SA 'running out of gold'
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Johannesburg - South Africa has far less gold in reserve than government and the Chamber of Mines believe.
The gold industry has already removed 95% of the extractable gold, claims a recent research article in a local professional journal.
Although the gold sector is well known to be irrevocably on the decline, it's now being said that its residual value is less than half of that generally accepted.
Official sources in South Africa regularly mention the figure of 36 000 tons - still representing the world's largest reserve.
This figure has been touted since 2001, even though 2 500 tons of the metal has since been extracted.
The local mining industry has, however, never claimed that all the reserves are mineable.
A much smaller mineable reserve of about 6 000 tons is generally accepted, which means that most South African gold mines will close within two decades.
But even this figure is hopelessly exaggerated, according to an article by Dr Chris Hartnady in the most recent edition of the South African Journal of Science.
He calculates that a figure of 2 948 tons in South African soil is more feasible.
On this basis South Africa has only the fourth largest reserves, behind Australia, Peru and Russia. Reserves in China, the world's biggest gold producer, are unknown.
Although last year's gold production was some 220 tons, annual output will fall to less than 100 tons within a decade, Hartnady believes.
He comments that the gold sector has reached an ignoble end.
The cost of electricity, together with environmental problems like water pollution and illegal mining activities, may already overshadow the value of the country's unworked gold.
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