Not content with its Central Bank being this year’s world’s largest gold purchaser, Russia looks like it might be moving into second place in the World gold mine production table and overtaking Australia which currently holds this position. Last year Russia mined just under 8 million ounces of gold – around 248.5 tonnes – as opposed to Australia’s 8.53 million ounces – 265.3 tonnes. But Russian gold output is reported as rising 26.6% in the first half of the year and if this level increase continues in H2 Russian full year output could total 10.1 million ounces – or 314.6 tonnes, although with normally far higher output in the second half of the year this kind of annual percentage increase may not be achievable.

The report points out that over the past 24 years mining companies have discovered some 1.66 billion ounces of gold in 217 major discoveries, BUT – and it’s a big BUT – while this may sound a huge amount, over the same period the industry has actually produced 1.84 billion ounces of gold, so discoveries have not been keeping pace with production. But the report goes much further in showing that the number of significant discoveries (defined as deposits with a minimum of 2 million ounces of contained gold) is diminishing and this diminishing trend seems to be accelerating. In the 1990s some 124 deposits containing 1.1 billion ounces of gold were discovered while since the year 2000 this has fallen to only 605 million ounces in 93 such discovered deposits. And most recently significant new discoveries appear to have slowed to a trickle.

Two South African gold miners have recently relinquished their memberships in the World Gold Council (WGC), citing costs as being the main reason driving their decisions.

The cost of building a mine has increased significantly over the last decade, from US$560 per ounce of gold production capacity in 2014 to more than $2,300/oz last year, says a new report by SNL Metals & Mining.

Based on data from mines currently under construction, capital costs are expected to peak this year at almost $2,400/oz, according to an article by SNL metals analyst Kevin Murphy.

No date has been set for miners' return to work at Lonmin's platinum mine while workers wait for "unconditional" agreements to be made by the firm.

In its fourth acquisition during the current financial year, gold miner Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) has agreed to pay US$91 million) in cash for Newmont’s Jundee underground gold mine in the northern Yandal Belt of Western Australia.

Jundee, which produced 290,000 gold ounces in 2013, is expected to increase Northern Star’s production from 350,000 ounces to 550,000 ounces in FY2015, making it the second largest ASX-listed gold miner. Jundee’s all-in sustaining cost in CY2013 was A$930/oz. Mined since 1995, it is believed to have two to three years of mine life remaining.

Goldcorp - though it produces far less gold - once again bested Barrick Gold for the title of gold miner with the largest marketcap, if only by the slimmest of margins. Goldcorp eclipsed Barrick late last week and has held the top spot since then. At presstime the margin was tiny - a few hundred million dollars - but it is notable nonetheless at least for its symbolic value: Barrick's marketcap was C$21.6 billion versus Goldcorp's C$21.9 billion.

Of course the only prize for Goldcorp is the bragging right. But for the world's top gold producer - Barrick - and its management it has to bruise the egos somewhat to produce near three times Goldcorp ounces, but sit behind it in marketcap ranking. Barrick - as we recently noted - produced 7.2 million ounces gold in 2013 versus Goldcorp which produced 2.7 million ounces last year, making them respectively the first and fourth ranked gold producers in the world.

Chender pointed to current exploration trends as suggesting a significant squeeze on potential future gold supply. While there had already been a notable decline in the discovery of major new gold discoveries anyway over the past several years, one of the unintended consequences of the latest spate of cost cutting and reserve and resource re-evaluation by the gold mining companies has been a sharp decline in exploration expenditures. The extent to which industry has cut back will thus have a huge impact on resource and reserve replacement going forward.