Where's TRE? Gold Rush: Hunting for gold in Tanzania (Commodity Online)

Published on: January 10, 2011 at 15:10

Get authentic commodity research reports on pulses, spices, oil seeds and palm oil from Asia.Subscribe Now!

Related Stories

• Platinum, Palladium glitter on Chinese demand
• Silver needs to go to $135 to touch historic high of 1980
• Global cocoa prices steady despite Ivory Coast crisis
• Energy prices beat 27-month high on global demand
• Gold recovers from last week’s slump

LONDON (Commodity Online): Hunt for gold deposits has heightened around the world as countries led by global central banks and investors fascinated by the magic money sustaining power of the yellow metal are trying to amass gold.

How much gold reserve you have is the question that everyone asks these days. While the 403 tons of gold sale by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was lapped up by countries ranging from India to Sri Lanka, central banks are putting more emphasis on increasing their gold holdings.

This unprecedented race for gold has resulted in a boom in gold prices in the last one decade. Gold price is now in the historic price range of around $1400 per ounce.

Soaring gold price has greatly helped dozens of gold companies around the world. Companies are investing more money to mine gold.

Dozens of companies are these days carrying out a large number of gold exploration projects in Tanzania, the third largest producer of the yellow metal in Africa, after South Africa.

According to Gold Investing News:

Tanzania has long been considered one of the oldest known continuously inhabited areas on Earth, with remains of fossilized pre-human hominids and humans having been found dating back over two million years. Given the considerable historic setting, gold exploration and mining has been a relatively recent development. The earliest organized prospecting and mining in Tanzania began with gold discoveries in the Lake Victoria region in 1894 during the German colonial period. Mining began at the Sekenke Mine in 1909, after gold was discovered there in 1907. During the First World War, gold from Sekenke was used to mint coins to pay German troups fighting against the allied forces in the Belgian Congo. Sekenke was developed as an underground mine, reaching up to 200 metres below surface and produced 140,000 ounces of gold.

After 1930, gold production in Tanzania was substantial and increased steadily until World War II. By 1967, the gold industry had declined to insignificance, only to revitalize during the mid 1970’s when the world gold price increased greatly. Beginning in April 1990, the Bank of Tanzania began buying gold at the world market price through commercial banks. In the late 1990′s, several mining companies from Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and South Africa arrived in Tanzania, interested in gold exploration and development. 

READ FULL POST HERE