PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australia’s gold mining sector is one of the most prolific in the world, with the country rating as one of the highest producers world-wide.

Melbourne-based gold mining consultants Surbiton Associates recently released Australia’s Greatest Gold Boom, a follow-up book to Dr Sandra Close’s The Great Gold Renaissance, which together cover the over 40 years of gold mining in Australia.

“Few people, including those associated with the industry or investors, realise that in the last 40 years Australia’s gold production has risen from less than 20 t to around 315 t to 320 t per year,” Close said.

“In that time about 9 500 t of gold have been produced. It is an important contributor to our exports and foreign exchange earnings, with gold currently contributing around A$26-billion annually.”

Close was originally a field geologist, then a banker with Australian Resources Development Bank, assessing and financing resources’ projects. Later she held senior positions in a major international oil company before setting up Surbiton Associates in the 1990s. Her doctoral thesis covered the gold industry, with a particular focus on Australia’s second and third gold booms.

Australia’s Greatest Gold Boom covers the period from 2001 to the end of 2021, while The Great Gold Renaissance covered the previous 20 years from 1982 on. While out of print for several years, it has now been published as a second edition to complement the new book.

The two published works cover everything from the origin and development of gold mining in Australia, current gold mining and recovery techniques, the operational aspects of the sector including staffing, while also taking a look at the players within the industry, offering anecdotes about figures within the industry.

“There are a lot of little stories about people, because that’s what makes it interesting. The people who make up the lifeblood of the industry,” Close told Mining Weekly Online.

Close noted that while mining methodology within the gold sector had remained fairly stagnant over the course of her coverage of the sector, technological advances have made an enormous difference to the sector in the recent past, particularly over the last 20 years.  

At a corporate level, Close noted that there was now considerably more focus on balanced board representation, not only in terms of gender, but also in terms of skills on offer.

“The professional technical people used to be in the majority, now there are a lot more professionalised people with experience in business, or environmental management, which is important,” she added.

As for the biggest challenges facing the industry, Close said there was an opportunity for the industry to develop and implement strategies for future skills development to ensure Australia’s significant resource endowment could be developed.