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Wales Online
04-05-2025
- Business
- Wales Online
Inside the Welsh gold mine where one coin has just sold for £20,000
The gold of Clogau St David's mine in north west Wales has been worn by Britain's Royal Family for generations. When the now Princess of Wales, Catherine married the Prince of Wales William she accepted her gold wedding band sourced from the depths of the Welsh hillside near Dolgellau. Those who have also worn the gold from the deep, gritty cavern include the Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne and Diana, Princess of Wales. But Clogau gold has long been sought after not just due to its connection to the royals but its rarity. Since 1854 the mine, accessible the miners via ladders pushed through holes, has produced 80,000oz of gold, while the world's biggest gold mines can extract more than 1,000,000oz in a single year. The mine ceased operations in 1998 with resources assumed to have been exhausted, but it has now been reopened by Alba Mineral Resources who in 2018 acquired a licence to mine again at what was once the UK's richest gold mine. It has taken much work to ensure the mine is up to modern safety regulation standards. Alba acquired the mine with the belief new technology could reveal new seams of gold. And their gamble has paid off as gold is being mined from way below the surface of the Eryri hills again. In March one single coin at 1oz from the mine sold for £20,000 - well over the current gold price. The coin features an image of a dragon on top of the nearby mountain of Cadair Idris on one side and miners on the other as a tribute to those who worked at Clogau St David's in its heyday. A maximum of 12 people can currently work at the site but there is scope for many more if the gold Alba hopes to find is really under the surface. Photographer Matthew Horwood was invited to the mine by Mark Austin, Chief Operating Officer at Alba Mineral Resources, and his team to see how they're getting on. You can see pictures taken this week from the mine below.
IOL News
21-04-2025
- Business
- IOL News
Long-abandoned Welsh mine revived as gold prices soar
At the bottom of a long-abandoned mine, 50 metres below the surface, one company searches for rare Welsh gold, attracted by soaring prices and its royal connection. The Clogau-St David's mine, located in a national park near the coast of Wales, was flooded until its latest licence-holder, Alba Mineral Resources, spent months pumping out water to begin operations. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. 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Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ Down rickety ladders along narrow, damp tunnels, Alba focuses on finding quartz -- a snow-like white rock that indicates the presence of gold. "The mine up to now has been in exploration phase. We're slowly transitioning" to proper operations, said Mark Austin, the project's chief geologist, who spent four decades working in mines in Africa. From the depths of the mine, they drill, blast, and haul the ore to the surface. The first pickaxes struck Clogau in 1854, initially aimed at finding lead, before quickly turning to gold. Local legend has it that a miner discovered the first flakes by accident after kicking a piece of rock. Soaring gold price After six decades of prosperity, the mine shut in 1911, and only occasionally reopened in the years that followed. At the time of its final shutdown in 1998, gold sold for $300 a troy ounce (31.1 grammes). This month, the price of gold has soared beyond $3,000 an ounce -- and hit a new record, attracting investors seeking a safe-haven asset as US President Donald Trump's stop-start tariffs roil global markets. "The economics of coming in and finding unworked seams of gold is obviously very attractive," said George Frangeskides, executive chairman of Alba. "We had an idea that with modern techniques... we could find unworked seams of gold here," he told AFP. Clogau gold is prized for its scarcity, Welsh heritage and ties to the British royal family, fetching up to 10 times the standard market rate. Royal family members, including Queen Elizabeth II, King Charles III, Princess Diana and Princess Catherine have all worn a Clogau wedding ring -- a tradition that dates back a century to the wedding of King George VI. The royal connection "adds, obviously, to the cachet, the allure of the project that we're involved with", Frangeskides told AFP. Even with limited production -- a few hundred ounces per year -- he believes the venture will be profitable. The company has invested £4 million ($5.3 million) into the site, where 10 people work. Early test auctions of one-ounce pieces have been successful, with the first selling for £20,000 ($26,500) -- more than eight times the traded price of gold. Once-thriving mine Remaining features, like rusty rails and wooden foundations, serve as reminders of the history of this once-thriving mine. Austin, donning a hard hat, pointed to the holes in the walls where explosives will be placed to extract tiny gold particles from crushed rocks. A promising extension to the original quartz vein, around 120-metres long, has been identified in the exploration area measuring 107 square kilometres. World Gold Council market strategist John Reade said it is not the quality of Clogau gold that attracts its premium price but the fact it is a small, "boutique mine". Over the course of the mine's history, only 80,000 ounces (2.5 tonnes) of gold have been extracted. That compares to global gold production of around 3,600 tonnes a year, he said. But thanks to its royal connection, the Welsh gold may attract "traditionalists, people who may be strong monarchists" willing to pay more, Reade added. In the nearby town of Dolgellau, some locals are more concerned with the potential environmental impact than the prospect of gold. Alba said it has reassured authorities and is committed to protecting bats that live in the area. At the bustling Cross Keys pub in the town centre, Will Williams, a 75-year-old retired doctor, chuckled: "I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of young people around here don't even know it exists." AFP
