$6B Worth of New Gold Reserve Found in Turkey

About 3.5 million ounces of gold that was detected in the mining field of Turkish Agricultural Credit Cooperatives’ subsidiary Gübretaş in Bilecik is estimated to be worth around $6 billion.

“We are talking about a value of about $ 6 billion when we try to put it in value at today’s prices,” said the Chairperson, Fahrettin Poyraz on Tuesday about the reserve in the Söğüt gold mine. About 1.92 million ounces of the reserved are also ready for extraction, he said.

Around 3.5 million ounces of gold that were detected in the mining field of Turkish Agricultural Credit Cooperatives’ subsidiary Gübretaş in the northwestern province of Bilecik is estimated to be worth around $6 billion (TL 46 billion), its chairperson said Tuesday.

Poyraz told Anadolu Agency (AA) that their recent report to the Borsa Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) estimated the gold reserves to be around 3.5 million ounces in the field.

Some 1.92 million ounces of the reserve are currently ready for extraction, he said.

“It is estimated that 1.6 million ounces could be converted into reserves at a rate of 83%,” he said.

The field in question was given in 2008 to be operated by the company Koza Altın but was transferred to Gübretaş in December 2019 following a lawsuit for the cancellation of the contract after the former failed to fulfill its obligation.

Poyraz recalled that Koza was seized and handed over to Turkey’s Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF) due to their links to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), which is behind the July 15, 2016, coup attempt.

“As soon as the court stages were completed, we entered into a dialogue with the TMSF and Koza and completed the entire transfer process related to the mine site,” Poyraz said.

He noted that there were drilling efforts in the past to determine the value of the gold in the site.

“Drillings continued to some extent as the court procedures continued. We also acquired technical documents and data related to drilling from Koza. We started to update the report taking into consideration the information we have taken over with an internationally accredited firm. This report was delivered to our institution as of the end of November,” Poyraz explained.

In this process, he informed that they established Gübretaş Mining A.Ş. that belongs to Gübretaş.

Poyraz stressed the Söğüt gold mine is among the important mines in the world.

He said that they have decided that they would extract the gold themselves and have set a two-year target to bring value to the economy.

“We will bring the value we get from here to Gübretaş and bring it to the Turkish agriculture and economy with renovation investments and new investments in the company’s facilities. Our technical preparations and financing work continue rapidly,” he noted.

“We aim to extract the first gold in two years and turn it into value for the Turkish economy,” Poyraz concluded.

“It is estimated that 1.6 million ounces could be converted into reserves at a rate of 83%,” said Poyraz adding, “We aim to extract the first gold in two years and turn it into value for the Turkish economy.”

And this is what the crypto community has long been talking about all along. While the digital gold, Bitcoin, has a limited 21 million BTC supply, gold reserves continue to be found, expanding its supply.

“Nobody knows the global Gold supply, Bitcoin fixes this with ABSOLUTE SCARCITY,” said BTC proponent Max Keiser.

This isn’t even the first time, back in October, a huge amount of gold reserves, $127 billion was also discovered in Russia.

As Mike Belshe, the CEO of California-based cryptocurrency firm BitGo said in his interview with Bloomberg last week, “The main thing that’s unique about Bitcoin is it’s got a level of scarcity that we really don’t have in any other market.”

When it comes to precious metals, there are also “some endeavors to mine precious metals from asteroids they fly by which could happen at some point. Mathematically bitcoin is pristine in its scarcity,” said Belshe.

Compared to bullion’s 22.33% return in 2020, BTC is up 223% YTD while trading near its all-time high of $24,300 that was set just over this past weekend.

According to Belshe, the world’s largest cryptocurrency has a “property that literally no other asset class has.” Not to mention, Bitcoin is “immune” to the “unprecedented levels” of money printing that central banks are doing around the world.