Uganda is set to launch a gold refinery in a bid to add value to Uganda’s gold that is still extracted using rudimental means.

According to Alain Goetz the chief executive director, African Gold Refinery, a company planning to constrict this refinery, this high-capacity gold refinery is the first of its kind in the Great Lakes region.

He says Gold from Uganda and the Great Lakes region has always been sold raw on the international market, costing the region hundreds of millions of dollars annually in potential revenues over the years.

After five years of painful belt-tightening, the world's biggest gold miners are starting to cautiously loosen their purse strings and spend more money to find new deposits and build mines.

Several miners said this week that they have hiked budgets for exploration, construction and expansion projects. The plans, detailed in financial reports and conference calls, come as top producers face a "production cliff", with some analysts forecasting a sharp drop in their output in just four years due to under-investment.

The primary reason new gold supply will fall is because mine supply is set to decline. And producers can’t easily or quickly increase mine output even if gold prices jump, as you’ll see

Blackham Resources (BLK.AX), a junior gold producer that has just begun to ramp-up production at a newly-commissioned mine in Western Australia, reported something interesting earlier this week. Having forward-sold about half of next year’s expected gold production a few months ago when the gold price was near its highs for the year, the company recently took advantage of gold’s price decline by closing-out the bulk of its forward sales. It did so by purchasing gold and delivering it into the forward sales contracts, thus realising a cash profit of A$6.3M.

In other words, having sold high during May-September, BLK’s management turned around and bought low over the past couple of weeks. Sell high, buy low. Sounds like a good strategy to me. More gold producers should try it.

Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) said in its Environmental Economic Accounts Compendium 2013 output levels show SA will exhaust its proven platinum reserves in 239 years, coal in 118 years, and gold in 38 years.

A closer look at the rapidly decreasing importance of gold mining in SA shows gold production has come down by 57% for the period between 2003 and 2013.

Gold’s dwindling pipeline of new mines is poised to usher in a decade-long output slump, spurring prices and delivering a new impetus for dealmaking and industry consolidation, according to Goldcorp Inc., the third-largest gold producer.

Mine supply may fall about a third in the 10 years to 2025, according to Bloomberg calculations based on forecasts from BMO Capital Markets and Randgold Resources Ltd. The number of newly discovered primary gold deposits fell to three in 2014, from a peak of 37 in 1987, according to Melbourne-based industry adviser MinEx Consulting Pty.

At a country level, China was the largest producer in the world in 2015, accounting for around 14 per cent of total global production. Our interactive gold mining map provides a breakdown of the top gold producing countries in the world, which demonstrates the geographical dispersion of gold mine supply.

Mark Bristow, South African-born founder and chief executive of Randgold Resources, foresees a looming supply problem in the gold industry, saying that there was not enough exploration to replace gold that was being produced.

“To keep the gold industry supplied we need to discover 90 million ounces a year. We are only discovering 10 million to 15 million ounces a year. We either have to discover more quality ounces or reduce the life of mines,” said Bristow.

Gold output across the globe hit an all-time high in 2015, climbing 1.8 percent to 3,211 tonnes. Much of this growth was led by Mexico, whose output increased double digits (18 percent) from 112 tonnes in 2014 to 133 tonnes last year. Indonesia grew 20 percent, Kazakhstan 29 percent.

This year, global production is expected to level out as project development budgets were slashed during the three-year gold bear market. But with gold prices rebounding, miners are in a good position to be much more profitable.

BMI Research, a division of Fitch, predicts in a new report that gold miners will add 10 million ounces or more than 280 tonnes to global production with average annual growth of 2.7% for a total of 110 million ounces or 3,118 tonnes yearly output by 2020. This represents a slight deceleration in growth rate compared the previous five-year average of 3.2%.