World’s largest gold deposit worth $80 billion discovered in China: Reports

China believes it has found the world’s biggest gold deposit, with reserves estimated to be worth more than $80 billion.

Chinese state media said that a gold ore deposit site with supposed reserves of more than 1,000 tonnes at a depth of 2,000 meters had been located in the Wangu goldfield in Pingjiang County in central Hunan province. Newsweek was unable to independently verify the report.

The goldfield in Pingjiang County is said to be valued at 600 billion yuan ($83 billion), according to state outlet Xinhua news. The current largest gold reserve is found in the South Deep gold mine in Gauteng Province, South Africa, which holds around 930 metric tons of gold.

The Hunan Academy of Geology said workers found more than 40 gold ore veins at a depth of more than 2,000 meters at Wangu. More than 300 tons of gold reserve was found in the mine’s core area, and that metric ton of ore could yield as much as 138 grams of gold.

A gold vein refers to a geological formation where gold is concentrated within a crack in an underground rock. The veins are formed through hydrothermal processes, where hot, mineral-rich fluids move through cracks in the Earth’s crust.

“Many drilled rock cores showed visible gold,” said Chen Rulin, an ore-prospecting expert at the Geological Bureau of Hunan Province.

Liu Yongjun, vice head of the bureau said that advanced 3D geological modeling was used at the Wangu gold field to estimate that around 1,000 tonnes of gold reserves may go down as far as 3,000 meters at the site.

The Hunan Provincial Geological Institute classified the discovery as a “massive” reserve, reported the South China Morning Post.

In a statement, the institute also claimed that the find was “significant in helping safeguard the country’s resource security.”

China is already the largest producer of gold in the world, accounting for around 10 percent of global output in 2023, Reuters reported, citing data from the World Gold Council.

The Wangu goldfield in particular is of major importance to China’s gold mining economy.

More than 100 million yuan ($13 million) have invested in the area for mineral exploration since 2020, added the South China Morning Post.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is forecasting the price of gold will reach $3,000 an ounce by the end of next year, around 12 percent higher than current prices, Bloomberg reported on November 22.