In order to address the issue of low gold production and declaration in the country, the government has been working assiduously to support small miners by improving their access to land and boosting their recovery rates.
From 2016 to present, gold production and declaration has seen a steady decline.
For 2022, the declaration was 486,415 ounces; 2021 it was 499,054 ounces; 2020 recorded 584,291 ounces and 2019 some 634,905 ounces.
During a press conference on Wednesday, Minister of Natural Resources Vickram Bharrat attributed these low figures to a variety of factors.
For instance, he said for the years 2021-2020, there was significant flooding in mining districts, severely impacting operations.
Then in 2023, there was the prolonged drought.
This year, he said mining districts are once again being affected by flooding.
And in 2020, there was the issue of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Another contributor, he said, is the fact that for decades, small and medium scale miners have been mining the same properties over and over.
As such, he said the government has been working with these miners to employ new methods and technology in their operations in order to increase recovery rate, which will increase gold production and of course, their profitability.
The current recovery rate, he noted, is around 35-40%.
“We’re working with medium scale miners to look at ways they can go move away from alluvial and even go into hard rock and produce more,” Minister Bharrat told reporters.
Another way the government is hoping to improve production and declaration is by helping small miners get better access to land.
He noted that, “every single person that comes to the Ministry or the GGMC for land, they want land with gold. That’s the common thing. Unfortunately, we were not in the position to tell you how much ounces of gold are there when we give you that land or that property, it calls for prospecting.”
In this regard, he said a US company, Global Venture Consulting LLC, will soon undertake mineral mapping in Guyana to provide an updated record of where mineral resources can be found.
“We will start with specific mining districts, especially the Mazaruni, Potaro, North West, Cuyuni mining districts. Those are the four main mining districts. We will focus on those four for now, because we have a larger amount of our small and medium scale miners, concentrated in those four mining districts…So, this is a project that will help us to identify not only where our gold deposits are, but all minerals,” the minister noted.
Moreover, over the last four years, Minister Bharrat said three lotteries were conducted from which over 550 small miners were able to own mineral properties. “This year alone, in Bartica – 150, in Mahdia – 200, that is 350 in 2024 alone,” he noted.
Aside from the lotteries, he added that small miners are also issued mining lands through the normal processes which takes the total number of small miners to more than 700.
Meanwhile, other issues affecting the gold sector is the shortage of workers and the apparent migration of medium scale miners to other sectors such as oil and gas and construction.
