South African 96 Gold Output Lowest In 40 Years

South Africas gold output plunged to a 40-year low of 495 tonnes in 1996 but production should stabilise at around 500 tonnes a year in future, the Chamber of Mines said on Monday.

The chamber said output in the worlds largest gold producing country was 494.62 tonnes last year, down 27.8 tonnes from 1995 and only marginally higher than the 494.44 tonnes produced in 1956.

The fall cost South Africa around 1.5 billion rand ($340 million) in lost revenue and foreign exchange earnings, the chamber said.

But South African Chamber of Mines senior economist Roger Baxter said that he did not expect the situation to get any worse.

We can see that the rate of decline in the industry, the rate of fall in production, is stabilising, Roger Baxter told Reuters.

South African gold output has been declining steadily with rising working costs and dwindling grades chipping away at production in the country. Baxter said output had dropped from 619 tonnes in 1993 to 584 tonnes in 1994 and 522 tonnesduring the previous year.