The Growth Dilemma For Indian Gold Refiners

India in 2018 produced 281.3 tonnes of fine gold from both gold and silver dore that were imported to the country. It was the highest on record and its share to gross gold imports touched 37 per cent, and it share of total imports for domestic consumption (net imports) touched 55 per cent.

As noted by a refiner recently, at this pace in five years 100 per cent of the domestic supplies are going to be from gold refined by domestic refiners.

Is this something that is achievable and desirable? It may be an achievable target given that at least 130 tonnes of dore are from large and medium scale mines, while rest are from artisanal and small-scale gold miners (ASGM).

The estimates of production from ASGM have varied with agencies and are likely to be in range of 500 to 650 tonnes a year. Out of these Indian refiners imported approximately 150 tonnes.  Further, we calculated the share of India’s imports to total production by the mining countries from which India imported last year.

Going by these numbers if Indian refiners imported all of the gold produced in these countries then India’s total supply would emerge from dore refined in India, our estimate is approximately 786 tonnes of fine gold could be recovered by Indian refiners.

Courtesy: Economic Times