Rod Griffith's line of work is not for the faint-hearted, with long hours, tough conditions and a remote location.
He is a veteran miner and runs the daily operations at the Tomingley gold mine in Central West New South Wales.
Terraces of sunburnt earth descend towards a yawning pit — this is an open cut mine.
"You can see the different rock types there. The browner material is more of your sedimentary type rocks.
"The greyer materials are your fresher type rocks," he told The Business, standing on the verge of the open cut mine.
"The gold mineralisation is in both types. Predominantly in the fresher rock, you get the higher-grade material."
Alkane started this mine in 2014 and has now extended to underground areas hundreds of metres below the surface.
Gold beneath the red dust here is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. But retrieving it is no small feat.
Up to 50 miners work underground seven days a week, 24 hours a day, drilling into the rocks and using trucks to transport the ore to the crusher, before it's filtered through the processing plant.
Each truck can carry about 50 tonnes of ore, but only about 3 grams (or 0.1 ounces) of gold can be extracted.
The miner aims to produce up to 80,000 ounces of gold this financial year, and more than 100,000 ounces from 2027, to take advantage of record-high gold prices.
"After three decades, mate, this is the best time to be a gold miner," Mr Griffith said.
"I wouldn't say relaxing, but it's definitely a pleasure to work in the gold industry at this point."
Record high prices attract investment
The spot prices of gold have never been higher, topping $5,000 an ounce for the first time last week.
It has pulled back from recent highs as the tariff-induced turmoil rocked global markets in recent days.
While investors typically flock to gold as a safe haven in times of trouble, investors have been liquidating gold holdings in recent days, to free up cash to meet margin calls (that is, front up extra cash to cover potential losses).
Despite the move lower, the spot price is still trading above the $US3,000 mark.
Analysts have been scrambling to upgrade their forecasts as gold prices continue to smash expectations.
Citibank forecasts that gold could reach $US3,600 an ounce by the December quarter.
The high price of gold has boosted the bottom line for the miners.
"When we started with Alkane in 2014, producing an ounce of gold for about $800, the gold price was about double that," Mr Griffith said.
"Now we're producing an ounce of gold for $2,200 or thereabouts, and the price is probably $4,800, so the margins are great."
He said there has been more investment and many miners, like Alkane, are expanding because of improved profitability.
"They've got the ability now to go into areas that were sub-economic previously… and some people are starting brand new mines," he said.
"It probably is an unprecedented gold boom."
Australia has one of the largest underground gold reserves in the world.
Last year, the nation mined and refined nearly 300 tonnes of gold, worth about $34 billion, making it the fifth-most valuable export.
And most of that gold is produced out of Western Australia.
The industry there achieved its best single year of exports, worth $25 billion, in the 2024 financial year, and paid the WA government nearly $500 million in royalties.
"The high price environment has driven interest in the development of gold projects in WA, with $2.9 billion of projects committed or under construction as of September 2024," Rebecca Tomkinson, the chief executive of the Chamber of Minerals and Energy WA, told The Business.
Challenges ahead in new boom
Ms Tomkinson said while there's renewed interest in developing new projects, exploration expenditure fell to $884 million last financial year — the lowest level in five years.
"[That] may reflect rising costs for prospectors and a preference for unlocking known gold deposits that may have been regarded as unviable at lower price points," she said.
Rising costs, including labour and energy, and the depletion of existing deposits have stifled the gold production in WA.
"Despite gold's elevated value, production in Western Australia has remained relatively stable over the past decade at between 190 and 210 tonnes," she said.
"WA possesses the world's second-largest known gold reserves after Russia and could support higher levels of production — the key is putting in place measures that allow industry to develop them."
The lobby group has called for supportive government settings and policies, which include accelerating the energy transition with a focus on lowering costs, speeding up project assessments, winding back recent industrial relations changes and providing certainty over future environmental reforms.
Mining analysts say shares of many ASX-listed gold mining companies have risen significantly this year, but with a caveat.
"The market is sceptical that this melt up in prices is sustainable, and even if it was, the miners may defray the uplift through higher costs," Barrenjoey's Metals and Mining analyst Daniel Morgan told The Business.
"Those names that can hold cost inflation and resist low returning capital allocation will be further rewarded."
Mr Morgan also warned that the industry should focus on cashflow and returns, rather than ounces produced.
"The gold industry has a poor track record of capital allocation in general terms over past cycles," he said.
"A lot of optimistic geologists, engineers and entrepreneurs want to grow their business.
"We are likely to see a return to poor cycle behaviour where large projects, with poor returns or mergers and acquisitions with questionable returns from many."
Gold has traditionally performed well in times of uncertainty, as it's seen as a hedge against inflation.
And with Donald Trump's trade war in full swing and other global tensions, gold is tipped to become even more valuable.
"Tariffs at face value will raise global inflation, which is positive for gold prices," Mr Morgan said.
Back at the mine in Tomingley, Mr Griffith believes the industry has a good future.
"I struggle to think that tariffs will have any impact on gold that we sell from Australia. There are plenty of other buyers other than America," he said.
"I think it's rosy and I think there's plenty of gold mining into the future … it's a metal used in industrial, commercial, in jewellery and whatnot.
"It's not going anywhere, people rely on gold."
