By Michael Lombardi
Investing.com
As gold bullion prices declined last year, I said supply would contract as gold miners pulled back on exploration and closed mines that were not profitable at $1,200-an-ounce gold.
For the supply of gold bullion to increase, there needs to be more discoveries. Sadly, the opposite is happening. According to SNL Metals & Mining, gold discoveries have been trending downward. In the 1990s, there were 124 new gold discoveries totaling 1.1 billion ounces of gold bullion. But since 2000, only 605 million ounces of gold bullion in total has been discovered at just 93 discoveries. (Source: Kitco News, July 18, 2014.)
For there to be more gold discoveries, mining companies need to spend more on exploration and that just isn’t happening. In 2013, when gold prices plummeted, major mining companies pulled back on their spending. Furthermore, exploration companies that need funding found it very difficult to get money, so they also pulled back on finding gold.