When people think of gold mining, they likely picture bearded men with gold pans in mountain streams or Discovery Channel's Gold Rush.
In reality, it's neither!
In this video, we tour the entire gold mining process at Round Mountain Mine, owned and operated by Canadian gold giant Kinross.
We start where most mining operations begin-drilling, blasting, and loading with enormous shovels.
But with most gold here being microscopic, how do they extract every ounce from the rock they mine? That's where the milling and processing comes into play, and followed along every step of the way.
At the end of it all is the gold pour-where they carefully pour the gold, silver, and other metals extracted into bars for transport into the world.
To learn more about Kinross, check out their website below!
www.kinross.com/operations/de...
every time I see a mining video I cannot believe it's actually cost effective, but I guess it is or they wouldn''t be doing it
It’s big upfront cost it can take a a gold mine up to 15-20 years to be profitable
it's also an economy of scale thing. the bigger the truck the bigger the volume of PAY-load, per trip, overall cost of ton miles drops. it also takes decades to get to an operation of this scale. to _start_ a mine at this scale is monsterously expensive and takes years of coordination, because even the equipment suppliers do not carry inventory for example. Those big haul trucks are fairly generic, but an operator can't just call up and order 10-20 units and expect rapid delivery. A multimillion dollar shop needs to be built to even finish delivery assembly.
Quite the operation. I spent 30 years there, and was one of the first operators of shovel 344 and 345. Good job on the video and the “regular joe” explanations. 👍🏻
Amazing!! Thanks for making it happen
How much u make
What was it like living in the Nevada desert for so long?
@@mattk7865 fast women, fast equipment, and fast gold! 💪👍🍻🇺🇲
All of a sudden Parker’s 50k ounces doesn’t seem that much… nice vid as always!
Yea no Parker isnt in the big leagues when it comes to gold mining
Ain't no Alaskan gold mine run by one crew, that's for sure 💀
Watch what they do in Australia
@@absolut7769 Parker is doing absolutely fine for himself. There's a very decent chance (likely in fact) that he makes more than the CEO of this company.
This is actual gold mining, not a soap opera. 🍻🇺🇲
Thats around 35.6bn worth of gold for anyone wondering
Ah yes but how much are they spending on electricity to produce it, that number is probably halved….
@@joelswfx yeah mining is all about maximizing margins or else the operation is futile
Mmmmmmm cyanide
800,000,000 Million/year approx.
@@Nirotix PAID IN CRYPTO TO FOREIGN CONTRACTORS? WATER HEIST 1312
In no time all the machines will be remote controlled and all those workers will be replaced by 2 nerds wearing sandals snacking on cheetos at an office somewhere.
More like in sandals over seas making $3/ day
@weswest8666 Even worse. Your probably 100% right.
Uh uh and AI will think for them with no Cheetos 😂 Cheetos consumption will drop.
@bbustin1747 By then maybe we can figure out how to reduce fossil fuels by powering AI with Cheetos. The flaming hot kind.
Until something breaks down, which is a constant in mining
I'm surprised there is enough micro gold in the leaching fields to warrant that extra operation.
99% of the gold on earth is microscopic
@@robotekusaespecially since all the easy gold was found long ago
@@squibbelsmcjohnsonfound long ago ?? Buddy. We’ve only been mining with technology for 40 years. Mining with machinery for 100 years. We’ve barely scratched the surface
@@squibbelsmcjohnson lies you speak
@@piatdor I said the EASY gold... Can you read 😂.. It's like oil.. All the easy stuff has long been sucked out, now it takes quite a lot more to get it out of the ground.
@5:50 - I am already surprised that they skip the larger of the crushing stages and go right to the ball-milling.
They don’t skip it, they do it at the top of the pit and then that crushed rock goes by conveyor to stockpiles
You should have replied: “it was a blast”- obviously…. You get set up for comedy gold (pun intended) and miss out… 😂😂
i was waiting for that! lol
🎶 "She got the gold mine, I got the shaft"
Thanks for the inside look. It's always enjoyable to drive through Nevada and enjoy the geology
Thank You Kinross for the tour !
I spent some time in Elko, NV and a lot of mine workers and people who work on the machines for the mine come from back east for six months at a time, and then move back to states like Missouri. Talked to a few of them in a bar one night, most of them are young guys in their 20s and early 30s but some of them are almost 60+ and have been working those hot, dry deserts for decades
Welcome to the Silver State! 🤠 This place will make a miner or rockhound out of you before you realize it... ask me how I know 😂 This was a great episode, nice work!👍
Didn’t know Trojan made explosives but I guess they were already good with explosions
1:43
Gotta say; I have no clue how this ended up on my for you page.... but I'm glad it did; this was quite interesting!
Excellent video! Thanks for making this I’m having a nice little binge on your videos. Top quality production.
