The economy of Guyana is one of the fastest growing in the world with a gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 19.9% in 2021. In 2023, Guyana had a per capita gross domestic product of Int$60,648 and an average GDP growth of 4.2% over the previous decade. Guyana's economy was transformed in 2015 with the discovery of an offshore oil field in the country’s waters about 120 miles from Georgetown. Making the first commercial grade Crude oil draw in December 2019, sending it abroad for refining.
Port Kaituma is a small village within the Barima-Waini administrative region of Guyana. It became known internationally as a gateway village to the Peoples Temple settlement in nearby Jonestown. It has long been a hub for mining in the area.
Goldcorp Inc. was a gold production company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The company stood among the largest gold producers in the world, employed about 15,800 people worldwide, engaged in gold mining and related activities including exploration, extraction, processing and reclamation. Goldcorp’s operating assets included eleven mines in North and South America.
Arakaka is a community in the Barima-Waini region of Guyana, standing on the Barima River and 12 miles southerly of Port Kaituma, at an altitude of 63 metres (209 feet).
Kinross Gold Corporation is a Canadian-based gold and silver mining company founded in 1993 and headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Kinross currently operates six active gold mines, and was ranked fifth of the "10 Top Gold-mining Companies" of 2019 by InvestingNews. The company's mines are located in Brazil, Mauritania, and the United States. It trades under the KGC ticker in the New York Stock Exchange, and under K in the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Guyana is one of the newest petroleum producing regions in the world, making the first commercial grade crude oil draw in December 2019. Crude oil is sent abroad for refining.
Gold Mining often plays a significant role in Burkina Faso’s economy. Burkina Faso has become Africa's 4th biggest producer of gold in 2012. Production of mineral commodities is limited to cement, dolomite, gold, granite, marble, phosphate rock, pumice, other volcanic materials, and salt.
Iamgold Corporation is a Canadian company that owns and operates gold mines in Burkina Faso, Suriname and Canada. Headquartered in Toronto, the company was incorporated in 1990, and went public on the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1996, with additional shares being listed on the New York Stock Exchange beginning in 2005. The company formerly owned or had stakes in the Sadiola and Yatela gold mines in Mali, the Mupane gold mine in Botswana, the Niobec niobium mine in Quebec, as well as a royalty in the Diavik Diamond Mine.
Mining in Ecuador was slow to develop in comparison to other Latin American countries, in spite of large mineral reserves. As late as 2012, according to the United Nations, Ecuador received less foreign direct investment per person than any other country in Latin America. During the 1980s, mining contributed only 0.7 percent to the Ecuadorian economy and employed around 7,000 people. Minerals were located in regions with little to no access, hindering exploration. Ecuador has reserves of gold, silver, copper, zinc, uranium, lead, sulfur, kaolin and limestone. The latter practically dominated the early industry as it was used in local cement plants.
The Kurupung River is a tributary of the middle Mazaruni River in Guyana.
Turquoise Hill Resources was a Canadian mineral exploration and development company headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, and a majority-owned subsidiary of Rio Tinto Group. The company was called Ivanhoe Mines until August 2, 2012 when a financing agreement was completed with Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto acquired full ownership of Turquoise Hill in December 2022.
Ivanhoe Mines is a Canadian mining company focused on advancing its three principal projects in Southern Africa: the development of new mines at the Kamoa-Kakula copper discoveries in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Platreef palladium-platinum-nickel-copper-rhodium-gold discovery in South Africa, and the extensive redevelopment and upgrading of the historic Kipushi zinc-copper-germanium-silver mine, also in the DRC. Ivanhoe also is exploring for new copper discoveries on its wholly owned Western Foreland exploration licences in the DRC, near the Kamoa-Kakula Project.
Mining is important to the national economy of Mongolia. Mongolia is one of the 29 resource-rich developing countries identified by the International Monetary Fund and exploration of copper and coal deposits are generating substantial additional revenue. Coal, copper, and gold are the principal reserves mined in Mongolia. Several gold mines are located about 110 kilometres (68 mi) north of Ulaanbaatar, such as Boroo Gold Mine and Gatsuurt Gold Mine. Khotgor Coal Mine is an open-pit coal mining site about 120 kilometres (75 mi) west of Ulaangom. Ömnögovi Province in the south of Mongolia is home to large scale mining projects such as the Tavan Tolgoi coal mine and the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine. Oyu Tolgoi mine is reported to have the potential to boost the national economy by a third but is subject to dispute over how the profits should be shared. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated that 71 percent of the income from the mine would go to Mongolia.
The Omai Gold Mine is located in Guyana on the north coast of South America near the west bank of the Essequibo River in the interior of the country. Access to Omai is by road from the capital of Georgetown on the coast, and from the town of Linden approximately 60 km away. There is an operational airstrip on site which can accommodate aircraft from Georgetown. Gold mining at Omai is known from at least the 1880s, and when it was developed as a large scale mine in 1992 by Cambior, the mine was the largest gold mine in the Guiana Shield and a major source of income and employment in Guyana. During the period from 1992 – 2005, Omai produced 3.7 Moz of gold at an average grade of 1.5 g/t Au from the Fennell and the Wenot open pits.
The Mirador mine is a large copper mine located in the Amazonian province of Zamora-Chinchipe in southern Ecuador. It is one of the largest copper reserves in Ecuador, and the first industrial-scale copper project to be developed in the country. The project has generated an environmental conflict that is emblematic in the national political debate on mining.
Mining in Guyana is a significant contributor to the economy owing to sizable reserves of bauxite, gold, and diamonds. Much of these resources are found in Guyana's Hilly Sand and Clay belt, a region that makes up 20% of the country.
Guyana Goldfields was a Canadian company that owned and operated the Aurora gold mine in Guyana. Before being acquired by Zijin Mining in 2020, Guyana Goldfields was a publicly traded company with shares listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and previously TSX Venture Exchange. Beginning in 1996 the company acquired exploration rights to the former Peters and Aurora mines with the objective of utilizing modern exploration technology to re-evaluate the potential gold reserves. Following positive exploratory results, the company received financing from the International Finance Corporation and other investors and conducted economic and technical feasibility studies. The Aurora gold mine began commercial production in 2015 and has produced approximately 125,000 to 160,000 ounces of gold per year from the mine since then. These lower than expected results and a revised technical study that significantly lowered the recoverable reserves estimates, led to the removal of the CEO and directors involved in making the investment decision and a class action lawsuit alleging misrepresentations in public disclosures.
Issano is a village of Cuyuni-Mazaruni, Guyana. It's located along the Mazaruni River, and is a hub for mining.
Isseneru is an Amerindian settlement in the Cuyuni-Mazaruni region of Guyana, approximately 15–20 miles west of Kurupung.
Alamos Gold ("Alamos") is a Canadian multinational gold producer, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Alamos operates three mines across North America, and has six further projects in development.
