Annual gold production dips 15%

Gold miners only produced 30 metric tons of gold in 2023 going down 15% compared to 2022 statistics released by Fidelity Refineries this Monday indicate.

The 30.11 tons fell short of the government's target of 40 tons for the year and way below 2022’s record 35 metric tons.

Power outages have been cited as one reason to less production as the country faced electricity shortages with suppressed generation at the biggest power plant in Kariba due to low water levels.

One of the few mines to buck the trend is Caledonia whose Blanket mine Q3 report showed that it was 3% up from production in the third quarter of 2022.

https://zimbabwenow.co.zw/articles/7472/blanket-mine-sets-gold-production-record

Caledonia commissioned a 12 MW solar photovoltaic plant in early 2023 to supplement as much as 25% of Blanket mine’s daily power demand.

Currency volatility has also been named as a destabilising factor as the local currency keeps on losing value and mining companies remit 20% of their forex to the central bank in exchange for local currency at official rate.

An economic analyst who declined to be named said that large scale smuggling could be to blame for the discrepancy.

“It is worrying that production is said to have gone down in the same year that the gold mafia expose was done. Artisanal miners produce quite a lot of gold and when you have their leader Henrietta Rushwaya convicted of attempted smuggling and then featured in a documentary admitting to smuggling, it raises questions of just how much is being smuggled,” the analyst said.

https://zimbabwenow.co.zw/articles/6841/henrietta-rushwaya-found-guilty-remanded-in-custody-for-sentencing

The 2023 output is about 1000 percent improvement on the lowest production record of 3 metric tonnes in 2008.