MAJOR GOLD DISCOVERIES WORLDWIDE, 1991-2004

摘要

Discoveries of major gold deposits boomed during the 1990s, but the pace of discovery slackened thereafter in the atmosphere of falling gold prices and sharply reduced gold exploration budgets. So far in 2004, the average LME cash gold price of 401 dollars/oz is the highest in more than 15 years, continuing an upward trend that began in mid-2001. The 2003 average price of 364 dollars/oz was 17 percent higher than the 310 dollars/oz 2002 average and was the first annual average gold price of more than 350 dollars/oz since 1996, representing the second two-digit percentage increase in a row. As illustrated in Figure 1 below, exploration budgets roughly follow price trends. MEG data for 2004 confirm this trend, with budgets for grassroots and late-stage gold exploration increasing 62 percent to 1.32 billion dollars in 2004 from 816 million dollars in 2003, following a 39 percent increase in 2003 from the historic low of 586 million dollars in 2002.