What happens to the byproduct? It’s just sand at that point or is it more complicated than that?
I was waiting for Aaron to say he had a blast blasting all that rock!
After the gold bars get to the point as in this video, 80% gold, is that the end of the road for Kinross, or do they refine the gold further else where? Good video!
Should see if coeur will let you tour the kensington gold mine in Juneau, Ak.
Damn they dont leave NONE behind😂 Awesome video!
Very interesting video. Step one….. removing the overburden look forward to your next video
We see what you are constantly thinking about A-Aron, separate the race 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. Love the edits bruh.
One of The biggest open pit gold mine in the United States is in Mojave City California. I've been waiting for a video on that one
Miami and Globe Az mining district is cool area , Plus new Resolution mine is close by 8K ft main shaft where block cave deep mine is huge deal . Thx for videos worked mining industry for years back in KY live Az now .
Make the waste dumps or heap leach look like pyramids. Something to see from the air. How about making a video of decommissioning a big mine? Does a lot of it get buried in the pit?
It’d be super cool if you looked at the tailings ponds of some of these mines. I know its not the most glamorous part of gold mining but it’s super cool (to me…I work on a TMA) millions and millions of yards of rock/clay/sand placed super precisely
Around 35 Billion in today's price of gold. Great video!
Dec 2017 I had the opportunity to haul the boom pivot base, (63,000 lbs, 9' 6" wide x 13' long x 9' tall) for a Rope Shovel to Round Mountain NV. The Bucket weigh was in excess of 100,000lbs. The bottom door was 13'+ wide x ~20' long x ~2' tall at 35,000 lbs. It took the Cat Team 46 days to assemble the entire project😊 What an experience.😊😊
that's amazing!!
You were so close to us. Need to come visit NGM Carlin.
Any idea what the time frame is from the day the mine purchases the CAT Shovel to the time it actually begins operation? How about the time frame involved in assembling the shovel onsite?
I work for cat I have worked on two of the shovels at round mountain but I’ve built some but I don’t know about time from factory to the mine but assembly is about two month give or take a couple weeks
They’re usually ordered years out. Assembly takes a few months
With experienced guys a single shovel assembling is 3months max. I was in the assembling team of the same Bucyrus 495HR2 it took us 3 months and all of us were newbie’s to the shovel we only had 3 experienced guys from 🇨🇱.
I curious what happens when a big truck breaks down during the haul back and the road service mechanic can’t fix it, how would u tow them out?
How does it take to get to the bottom of the pit from the top?
Wow! That was cool. Now I can put a visual of the mine with the high grade specimens that I recently saw for sale. Nice job. Just for clarity though, cyanide dissolves the gold. Gold will cling to mercury. I'm a retired assayer and refiner of precious metals. Loved my first pit shot also. Incredible!😊
thank you!!
great video, watching from Sweden !
I live a hour and a half from there. Always wondered how they did it. Thanks.
We need more of these mines all over
The video is very interesting, many people would like to have a kilo of gold and see here how much is produced, what life is like.
For context the average gold bar (like the o e he holds) costs $750k+ USD
Wouldn't a little bit of alchemy be easier than this process?
Nice documentary i wonder if the host attended the colorado school of mines? I have seen the open pit gold mine in hermosillo mx My fav documentary is "the largest gold mine in the world (spark)
That's a good one
Mine, Mine all Mine!!!! Love that cartoon!
You mean there’s no made up drama and bunch of breakdowns , nice professional setup and video .
Great video guy's, maybe a bit to much brol, or maybe show brol with more voice over😊
why is the ground moving at 3:02 lol? just a camera effect? if not thats scary lol
You should try and do a video on Stillwater mine in Big timber Montana. Just out of Bozeman, Montana. It’s an underground hard rock mine. Pretty cool place. I worked there for a while!
I grew up spending summers not far in Red Lodge
Wow that’s about 1245 ounces of gold and silver etc per day produced since 1985.
How much would it cost to build an operation like this from scratch?🤑
how much gold would be in 250 tons of ore
As of a 2017 mineral estimate report their grade is about 0.7 grams per ton of ore, which puts that at 175 grams of gold. Current gold prices are around $76 a gram, so that would be just over $13,000.
Those are some horrible numbers, are you sure about that?
They said not much in each truck
If it’s only 0.7 grams per ton that explains the heap leach they have. 3-5 grams is usually what they need to see to be worth crushing and concentrating. I’m surprised they don’t have any Knelson concentrators at this mine. More efficient than spirals I’d say.
My mom hauls gold ore out of the mine outside spring creek there in Nevada what will blow your mind is Canada owns all that gold
Come to Kinross in Brazil too. 🇧🇷
Is it just me or was the ground moving at 3:00? Seems kinda sketchy to have that bucket and truck on that
The ball on the back of the shovel is like what syncrude does in fort Mac but over here we use whips on the counterweight for self spot
Whos this ran by? Crazy operation.
