This chart illustrates the general steps in open-pit gold mining. The specifics of the process vary from mine to mine.

1. Geologists use the latest technology, such as satellite surveys and geochemistry, to locate an ore deposit.

2. Computers are used to design the mine, which requires precise and accurate measurement of the ore deposit. Construction begins following the lengthy process of receiving permits.

3. Samples of ore are examined to determine grade and metallurgical characteristics. Broken rock is marked by type for efficient processing.

4. Based on its metallurgical makeup, a dispatcher directs truck operators to deliver the ore to the correct processing location.

6. The gold is absorbed (collected) out of solution onto activated carbon. The remaining cyanide solution is recycled.

7. The gold loaded carbon is moved into a vessel where the gold is chemically stripped from the carbon which is then recycled.

8. Gold is precipitated from the solution electrolytically or by chemical substitution.

9. The pure gold is then melted into dore’ bars containing up to 90 percent gold. Dore’ bars are then sent to an external refinery to be refined to bars of 999.9 parts per thousand pure gold.

Reclamation is a long-term investment made by every gold mining company, and can cost anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 per acre. It is the cornerstone of every mine plan and is considered the first and last step of the mining process.

Gold is produced at some mines as part of the process of mining and refining other metals, such as copper. At those operations, gold is refined to an acceptable purity as part of the copper production process. At most gold mines, the gold “dore” is sent to a refinery for further processing.

Every winter, an ice road is laid across 400 km (250 miles) of tundra to carry supplies to one of the world’s most isolated gold mines.

Kupol Russian Arctic Mine

There is no other way for heavy machinery to reach Kupol, the $700 million Arctic mine behind a resurgence in Russian gold production after five straight years of decline.”It’s one of the harshest climates I’ve worked in, and I’ve worked in the Atacama desert in Chile and at 15,000 feet in Indonesia,” said Patrick Dougherty, general manager at Kupol. “But I don’t get to pick where the gold is.”

Only South Africa holds more gold than Russia, but Moscow’s fragmented industry has struggled to access vast reserves in its inhospitable Far East. The region was first mined in the 1930s by prisoners of the Gulags set up by Soviet leader Josef Stalin.Russia is the world’s biggest energy supplier, but falling prices and reduced demand have cut income from natural resources to about 8 percent of its gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2009, from nearly 11 percent a year ago.

Gold, on the other hand, has been helped by recession. Its safe-haven appeal has shielded it from a demand slump that shredded other commodity prices, lifting it to over $1200 an ounce in December 2009

Chukotka, a region revived in the last eight years by the $2.5 billion investment of Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich, produced a fifth of Russia’s gold in the first half of this year. Gold is the region’s passport to growth after Abramovich quit as governor last July.Russia ranked fifth among the world’s gold miners last year, between Australia and Peru, with an 8 percent share of output. Production rose 13 percent in 2008, the first increase in six years, and jumped another 25 percent in the first half of 2009. “This was solely due to the commissioning of Kupol,” said Olga Okuneva, mining analyst at Deutsche Bank in Moscow. “If other large projects in the Far East start producing gold, this will be a major growth driver for the Russian gold industry.”

Kupol — meaning dome in Russian — is named after a rounded outcrop of rock that juts skyward from the tundra in central Chukotka, over 200 km (125 miles) from the nearest settlement. The mine took five years to build. It is the largest tax payer in Chukotka, a land twice the size of Germany where reindeer outnumber people four to one. “With a deposit as large as Kupol, mining’s contribution to the regional economy is expected almost to double to 37 percent this year,” said Roman Kopin, the 35-year-old who took over as governor when Abramovich resigned.

Kinross Gold Corp, the Canadian miner which owns 75 percent of Kupol, is unusual among foreign investors for holding a majority share in a major Russian mineral deposit. The government of Chukotka owns the other 25 percent. Untangling the red tape that stifles some foreign investors in other parts of Russia was one of the main achievements of Abramovich’s more than seven years as governor, Kopin said. “The investment climate here, perhaps, is a little bit different, because we understand that it’s very difficult to work in Chukotka,” he added.Kinross has been the top performing gold stock on the New York Stock Exchange for the last three years, when the company’s value rose more than 160 percent. Kupol will supply about a third of its total output this year and 15 of 24 equity analysts polled by Reuters retain a bullish rating on the stock

ARCTIC CORRIDOR

About 1,400 jobs are related directly to Kupol, and Chukotka’s population totals around 50,000. Miners and catering staff spend four weeks on site and four weeks off, earning an average monthly wage of 50,000 roubles, 25 percent above the regional average. “We have equipment that works here,” said Alexander Puzovets, 48, a drill rig operator who works 10-hour shifts at the pit face. “I’ve been in mines where we’ve used hammers.”The mine’s in-house electricity plant could generate enough to power the regional capital, Anadyr.In winter, miners walk the purpose-built Arctic Corridor — an enclosed, 900-meter tunnel from camp to mine — to avoid temperatures that drop more than 50 degrees Celsius below zero (minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit).

