Latest update February 13th, 2025 4:37 PM
Jan 15, 2025 News
– Govt. earned US$180M
Kaieteur News– Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat disclosed on Tuesday that gold production in Guyana saw a modest increase of 1,954 ounces in 2024, from 432,113 ounces in 2023 to 434,067 ounces in 2024.
Guyana’s gold industry has seen a noticeable decline in declarations over the past few years. Kaieteur News had reported that from 2019 to 2023, gold declarations dropped by approximately 209,000 troy ounces, according to the Bank of Guyana’s (BOG) annual reports.
Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat at his ministry’s end-of-year press conference on Tuesday.
“For the first time in nine years, we have seen an increase in production from the previous year,” the minister said at his ministry’s end-of-year press conference.
Despite the small rise in production, the total gold revenue for 2024 reached an impressive US$989.9 million, marking a significant US$180 million increase over the previous year. This can be attributed to high gold prices that were recorded last year.
Minister Bharrat disclosed the figures during a press briefing on Tuesday. “This is an encouraging sign for our country, for the sector and for the stakeholders, so much so that we are seeing now that a number of key stakeholders are expanding or restarting the mining operations, and also their new players or new stakeholders entering the sector,” Minister Bharrat said.
Moreover, he stated that the government is also focusing on improving recovery rates, particularly for small and medium-scale miners, whose rates currently stand at 40 to 45%. The lone-large scale producer Aurora Gold Mine (AGM) has seen recovery rates as high as 95%.
Further, he noted that some medium scale miners have now returned to the mining sector after expanding and exploring opportunities in other sectors.
Notably, within the first three months of 2024, the BoG reported that the country’s gold declaration decreased. The BoG’s 2024 Half Year Report explained that total gold declarations declined by 10.3% to 188,160 troy ounces, reflecting lower declarations by small and medium scale miners.
The report said that, “The sole foreign company’s declaration grew by 35.3 percent to 68,557 troy ounces, due to continued favourable performance in their underground mining operations.”
Meanwhile, Central Bank said small and medium scale miners’ declarations declined by 24.8 percent to 119,603 troy ounces, resulting from dry weather which affected miners in the first quarter of the year while heavy rainfall stymied operations in the second quarter of the year. It was also explained that shortage of labour has been a challenge within the industry as miners sought better opportunities within the petroleum subsector.
However, despite these challenges, the sub-sector was expected to grow slightly by 2.1% for the year.
(Gold production increases by 1,954 ounces from 2023 to 2024)
Feb 13, 2025
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