Hi, I’m from a small town in South Africa, Mpumalanga called Kinross.
Cool perspective of where I work.
Im going to adopt that... "It was not my first time, but it was sweet" while pointing the finger directly at them. I call them "greenhorn hunters". You know the type. The subtle pissing contest of who has done more and knows more where they take any opportunity to verbally hint at someone being beneath them in one way or another. At least thats the vibes i always get. It drives me crazy
tommy toppers
Where does the round mountain mine get their water and electricity
Didnt show primary crusher, bedt part.
Awesome vid. Thank you.
looking at the path the haul trucks take to get out of the mine how often does that route shift as they change working faces like obviously a mine this big should be using electric dive haul trucks with trolley wires, which ofcourse require overhead wire infrastructure that you dont want to be moving around very often does the haul roads and mine faces change around so much to make long(ish) term infrastructure an issue?
You sound like a 🤡. 😂
Freddy Dodge : Well I think you need to install some sluices.
for anyone interested in how much 15 million ounces cost as of 8 days ago when this video came out it is roughly 3.6 Billion
8:35 “the goal here is to separate the race”😂
accidentally based
Cant believe they've mined all that gold but they just leave it in those huge ingots outside the mine gates?! Like don't they need to sell some Must be a very trusting neighbourhood..
My kind of humor
One of my best friends worked down there for a bit as a mechanic. Loved it and made a great living but he was gone too much from his kids.
When they tell you there isn’t much money to be made finding gold and then you see all the equipment !
thats a lot gold kinross has taken out the ground 15mil oz's worth over $295 billion
very good video
I was exploring trains near my house and looked inside the cart and it was full of steel balls and years later I find what they were for 😂 that’s cool
So that enormous hole has basically only generated those three big bars. The rest is just waste.
No...
Nice work.
Ive never seen those tailings leeching system before. Thats pretty wild. The Electrolytic process with electricity in the tanks would be too much hassle for so little gold I assume? How long does a pile of tailings sit there under the leeching pond? Does it get added to as the shaker tables create more tailings or was it just old tailings? This is so interesting. They spent a lot of money to build the building in order to keep the dust down. They still use anfo for blasting in the industry. Ive heard people are trying to change that up, but if it works, then it works.
that is incredible
Only tough thing about Nevada gold is getting it out of the clay rock...
Aaron was fan boyin hard here lol so excited
Great clip 👍
needs some dust control
now place that mine downtown Manhattan... is that worth 1 billion?
You have to go where the gold is, usually in remote locales where the geology is favourable. You can’t have a ‘gold discovery’ in Manhattan unless you raid the NY Federal Reserve vault. The rocks underneath the city is essentially worthless.
Amazing gold land..! USA
At around 14:12 in , it reminds me of how I felt peeing with a severe UTI.
That mine has produced of 34.7 BILLION dollars of gold. (At today's prices)
Never knew gold mining got this complex. Great video!
Thanks for watching
I wonder does if these caterpillar vehicles take gas???
400 billion dollars in gold produced since 1980 at round mountain
3 words.....NO INCLEMENT WEATHER. VERY KEY TO SUCCESS IN THE INDUSTRY. AS LONG AS YOU HAVE WATER.
I have been prospecting and collecting gold half of my life. Sitting on 2 Oz . now. But, how I feel about ra ping the landscape.....is different.
That land won't recover for a millennium.
28.11600 billion US$ since 2018 so around 30 billion made from this mine today
Damn look at this dangerous dude, he's so dangerous the Deathclaws all went into hiding ... or exstinct ... AGAIN!
If only our government had enough sense to keep that gold stateside… 😔😔
@8:51 - With a flocculant.
I need all those billions of dollars to pay for all that equipment and fuel
you should come down to three rivers rock here im smithland where we dump directly from 777 haul trucks into barges its awesome i love doing it
Who owns that land
Kinross.
Gramps gave me ball from 1930 Hibbing ore mine.
I think the heavier gold will go to the outside of the spiral not the inside
I immediately thought the same thing as he as saying it. Then I thought he must know. He does this. Then I thought, I'd really like to know the physics of this if it's true. HELP!
Tell me you don't understand physics without telling me you don't understand physics.
The water pushes lighter material outward.
❤ ilove mining ⛏️⛏️ i
"Very armored truck" I saw those bars leave on a semi truck that had walmart markings. They actually transport it in plain view to the public in normal looking trucks. BUT, whats inside is always a mystery as for armory. I worked their ADR plant for years.
I wonder if this plays into how much the state get to borrow from the fed? Because it def should.
Great video
Probably only 2% of the mineable Gold in Nevada has been produced.