I could not answer that for the world as I do not even have the statistics in hand for Canada. But to put it in perspective, of the dozens of Timmins mines, only 13 made over 1,000,000 ounces production. In North America, only one mine tops the Hollinger (20 million ounces) and that is the Homestake, which is amongst the largest in the world. There are some real humgdingers worldwide. FreePort's Grasberg Mine contains 100 million ounces, and in Peru the Yanacocha is large too.)
Here is the top thirteen list. Number on the right is millions of ounces.
1. Wildcat Mine, Canada, Wildcat Resources, 400.0
2. Grasberg\Ertsberg, Indonesia, Freeport McMoRan, 91.04
3. Freegold, South Africa Anglo American, 60.44
4. Val Reefs, South Africa, Anglo American, 58.63
5. Carlin, USA, Newmont, 49.0
6. Drienfontein, South Africa, Anglo American*, 46.73
7. Betze Post, USA, Barrick, 46.61
8. West Deep, South Africa, Anglo American, 43.86
9. Cortez, USA, Placer Dome\Rio Tinto, 35.4
10. Twin Creeks, USA, Newmont, 29.12
11. Obuasi, Ghana, Lonmi, 26.4
12. Meikle, USA, Barrick, 26.35
13. Randfontein, South Africa, Consolidated African, 26.0
One of the richest was the Goldstrike Mine in Nevada. It started out at a mind boggling 700.0 ounces per ton, and then petered out at a paltry 50.0 ounces gold per ton in 1890 when it "got too low grade to mine". They built the Betze mine on top of it. (See above) I knew of 3 geologists who were going after the old Goldstrike in the 1980's when gold hits its high, simply because you could raise money then, and a junior had a chance of getting money to acquire ground. Peter Munk got it with a nonentity of a company called American Barrick, which had hole in the wall Toronto office and a prospector from Hailebury named Bob Smith who had recommended the property. Smith's thinking was that if they could mine 50.0 ounces underground, an open pit on what they had rejected there had to grade at least 0.30 ounces. It wasn't that difficult to figure out. The hardest thing Munk ever had to do was to raise money on it. He went door to door telling people that he had the biggest gold mine in the world. He was darn near right, but he got the boot from many offices. They had heard it all before, and anyway what did Munk know about gold? All he had done before was sell car stereos.
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