About 60 percent of Kupol’s gold is mined underground. Zurab Samteladze, a 55-year-old Georgian more than 7,000 km from home, hauls 45-tonne rock loads to the surface in a Caterpillar truck.In deeper parts of the mine, skilled operators maneuver drill rigs by remote control. This avoids the need for miners to work long hours beneath areas vulnerable to rock falls.

“With all the video games they play, the younger generation has a better chance of operating these units,” said Dougherty, a native of Arizona. Alcohol is banned. Miners pass their time playing pool, in the gym or watching television. Popcorn is a popular snack, while eight tons of reindeer meat was served up last year. “I play guitar — they have a music room. I like basketball — they have a sports hall,” said Andrei Aksanov, 34, a mechanic in the truck shop.Like 80 percent of the miners at Kupol, Aksanov comes from Magadan, the port city 1,500 km (940 miles) to the southwest.

A worker cast an ingot at the Koylma refinery Magada

This is where mining began in Russia’s Far East. Stalin, needing bodies to unearth new-found gold reserves, sent hundreds of thousands of prisoners to slave in the region’s labor camps over two decades from the early 1930s.From such grisly beginnings, Magadan has developed into the hub of gold processing in the Russian Far East. Kupol flies its dore  (bullion bars)  to be processed into almost pure metal to be refined at the Kolyma Refinery to the north of the city. Vladislav Feoktistov, the refinery’s 71-year-old director, raised a glass of vodka to visiting officials from Kinross Gold. Supplies from Kupol will guarantee the plant’s biggest turnover in its 11-year history, he said.”This a business that’s only as good as its suppliers,” he said. From here, 15 kg (33 pound) gold bars worth more than $450,000 each at current prices are delivered to Russian banks.

Kinross report – The production at Kupol mine was started during the second half of 2008. During the second half of 2009, Kupol mine reported production of 234,265 gold equivalent ounces. Out of this, Kinross has produced 75% or 175,699 gold equivalent ounces. The production includes 151,327 ounces of gold and 1,633,673 ounces of silver. Kinross says that, with a cost of sales of about $205 per ounce on a co-product basis using a gold price of $400/oz and a silver price of $6/oz, Kupol will become one of the lowest-cost gold and silver mines in the world.

Processing – The Kupol mill is a conventional gold/silver cyanidation plant that incorporates a CCD thickener washing circuit and Merrill-Crowe zinc precipitation because of the high silver ore grade. Cyanide destruction is accomplished with calcium hypochlorite. The Kupol mill is designed to process about 3,000t of ore per day (1,100,000t per year). Run-of-mine ore is crushed in a jaw crusher and conveyed to a crushed ore storage bin. The crushed ore is ground in a SAG grinding mill followed by a ball mill. Gravity separation of free gold and silver will be carried out with a Knelson concentrator in the grinding circuit.

MORE GOLD TO MINE

There should be more to come. Polyus Gold, owned by billionaires Mikhail Prokhorov and Suleiman Kerimov, plans to launch Natalka, the world’s third-largest gold deposit, in 2013. Annual production of between 25 and 30 tonnes will put Natalka on the same scale as Kupol. Beyond 2017, Polyus plans to raise output to more than 40 tonnes a year. “It’s a deposit with reserves of more than 1,000 tonnes that will create jobs, infrastructure and become a major center for Magadan region,” said German Pikhoya, Polyus Gold’s deputy chief executive for strategy and corporate development. If Chukotka is to retain its leading position, it must do more. Current reserves at Kupol will last only until 2016. To extend the mine’s life beyond this date, more reserves must be found, mapped and registered with Russian authorities. Kinross and others are already exploring. “Chukotka is definitely a key gold-producing region, particularly in the long term,” said Vitaly Nesis, chief executive of St Petersburg-based miner Polymetal. His company plans to launch the Mayskoye gold deposit in Chukotka by 2011.