The Guardian
26-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Going for gold: coin marks hope of bringing Welsh mine back from the dead
The workspace would not suit everyone. A soggy, gritty, cramped cavern 50 metres beneath a Welsh hillside accessible only by a series of ladders that drop through craggy holes into the darkness. But a smile spread over Dai Jones's grime-caked face as the miner described the challenge of hunting for gold in the hills of north-west Wales and the joy when he and his colleagues find a few specks. 'It's hard work, it's not a place for the weak.' he said. 'But when you see a bit of gold, it's special. It makes you keep going back. I love the history; I like thinking about all the miners that have been here over the years. There's hardly a family around here that doesn't have a connection with the mine.' This is a big moment in the history of the Clogau St David's mine near Dolgellau in Gwynedd. Clogau used to be the UK's richest goldmine, with members of the British royal family using the precious metal from the hills of Eryri (Snowdonia) in wedding bands for more than a century. By the 1990s Clogau was considered exhausted, but in 2018 a company called Alba Mineral Resources acquired a licence and embarked on a programme of rehabilitation and exploration, deploying modern technology to try to track seams of gold. It has now revealed that gold has been extracted from Clogau once again and this weekend an auction for a 1oz coin made from its gold to celebrate the revival of the site – and to test the keenness of the market for the metal – will begin. 'It's an important moment for us,' said Mark Austin, chief operating officer and senior geologist. 'It's been quite the journey.' Gold hunting in these hills is not something to rush. Over the last five years the team has painstakingly drained flooded tunnels, removed hills of spoil left by their predecessors, often by hand, and made the parts of the network they need to access secure enough to satisfy modern safety regulations. They had to show Natural Resources Wales and the Eryri national park that the water extracted from the mine would not harm the river that tumbles down the hillside and make sure they did not disturb the bats living in the old mine. Austin said they had found gold in spoil heaps, left by the miners who worked here since 1854, and that they had pinpointed what they believed to be untapped reserve after drilling into the hillside. The zone they are focusing on has been named the Llecfraith payshoot, which has the geological make-up associated with Welsh gold. What they are looking for in particular are quartz veins with a 'stripey and dirty' texture. A motto of the old-timers was: 'Mine the streaky bacon, not the white elephant.' 'There's definitely gold there,' said Austin. The question is how much and how accessible it is. The Guardian was taken down to 'level five', where blasting and digging is taking place. There is no easy way in and it is not comfortable – anyone entering has to wear a harness in case they slip from one of the ladders, and manoeuvring through the cracks and low tunnels is a challenge. It isn't quiet – the constant drip of water echoes around the confined spaces. Jones was working the vein at the payshoot, extracting ore that had previously been blasted from the rock face, loading it into a bag 0.7 tonne at a time. It is then hauled to surface ground level, transferred to a small wagon and rolled out along an old railway track into the fresh air. There in a small plant, the ore is crushed and hammered and poured on to shaking tables. The flecks of gold, because they are heavier, separate and are sent on to a refinery. In the office, George Frangeskides, Alba's chair, described the economics of the operation. He said this was not (yet) a fully fledged mining operation but 'bulk sampling'. 'It's a pilot plant, a boutique mine,' added Frangeskides. When the mine last closed, gold was valued at less than a couple of hundred pounds per ounce; now it is more than £2,300. Sometimes Welsh gold, because of its rarity and its royal associations, can fetch five, 10 or 20 times the spot price. The coin that is being auctioned, which features an image of a dragon atop the nearby mountain of Cadair Idris on one side and miners from the site's golden age on the other, has a guide price of £20,000 to £25,000. A maximum of 10 or 12 people work at the site, including veterans of previous mining in the Dolgellau gold belt, but if the gold they suspect is in the hillside is found, it could mean many more jobs and a boom for an area that relies heavily on tourism and agriculture. 'We're throwing everything at it,' said Frangeskides. 'The UK mining industry has been in the doldrums but there are success stories coming in.' He cites lithium finds in Cornwall and gold mining in Scotland. At Clogau they may soon know whether they are sitting on a fortune. 'The only way is to blast it, bulk sample it, process it, see what the grade is,' said Frangeskides. 'That's the name of the game. We're on the cusp of proving this thing up. This is the crunch time.'
