Over 500 Gold, Silver, Copper, Iron, Coal and Uranium mining, development and exploration assets across the globe have ceased or scaled back production (meaning operating stockpiles and with limited workforce).

Agnico Eagle Mines CEO Sean Boyd says there won’t be a “substantial” number of gold mines built in the coming years.

“It’s getting much tougher to grow reserves. It’s getting much tougher to grow production,”

Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s second-largest gold producer, has considered a bid for Newmont Mining Corp. in what could be the biggest-ever industry merger and propel the Canadian miner to the No.1 spot globally.

Republic Metals, the South Florida-based gold refiner that is one of the nation’s largest, has filed for bankruptcy, a further sign of trouble for the U.S. precious metals industry, which has been targeted by federal prosecutors investigating “blood gold” for more than two years.

The nation’s 130-year-old gold industry which has produced half the bullion ever mined on Earth is locked in the final stages of a decades-long death spiral. Most of South Africa’s gold mines are unprofitable at current prices.

Canada’s Barrick Gold Corp has agreed to buy Randgold Resources Ltd in an all-stock deal valuing the Africa-focused miner at $6.5 billion, to create the world’s largest gold producer in an industry under investor pressure to put capital to good use.

The new Barrick company, which will be listed in New York and Toronto, will own five of the world’s 10 lowest cost gold mines and have market value of $19.4 billion based on Monday trading. That would make it the world’s biggest gold miner by market capitalization, overtaking Newmont Mining Corp, according to Reuters calculations.

After almost a year of behind-the-scenes work, billionaire hedge-fund manager John Paulson has formed a coalition with 15 other investors aimed at curbing years of what his fund has called value destruction in the gold sector.

The group intends to ensure the management and boards of mining companies are aligned with shareholder interests, he said. The group will meet periodically to address a number of issues and will be funded by members.

South Africa’s gold mines are the world’s deepest and among the most labor intensive. The country’s gold production dropped 16 percent in May from a year earlier, falling for an eighth straight month, as aging infrastructure, depleted reserves and accidents raise costs and curb output.

“Gold is a sunset industry,” Pityana said in an interview last week in Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office. “It doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t matter how you do it, you are not going to be able to change that.”

Gold is one of the rarest elements in the world, making up roughly 0.003 parts per million of the earth’s crust. But how much gold is the world digging up each year and what countries produce the most?

In 2017, global gold mine production was a reported 3,247 tonnes. This figure is down 5 tonnes from the previous year and marks the first annual drop since 2008, according to the GFMS Gold Survey 2018. The driving forces behind the drop in output were environmental concerns, crackdowns on illegal mining operations and rising costs.