Gold Mining, Congo

The average gold mining and extraction costs were about US$317/oz in 2007, but these can vary widely depending on mining type and ore quality; global mine production amounted to 2,471.1 tonnes.
Gold is so stable and so valuable that most of the gold used in manufactured goods, jewelry, and works of art is eventually recovered and recycled. Some gold used in spacecraft and electronic equipment cannot be profitably recovered, but it is generally used in these applications in the form of extremely thin layers or extremely fine wires so that the total quantity used (and lost) is small compared to the total amount of gold produced and stockpiled. Thus there is little true consumption of new gold in the economic sense; the stock of gold remains essentially constant (at least in the modern world) while ownership shifts from one party to another. One estimate is that 85% of all the gold ever mined is still available in the world's easily recoverable stocks, with 15% having been lost, or used in non-recyclable industrial uses.