Australia vs Brazil: Two Gold Industries, Two Growth Paths

Australia produced an estimated 280 tonnes of gold in 2025; Brazil

produced 80. Australia's identified reserves top 13 million tonnes of

ore-grade material; Brazil's sit at 2.5 million. Yet the two industries

look more alike than the headline gap suggests, and their next chapters

may run on remarkably similar rails.¹²

The Numbers Side by Side

The USGS's 2026 Mineral Commodity Summaries places Australia second

globally in mine production at 280 tonnes in 2025, with reserves of 13

million tonnes (or 4.5 million tonnes under JORC-equivalent

classification).¹ Brazil sits well below in the production table at 80

tonnes and 2.5 million tonnes of reserves — a ranking that has been

broadly stable for a decade.

Production is only one metric, however. Geoscience Australia confirms

that gold is the commodity with the largest economic demonstrated

resource (EDR) base in the country and that it was the most-explored

mineral in 2024, accounting for 30 percent of total mineral exploration

spend — equivalent to A$1,187 million in that year alone.² Brazil spends

significantly less on gold exploration but owns an equally concentrated

production structure, with the top ten mines accounting for roughly 55

percent of national output.³

How Australia Got Here

Australia's position is the product of sustained public-sector

investment in geological mapping and private-sector competitive

exploration stretching back to the 1970s. The country has produced gold

consistently from the Kalgoorlie region, the Eastern Goldfields, New

South Wales, Victoria and the Northern Territory for more than half a

century. The JORC code, introduced in 1989, became the global benchmark

for reserve reporting and gave Australian producers an early advantage

in capital-markets access.

The industrial ecosystem followed. Australian mining services firms,

equipment manufacturers, engineering consultancies and specialised

finance houses built out alongside the producers, and the country's

gold-mining capability became a meaningful export in its own right.

Every cycle compounded that advantage: higher prices funded deeper

exploration, which underpinned the next ramp of production.

Brazil's Different Starting Point

Brazil reached large-scale industrial gold production at a different

moment and through a different path. Paracatu in Minas Gerais began

modern operations in the 1980s and remains the country's anchor asset,

contributing 13.2 percent of national output in 2025.³ The Carajás

copper-gold province in Pará was developed primarily as a copper asset,

with gold monetised as a by-product. Underground narrow-vein mines in

Goiás, Bahia and Minas Gerais have run alongside, producing steady but

less-spectacular tonnages.

The regulatory framework was also different. Brazilian mining is

governed by a combination of federal mining code, state environmental

licensing and municipal-level consultation. The cumulative effect has

been a slower project timeline than the Australian norm, and a higher

premium on permit security when assets change hands — as the 2025 Serra

Grande transaction between AngloGold and Aura illustrated.

The broader Brazilian economy also shapes the gold industry's pathway.

Mining revenue totalled R$298.8 billion in 2025, with gold contributing

R$39.3 billion at +64.8 percent year-on-year growth according to IBRAM.⁴

The sector is important to the country but is not central to the

political economy in the way that iron ore is.

Capital, Capital, Capital

The two industries differ most visibly in access to capital. Australian

gold producers benefit from the world's deepest mining-focused equity

market; the ASX lists dozens of mid-tier producers and explorers, and

the JORC disclosure framework is well understood globally. Brazilian

producers, by contrast, have a smaller domestic capital market for

mining equity, and many of the largest operators are listed abroad —

Kinross on the Toronto and New York exchanges, AngloGold in Johannesburg

and New York, Aura most recently on the NYSE.⁵

That structural difference affects how each industry grows. In

Australia, juniors can raise risk capital for greenfield projects at

relatively low transaction costs; in Brazil, greenfield capital is

scarcer, and mid-tier consolidation has been the more active mode. Both

patterns produce growth, but they do so on different timelines and with

different risk profiles.

The capital difference also shapes M&A. In Australia, most transactions

happen between listed peers at public-market multiples, providing a

transparent price-discovery mechanism. In Brazil, more deals happen

bilaterally between a major and a mid-tier buyer, as the 2025

AngloGold-Aura Serra Grande transaction demonstrated. The multiples

implied by those private negotiations can differ materially from

public-market comparables, rewarding buyers with local operational

knowledge and existing permit infrastructure.

What Each Country Does Next

Australia's next chapter is largely about extending the life of existing

mines and funding near-mine resource expansion. With 30 percent of all

mineral exploration spend already targeting gold, there is little

marginal room for increased intensity; the leverage comes from applying

that spend more efficiently.² Reserves-life indicators already flag gold

as one of two commodities where Australia's horizon sits below 50 years

at current production — a nudge toward exploration rather than

complacency.

Brazil's next chapter is about breadth. The SGB's new favourability maps

for the Carajás-Tapajós-Alta Floresta axis and the

54,000-square-kilometre Sucunduri project extend the country's

exploration frontier into regions that have been lightly studied by

modern standards.⁶ Combined with sustained mid-tier consolidation —

Aura's acquisitions, Borborema's commissioning, ongoing M&A in Goiás and

Bahia — the country has room to grow production meaningfully without

requiring a single transformation