When I visited South Africa in 1979, it was the world’s largest gold producer, mining some 1,000 tons a year. Today South Africa is not even in the top 10 gold producing countries.
Between 2010 and 2018, the world’s gold production grew by 2.5%. However, over the last two years, production has fallen by 4.78%. Some analysts say this decline is because of the pandemic.
Yet, there is speculation that all the large, easy to find deposits have been found as major gold mining companies have cut their exploration budgets.
For more details on world gold production, see World Gold Production.
I watched a Discovery channel show about a mine in Nevada where the gold was deposited in such small particles that it took a scanning electron microscope to see them. High tech indeed is the process by which it is extracted.
High gold prices allow the mine to operate; high inflation might screw that all up.
Higher inflation will cause the price of gold to go still higher.