“Thank you for your comments on Gold. In the past few months your service mentioned a technology that would make mining gold simpler and easier. I presume you still hold the view that this does not pose a threat for the supply of Gold in the medium to longer term. As always thanks for the wonderful service.” 

David Fuller's view

Thanks for an email of general interest.

Yes, there is now a new reef-boring technology, developed by AngloGold Ashanti, which is a lot more efficient and economical than ‘drill and blast’.   Iain Little also mentioned it and you can see the two emails just below my response on 5^th March.

Yes, the technology should eventually lead to an increase in the supply of gold although without some big new discoveries in accessible regions, there is less of it available today than in decades past.  Gold remains a desirable and scarce commodity relative to the amount of fiat currency available.  The gold price will always fluctuate with fashion but I think miners will be the biggest beneficiaries of reef-boring technology because their extraction costs will decline.