Chamber Of Mines

South African gold production for the fourth quarter of 2009 and for the year as a whole

In 2009, South Africa produced 204 922.8 kilograms of gold, a 5.8% decline on the 2008 production number of 217 648.5 kilograms. The 5.8% year-on-year decline in production in 2009 was a significant improvement on the large 14.5% decline in production that occurred in 2008 mostly as a result of the electricity crisis. The electricity crisis and the stoppages of mines and shafts for safety related reasons (some valid and some not), had the impact of prematurely downscaling the country’s gold sector in 2008.

The 2009 production number means that South Africa has slipped down to position four on the global production ranking, behind China, Australia and the United States. South Africa was the world’s largest gold producer for most of the last century up until 2006.

Nevertheless, the gold mining industry remains critically important to South Africa’s economy. In 2009, the industry earned about R48.7 billion in foreign exchange making it the country’s second largest exporter behind platinum group metals (at R58 billion). The gold sector employed about 159000 workers and paid about R17 billion in salaries and wages, spent R10.3 billion on capital expenditure, paid R1.4 billion in direct tax to government, paid R506 million in dividends, procured about R3.6 billion worth of electricity and spent another R8.6 billion on the procurement of other goods and services in the economy.

In the fourth quarter of 2009, South Africa’s gold production fell by 1.8% to 51 681.8 kilograms when compared to the 52 644.1 kilograms produced in the third quarter. On a year-on-year basis gold production was down by 5.4% in the fourth quarter of 2009.

For gold mines members of the Chamber, production declined by 3% to 46 411.8 kilograms in the fourth quarter of 2009 when compared to the previous quarter. On a year-on-year basis Chamber member production fell by 4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Please note that there have been data revisions to the quarterly gold production numbers for 2008 and 2009 as a result of the removal of scrap reprocessing that should not have been included in the declared gold production numbers for these two years. This means that the originally stated gold production number of 220 127.3 kilograms for 2008 has been restated at 217 648.5 kilograms, a difference of 2 478.8 kilograms.

The average employees in service was 159 736 for the period January to September 2009.