According to the US Geological Survey, the US mining authority, the world‘s economically exploitable gold reserves currently amount to 52,000 tons. Measured against the current annual funding, that was enough for a good 14 years. If you add the estimated 64,000 tons that cannot yet be mined at today’s prices and with today’s technology, plus the approximately 205,000 tons that have been mined in the world so far, you come to a total of 321,000 tons of gold.
The extraction of almost all raw materials follows a bell-shaped curve. It reaches its highest point when about half of the deposits have been mined. Therefore, it is quite likely that gold production has reached the upper region of the bell curve and is now starting to fall gradually: so Peak Gold may be behind us. With 3,653 tons, the year 2018 marked the peak of mine production so far.