These Top 10 lowest cost gold mines are all below all-in-sustaining costs (AISC) $550/oz level and will prove profitable – even if the price falls 50%.
Mining Intelligence looked at costs at primary gold mines and found 10 operations that would still make money, even if gold halves in value from today’s levels. AISC metrics has been taken as a basis of comparison and ranking.
Since the World Gold Council (WGC) published a Guidance on AISC in June 2013, which introduced a transparent standardised production cost estimation metrics intended to be used commonly by the global gold industry, a majority – yet not all – of the leading publicly-trading gold producing companies successfully adopted WGC’s recommendations and implemented AISC to their official reports.
AISC metrics provide a more comprehensive look at mine economics than the traditional “cash costs” approach that many companies may interpret arbitrarily – and it includes such important expenses as overhead outlays and capital used in ongoing exploration, mine development and production.
With AISC being used as a benchmark of a company’s operating efficiency, it is becoming possible to compare more accurately the top publicly-traded and non-state-owned gold mining companies in terms of their production costs.
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