China claims to have discovered the world’s largest gold deposit, with reserves estimated to exceed $80 billion.
Chinese state media reported that a gold ore deposit with estimated reserves of over 1,000 tonnes at a depth of 2,000 meters has been found in the Wangu goldfield in Pingjiang County, central Hunan province. However, Newsweek was unable to independently verify this report.
According to state outlet Xinhua News, the Pingjiang County goldfield is valued at 600 billion yuan ($83 billion). Currently, the largest gold reserve is at the South Deep gold mine in Gauteng Province, South Africa, which holds approximately 930 metric tons of gold.
The Hunan Academy of Geology stated that more than 40 gold ore veins were discovered at a depth of over 2,000 meters in Wangu. In the mine’s core area, over 300 tons of gold reserves were found, with each metric ton of ore potentially yielding up to 138 grams of gold.
A gold vein is a geological formation where gold is concentrated within a crack in an underground rock, formed through hydrothermal processes where hot, mineral-rich fluids move through the Earth’s crust.
“Many drilled rock cores showed visible gold,” said Chen Rulin, an ore-prospecting expert at the Geological Bureau of Hunan Province.
In 2012, workers in a gold mine about 600 meters deep in Zhaoyuan, China. A significant gold deposit with estimated reserves exceeding 1,000 tonnes has reportedly been found in central China’s Hunan Province. (Hong Wu/Getty Images)
Liu Yongjun, vice head of the bureau, said that advanced 3D geological modeling at the Wangu gold field suggests that around 1,000 tonnes of gold reserves may extend down to 3,000 meters at the site.
The Hunan Provincial Geological Institute described the discovery as a “massive” reserve, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
In a statement, the institute also noted that the find is “significant in helping safeguard the country’s resource security.”
China is already the world’s largest producer of gold, accounting for around 10 percent of global output in 2023, according to Reuters, citing data from the World Gold Council. The Wangu goldfield is particularly significant for China’s gold mining economy.
Since 2020, more than 100 million yuan ($13 million) have been invested in the area for mineral exploration, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. forecasts that gold prices will reach $3,000 an ounce by the end of next year, about 12 percent higher than current prices, Bloomberg reported on November 22.
