Gold earned almost US$1B in 2024 as large-scale producers restart, expand operations

…bauxite, stone aggregate production surges

Guyana recorded a sizeable increase in gold production last year, with Natural Resources Minister, Vickram Bharrat revealing that gold brought in total earnings of US$989.9 million in 2024 – an increase of over US$180 million.
During an End-of-Year press conference on Tuesday, Bharrat provided an update on the performance of the gold mining sector over the past year. He stated that both gold production and declarations saw an increase in 2024 compared to the previous year.

“In 2024, we have started to see a reversal in production, whereby there’s been a small increase in production and declaration. However, with the increase in gold production over 2023, it has brought in an increase in revenue of US$181 million.”
“Total earnings of US$989.9 million in 2024, in comparison to US$808.6 million in 2023. So, we have seen a massive increase in revenue in the gold sector in 2024, in comparison to 2023,” the Minister also said.
In addition to the earnings from gold, 434,000 ounces of gold were also declared. Bharrat described these figures as a very encouraging sign, with a number of key stakeholders either expanding or restarting their mining operations. It was also pointed out that there are gold producers like Canadian company Reunion Gold which are gearing up to begin their gold mining journey.
“The Aurora gold mines, or Zijin group of companies. They have employed, currently, over 2000 employees. That’s a significant increase. They’ve been investing a lot, including in underground mining. Today they boast 2300 employees. They’re poised to increase that.”
“We have Reunion Gold. We signed that agreement in 2024. They’ve already started initial works. They will start construction of their mines in 2025, 2026, creating another 1000 to 1500 jobs, especially for residents in Bartica surrounding areas,” he further explained.
Aurora Gold Mines is owned by Chinese company Zijin Mining after it took over the formerly Canadian owned mine back in 2020. The Canada-based Guyana Goldfields, which had previously operated local subsidiary Aurora Gold Mine (AGM), had moved to downsize its operations since May 2020, after facing constraints from the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with other financial woes and the company’s transition into underground mining.
Meanwhile, a mineral agreement was signed last year with Reunion Gold Corporation, which is based in Toronto, Canada, for them to operate the Oko West gold project in Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni). The project, which will come on stream in 2027, is situated some 95 kilometres (km) Southwest of Georgetown and measures approximately 44 square kilometres (km2).
In October 2023, the Natural Resources Ministry had announced the discovery of gold in Oko West, hinting that the area has potential for a large-scale gold-producing mine. The project is expected to help re-energise Guyana’s mining sector with the production of 350,000 ounces of gold annually.
In addition to Zijin and Reunion, other large-scale foreign gold companies operating in Guyana are Goldsource Mines Inc which operates the Eagle Mountain Prospecting licence in Region Eight (Potaro/Siparuni) and Romanex Guyana Exploration Ltd (RGEL) which operates the Marudi Mountain Mining licence in Region Nine (Upper Takatu/Upper Essequibo).
Bauxite and quarrying
Meanwhile, massive increases were also seen in the quarrying sector in 2024, compared to 2023, amid the construction boom taking place across Guyana. For instance, in 2024 3.3 million metric tonnes of stone aggregates were produced, compared to 1.8 million tonnes in 2023.
In 2020, when the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government first entered office, this was just 737,000 tonnes. Then there were the increases recorded in the Bauxite sector, with Bharrat revealing that 1.7 million tonnes of bauxite were produced last year.
“We’ve seen a steady increase of bauxite over the last few years. In 2023, the production of bauxite was 523,732 tonnes. In 2024, we’ve moved that production to 1.7 million tonnes, an increase of over 200 per cent. As a matter of fact, an increase of 225 per cent in bauxite production in 2024 in comparison to 2023,” Bharrat explained.
Local bauxite production had been on an upward trajectory over the last few years, moving from 608,000 tonnes in 2020 to 705,000 tonnes in 2022 with an average of more than 600,000 tonnes in the last three years. In 2022, Guyanese earned some US$98.9 million in bauxite exports – an increase of 23.6 per cent over the previous year.
However, in 2023, Guyana experienced a drop in bauxite production with 525,000 tonnes being declared. A significant contributor to the decline was a drop in production from the large-scale producers, by 317,919 tonnes, but there was also an estimated drop in output from smaller operators, of 207,321 tonnes.
Meanwhile, in 2023 Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had indicated that massive road projects for the public sector for that year required a whopping six million tonnes of aggregate, and while this was viewed as a positive sign, Government was now faced with the challenge of meeting these demands.
At that time, the country could have only produced about 600,000 tonnes at the national level, representing just 10 per cent of demand. For this, he had shared that Government was exploring various options to keep the construction sector going. (G3)