Maurice Hall from Sources Reuters, Kinross and mining-technology.com

Carlin Trend pit

The USA was the fourth  largest world producer of gold  in 2009 with the most prosperous mining region located in the state of Nevada. Millions of years ago, hot springs laden with flecks of gold boiled up through deep fractures in the earth’s crust. But the golden residue did not accumulate in rich veins, instead, it disseminated throughout the sedimentary rock laid down by an ancient ocean

The vast bulk of this production is from large mines where the deposits consist of microscopic particles principally hosted in this sedimentary (or sometimes volcanic) rock. Many of these deposits lie along a few well known geologic trends, and the two best known are the Carlin Trend, and the Eureka trend. Its tiny size also explains why the old timers never found these deposits as their principal means of exploration was the gold pan.

Carlin Trend’s largest mine is the Goldstrike Property. The two o clock siren indicates that it is time to leave the pits so that the daily explosions can begin in the mine.  Before the dust has time to settle, routine work resumes in the pits, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  The best way to achieve high productivity is to use the most advanced technology, and the bigger it is the better.  These six storey high shovels can load a truck with four shovel loads.  Each truck carries 190 tons of ore equalling about 107 kilos of gold but what differentiates Goldstrike from a conventional open pit is a computerised management system run from a tower located on the edge of the pits.

What we are trying to do here is to optimise the efficiency of all the equipment we have to run the mines.  All operations are computerised; each transportation or loading vehicle is fitted with a computer which communicates with the system in the tower.

Cranes and giant trucks extract gold from Goldstrike mine. Around 100 kilos of gold per truck

This screen shows us which shovels are available and unloading areas to which we can send the trucks, we can see which trucks are leaving the shovels and those which are leaving the unloading areas to return to the shovels.

To extract gold from such low-grade deposits, miners must crush tons and tons of rock, which is piled into mammoth heaps and irrigated with cyanide. The cyanide percolates through the heap, extracting the gold. In the early days of the invisible-gold rush, a ton of ore might contain a few tenths of an ounce of gold. Today that minuscule amount would be considered high grade. Nevada mines are now digging up a ton of rock to get back as little as 0.025 oz. of gold which would have been considered waste rock back in 1961.”

After this process, the purified ore is melted and cast into ingots with a purity exceeding 92%.  Carlin Trend has become the industrial mining centre of America and has enabled the country to become the second biggest producer of gold in the world.

Timothy S Green, author of The World of Gold: “The boom in gold mining in the USA has created thousands and thousands of jobs.  Somehow it has enabled Nevada to be reborn as a State.  There is a whole life surrounding this industry which didn’t exist when I started being interested in gold in the mid 60’s.  In North America, you will find Homestake mine plus one or two small producers.  In Canada this industry lived off state subsidies and in the North of the Country we really struggled to keep mining towns standing.  Today, this industry has been totally transformed, it is alive and dynamic.

Gold mining operations soon went through an industrial revolution.  The gold rush in Australia resulted in the largest nugget ever being found, a 70kg block of gold.  At the end of Winter and beginning of Spring in 1876, whilst General George.A.Custer was preparing for his infamous meeting with Little Big Horn, brothers Fred and Moses Manuel began looking for gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Born in Quebec, the Manuel brothers spent most of their lives surveying the West of the USA in the unlikely search for gold.  Like many before them, they had heard rumours that General Custer’s geologists had found gold in the Black Hills.  On the 9th April 1876, the two brothers discovered what they were looking for in a known area called Bobtail ravine.  Moses relates their discovery in his diary: “finally the snow began to melt on the hill, water drained from the filter through the pipe.  There, I saw quartz! I took hold of a pick to try and break off a block but it was very compact.  I still managed to break off a piece and returned to camp to crush it and wash it.  It was full of gold”

Homestake gold mine in 1877

In just a few months, Fred and Moses Manuel extracted five thousand dollars worth of gold, a small fortune at the time.  One year later, the two brothers sold their mine for 45000 dollars.  The deposit became one of the first properties owned by the Homestake Mining Company.  The creation of the Homestake mine signalled a revolution in gold mining operations.  In the centuries that followed, the solitary gold hunter equipped with just one pan and one shovel gradually gave way to larger companies using new technologies.  One of the most efficient methods but also the most destructive for the environment consisted of hydraulic mining operations.  It consists of sending water through an enormous hose nozzle and projecting it with extreme force against a rock to break off large pieces.  By literally sweeping away the quartz, gold appears.”

