, employing directly and indirectly over 1,500 Guyanese nationals, compared to 862 in 2020. Work is also ongoing on the further build out of their underground mine, while extraction has already commenced.”

Overall Guyana’s 2024 gold production saw a modest increase of 1,954 ounces in 2024, from 432,113 ounces in 2023 to 434,067 ounces in 2024.

Minister Singh said, “Despite facing tremendous challenges in the first half of 2024, the gold mining industry turned around to record growth of 0.5% last year, with total gold declarations amounting to 434,067 ounces in 2024.”

He disclosed that the Guyana Gold Board’s purchases grew by 53.7% to 134,213 ounces, offsetting the decline in declarations from licensed dealerships by 34% to 155,261 ounces. Notably, despite the small rise in production, the total gold revenue for 2024 reached an impressive US$989.9 million, marking a US$180 million increase over the previous year. This can be attributed to high gold prices that were recorded last year.

“The average price of gold also increased, growing by 22.9 percent to US$2,387.7 per troy ounce, supported by geopolitical uncertainty,” the minister said. Non-oil export earnings grew by 16 percent to US$1.8 billion, with notable increases in gold, rice and bauxite exports. These increased by 22.4%, 20.4% and 19.2%, respectively, together contributing US$1.3 billion to total non-oil earnings. Importantly, the growth in non-oil earnings was supported by both increased volumes and favourable prices.

Currently, AGM boasts a recovery rate as high as 95%, while small and medium-scale miners’ recovery rates are below 50%. The government has stated that it is actively working with smaller miners to bridge the gap and improve efficiency.

Dr Singh said, “The small and medium scale gold mining subsector has been showing strong signs of recovery, although problems persist. These include incidents of under-declaration and smuggling. Heightened surveillance and intelligence-based policing have made significant inroads into arresting these problems, and the sector is showing some improvement as a result.”

Additional efforts to regulate the sector and ensure these problems are contained include, mobile purchasing by the GGB, increased compliance and enforcement activities and greater use of ICT applications to monitor mines operations, Dr. Singh explained. He also outlined measures to incentivize compliance and declarations to the Gold Board while endorsing advanced chemical leaching technologies to enable small-scale miners to extract gold more economically from low-grade deposits.

Looking ahead, the gold mining sector is projected to experience a 17.2% growth this year.

Minister highlighted these projections, saying, “The gold mining subsector is expected to expand further, to grow this year by 17.2 percent. Regarding gold mining, this stronger position is expected to be driven by higher projected declarations from the Aurora gold mine and the small and medium-scale miners, alongside an increase in Gold Board purchases, aggregating to a target of approximately 501,000 ounces.”

The Central Bank had said in its report that small and medium scale miners’ declarations declined within the first half of 2024 as a result of dry weather and in other instances heavy rainfall.

(Chinese gold company declared 144,593 ounces in 2024)

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• Ashni Singh, Aurora Gold Mines, gold, Zijin

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