United States

The United States is the second largest producer of gold, after South Africa, with output reported by GFMS at 335 tonnes (10.8 million oz) in 2001. This is an amazing turn-round since 1980, when the US produced 30 tonnes (0.96 m oz). The nation has been re-established as a great source of gold, as it was in the second half of the 19th century, when it was number one.

Gold was first discovered in the United States in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina in 1799 and later in Georgia, but output was probably under three tonnes (0.09 million oz).

In January 1848 the discovery of gold in the tailrace of John Sutter’s Mill near the junction of the American and Sacramento rivers triggered the Californian gold rush and opened a new era for gold. Output reached 77 tonnes (2.5 million oz) by 1851 and peaked at 93 tonnes (3 million oz) in 1853 when the most accessible alluvial gold had been worked out. US output fell back to around 30 tonnes (0.96 million oz) annually, despite new rushes to Nevada, Colorado, Idaho and Montana. In 1877, the Homestake mine opened at Lead, South Dakota.

In 1934, after President Roosevelt raised the gold price to $35, the industry had a boom which lifted output by 1940 to 155 tonnes (5 million oz), a record not beaten until 1988.

In 1965 the Carlin open pit operation was started in Nevada by Newmont Mining. It was the first new mine in the US in half a century and a signpost to the way ahead, if the gold price improved significantly. But by 1980 American production was down to 30 tonnes (0.09 million oz), with only serious output from Homestake, Carlin and the copper/gold mine at Bingham Canyon in Utah.

The high gold price of the early 1980s at last gave the impetus for a boom, but it was helped as much by new technology and better mining finance. The Carlin open pit had already revealed huge deposits of very finely disseminated gold to the north of Elko, Nevada. It was the first sighting of the Carlin Trend, a sprawling, usually low grade, epithermal deposit through a vast area of north-central Nevada.

Exploration soon showed Nevada contained not just the Carlin Trend, but was peppered with similar orebodies. They could be developed relatively quickly and cheaply as open pits, with gold recovery aided by the new technologies of heap leaching, bio-leaching and carbon-in-pulp.

Many mining companies, large and small, soon turned Nevada, once known as ‘the silver state’, into ‘the gold state’, producing 70% of America’s gold.

The output was initially dominated by Newmont, building on their experience at the original Carlin pit to open up a complex of pits including Gold Quarry, Genesis, Blue Star and Rain, but under the umbrella name of Carlin (see United States/Leading Mines) which yields over 40 tonnes (1.3 million oz) annually. They also have Twin Creeks at over 40 tonnes (1.30 million oz).

Then came Barrick Gold with the Betze-Post open pit at over 51 tonnes (1.65 million oz) and, since 1996, the Meikle underground mine nearby at over 25 tonnes (0.80 million oz). Finally came Placer Dome allied to Rio Tinto at the Cortez open pit with over 31 tonnes (1.0 million oz), boasting the lowest costs of any American operation at $60 per ounce cash costs and $136 total costs. This is clear evidence of what open pits with modern technology can deliver.

These five Nevada operations alone account for over 50% of all US output and are on a scale previously seen only in South Africa. In all, nine of the top 15 American mines are in Nevada; the only substantial producers in other states are Bingham Canyon in Utah, Fort Knox in Alaska and Homestake in South Dakota (although the latter has recently closed).

Production, however, peaked in 1998 at 366 tonnes (11.8 million oz) and the low gold price has cut exploration budgets, delayed start-ups and caused the closure of smaller operations such as Bullfrog and Pinson in Nevada. In addition, Homestake in South Dakota (the world’s oldest continuously operating mine) will not be contributing to the output of the newly merged Barrick-Homestake Company. The mine closed in December 2001, having produced around 1,250 tonnes (40.2 million oz) of gold over its 125 year life and over five tonnes (0.18 million oz) during its last year of operation. The production is now forecast to slip to around 330 tonnes (10.6 million oz) in 2002. The merger of mining companies has also been hastened, with Newmont’s successful acquisition of Australian-based Normandy and Canadian-based Barrick securing control of Homestake. Current production estimates for 2002 have positioned Newmont as the world’s new number one gold producer, replacing South Africa’s AngloGold. AngloGold and Barrick, on the other hand, have announced similar planned output for 2002; this year, either could be in second position in the top producers league.