The water canons destroy millions of cubic metres of earth and rock on hillsides, using pressures which could mutilate or kill a man from 30 metres.  In less than a day, a clean sweep can be made of a riverbed which would take an army of prospectors armed with shovels and pans a month to sift through.  Old mining sites dating from the first gold rush came back to life.

Another aid came in 1889 for mining companies in the form of cyanide, a deadly poison for humans but a great help for industry.  “We realised that cyanide had the power to dissolve rock around gold.  It became very economic for industry to use large scale techniques and therefore recover small deposits of gold.” Gold cyanidation  is a metelurgical technique for extracting gold from low-grade ore by converting the gold to water soluble aurocyanide metallic complex ions. It is the most commonly used process for gold extraction. Due to the highly poisonous nature of cyanide, the process is highly controversial and its usage is now banned in a number of countries and territories.

These technological advances turned the mania at Homestake into the richest mine in US history.  For over a century it has continued to produce gold in regular quantities.  It represents 10% of all gold extracted from mines in America.  Fred and Moses Manuel discovered one of the largest reserves of gold scattered across Western America.  Many years later, geologists discovered a gold field of more than 1600 metres deep and 1600 metres long in the mountains of Nevada, but the gold remains invisible to the naked eye

Today the mining company Barrick uses innovative techniques to recover microscopic grains of gold just a few thousandths of a millimetre in size.  To see them, they need to be enlarged about 2000 times.

After the discovery of deposits in the Carlin region as well as the implementation of modern technologies, the US has become the second largest gold producer in the world.

The discovery of the largest gold reserves are located in one of the most profitable and outstanding geological environments on Earth.  Thieves know that the gold is capable of revealing their fingerprints using a new type of chemical analysis which is most notably capable of precisely indicating where the metal comes from.

Before they even enter a gold mine, travellers are surprised by the logistical ability of the countries in the Amazon region to transport everything that is needed for the miners, from food through to petrol. Extracting about two hundred and fifty tonnes (and probably more) gold per year as chips, fine grains or nuggets, transporting the precious metal and its ingredients, fuel and mercury all represents a highly profitable business whether using dugout canoes, quads or small stunt planes. Attempts to protect the Amazon require the involvement of the region’s countries to implement campaigns, to ban  illegal mining and the use of mercury, but are faced with the complete hypocrisy of these countries’ representatives irrespective of whether it is Brazil, France, Surinam or Venezuela.

Why criticise the business when these same country representatives are using every available means to extend it, by a laissez-faire attitude, by turning a blind eye or even by their active involvement. Not only is the situation in the Amazon rain forest not improving but it is worsening to the point where you have to wonder if even the countries are profiting from its destruction. Part of the problem stems from how the gold is pulled from the ore. Across Brazil, thousands of garimpieros, itinerant gold miners, remove ore by washing a rock face with a high-pressure stream of water. The ore is then broken down in a hammer crusher, and the gold-bearing ore is sluiced with mercury in a process known as amalgamation. The amalgam is filtered manually and then retorted to release the mercury from the gold. The mercury vapor that results is distilled and reused, although a small fraction remains bound to the gold, to be released by the gold dealers during processing. The Brazilian Gold Rush began in 1980 when gold was discovered in Serra Palada in Palá state. Most of the incoming population (at least 250,000) worked for a low wage in very crowded, highly competitive gold mines with very lax environmental practices. Up to 9000 tons of mercury, used in the mining process, has been washed into the region’s rivers, along with huge quantities of sediment. The miners have also polluted the rivers with oil, litter and human sewage. All around the vicinity of the mines, vegetation, animals and settlements have been destroyed.

The profits to be made from providing transport are often as great as those to be made from mining. The town of Maripasoula in French Guyana controls an area the size of Belgium and gains a large part of its revenues from the gold. However, in Brazil, the transporters do not care as they send their goods to the other side of the river Oyapock, on the Guyana side, and wait for their commissions. The same occurs with Surinam, where the gold money ends up in bank vaults or on casino tables. Why bother saying that the gold helps the local population when everyone from Caracas to Cayenne, from Rio to Paramaribo, knows perfectly well that it provides no local benefit and is removed to foreign countries?  The gold leaves whilst the mercury penetrates into the Amazon basin. The alchemy is damaging for the forest and is affecting the human population particularly those who eat mercury contaminated fish.

Includes exerts from the book J’Aurai de l’Or by Olivier Weber. See video clip  curse for gold