FACTS & FIQURES — Nevada pulls weight in production

Nevada produced an estimated $3.2 billion in minerals (including petroleum and geothermal energy) in 1995, matching the record set in 1994.

It produced 6.8 million oz. gold worth $2.6 billion in 1995, nearly identical to levels set in the previous year. The state accounts for about 65% of all gold produced in the U.S., and about 10% of world production.

Indeed, were it not for the state’s level of gold output, the U.S. would not be the world’s second leading producer of the yellow metal.

Barrick Gold was the largest gold producer in Nevada last year, with total production of 2.2 million oz. (2 million oz. from its Betze-Post mine in the Carlin trend and 178,000 oz. from its recently acquired Bullfrog mine in Nye Cty.). Newmont Gold was second, with 1.6 million oz. from several mines situated along the Carlin trend. In third place was Santa Fe Pacific Gold, which produced 691,000 oz. from its Twin Creeks and Lone Tree mines. Other major producers include Smoky Valley Common Operations’ Round Mountain mine (344,000 oz.), Echo Bay Mines’ McCoy-Cove mine (310,000 oz.) and Independence Mining’s Jerritt Canyon mine (328,000 oz.)

Nevada’s known gold resources, which had decreased in 1993 when the rate of extraction exceeded the rate of discovery, rebounded in 1994 and 1995.

Published gold resources, including minable reserves and perhaps sub-economic deposits, totalled 144 million oz. at the end of 1995. That’s about 7.5 million oz. more than at the end of 1994.

During the 1960s and 1970s, copper was Nevada’s most important mineral, but production virtually ceased in 1979 as a result of increasing extraction costs, foreign competition, low demand and more restrictive environmental regulations. The state’s annual copper production averaged 200 million lb.

during 1969-74; this dropped off considerably, to fewer than 8 million lb., in the period 1978-1992, only to level off at 10 million lb. in 1993-1994.

Arimetco’s Yerington and MacArthur mines in Lyon Cty. (currently Nevada’s only copper mines) produced 13 million lb. copper in 1995. BHP Copper’s Robinson property in White Pine Cty. is expected to produce 135 million lb.

copper and more than 100,000 oz. gold annually over a 16-year period beginning in 1996.

— From “Nevada Geology,” the newsletter of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.