By Liezel Hill
Bloomberg News
It’s not just gamblers, celebrity chefs and brides-to-be that find Nevada irresistible. About 400 miles north of the Las Vegas strip, the world’s two biggest gold producers are doing some prospecting too.
Even after more than a century and a half of exploration, Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) and Newmont Mining Corp. (NEM) say there’s plenty of hidden gold still to be uncovered in Nevada, which already accounts for a third of their output and produces more of the metal than South Africa and Chile combined. The miners are refining exploration techniques, while looking deeper and in areas they’d previously dismissed to find new resources.
“In a lot of ways, even as mature as northern Nevada is, it’s still young from a discovery standpoint,” said Doug Livermore, Newmont’s regional project director for North America. The state accounts for more than 6 percent of global gold production.