Current Status of Research on Soviet Gold Production

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP70T00666R000100070023-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: T
• Document Page Count: 8
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 22, 2001
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: January 14, 1958
• Content Type: MF

NSA Declassification/Release Instructions on File
THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS CODE WORD MATERIAL
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14 January 1958
MEMORANDUM FOR: Assistant Director/RR V z/"
THROUGH: Chief, Economic Research
THROUGH: Chief, Services Divisions
FROM: Chief,-Trade Branch
SUBJECT: Current Status of Research on Soviet Gold Production
1. The major ORR effort to determine the level of Soviet gold
production was made in 1954 and 1955 and resulted in the publication of
CIA/SC/RR 121, Soviet Gold Production, Reserves, and Exports through
195 4., 17 October 1955. Since that time, new material has merely been
scanned to see if it made a significant contribution to the problem.
Recent indications, however, that the Secretary of State and Director
of Central Intelligence were interested in Soviet gold production led
us to survey the post-1955 material in order to judge whether it
necessitated a revision of our estimates of Soviet gold production.
2. The attached paper summarizes some of the more significant new
material as well as our current thinking on the gold data.
In general, this material not only confirms but greatly strengthens the
general magnitude of the earlier estimates. The new data, for example,
for the first time, provides production plans in terms of volume, for
both Dal'stroy and Glavzoloto. Earlier estimates depended on indirect
and complicated methodologies. The new data allow estimates for 1957
which are well within the margin of error on the earlier estimates but 25X1C8a
are based on different and much more direct methodologies.
25X1D1a 3. Until the fall of 1956, the estimate of current 25X1D1a
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out three times as large as the ORB
estimate. At that time, following the receipt of some of the new NSA 25X3
the responsible ORR analyst went for
r.eicnvwl.eagea zna-r, is own es-szmates or ov].em go.ia proauction were Zoo
25X1C8a
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high and accepted the ORR methodology used in SC/RR 121 for estimating
Soviet gold production as a valid one. It is not known, however,
has made a new estimate of Soviet gold production.
Enclosure:
As per paragraph 2.
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 ~Oeo/V
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Current Status of Research on Soviet Gold Production
25X1 D1 a
25X1 D1 a
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NSA 25X3
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1. ORR research in 195+ and 1955 to determine the level of Soviet
gold production resulted in the publication of CIA/SC/RR 121,
Soviet Gold Production, Reserves, and Exports through 1954, 17 October
1955. For this project it was necessary to estimate gold production by
three separate producing sectors of the Soviet gold industry:
1) Glavzoloto, the Chief Directorate of the Gold and Platinum Industry;
2 Da1'stroy, an MVD organization for exploiting the mineral resources
of the Kolyma area in Northeast Siberia; and 3) by-product gold production
by the copper, lead, and zinc industries.
Total Soviet
ga pro uc on was es ma e to nave teen 1.8 million ounces in 195..
.1rns paper reiiei neavl.Ly upon estimates oy
Kazimierz Zamorski and others of a huge gold production in the Kolyma area.
Its high estimate of Soviet gold production later received some support
from the preliminary results o
Futhermore, several proformas have indicated the size of
the Dal'stroy labor force.M had believed that the ORR estim-
ate of 100,000 gold miners in Dal'stroy in the early 1950's was
much too low and that this was a major reason for our "error in
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estimating gold production so low.
This type of proforma
is believed to include slave and free labor, and in some cases
similar proformas have indicated that the total includes
three-fourths of total planned costs in 1956 and, accordingly,
almost surely includes alave labor costs. The new data thus indicates
that ORR did not tnderestimate the size of Dal'stroy's labor force.
b. Glavzoloto.
Lena 'a
volume is not indicated but should be in the vicinity of 2 tons,
since the gold output of all trusts appears to be valued at the same
price. Thus the total planned output of these 7 trusts was about
8 tons for the quarter, or at an annual rate less than 32 tons, since
the 2nd quarter would be expected to be the second largest in the year.
The total number of gold trusts is not known, but
e xazak trusts were formerly under
avzo 0 o, u have now been decentralized. The 7 trusts mentioned
in the previous paragraph include most of the larger trusts and
would be expected to account for at least half of total gold
production by Glavzoloto and the Kazakh Ministry of non-Ferrous
Metallurgy. Total gold production by these two organizations thus
would probably be less than 64 tons, or perhaps 2 million ounces.
This compares with an ORR estimate of 2.4 million ounces annually in
the years 1949-54.
To this should be added a
production of about 2 million ounces as a by-product to the refining of
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lead, and zinc (calculated as in-CIA/SC/RR 121). Total Soviet gold
production in 1957 would thus be about 5,300,000 troy ounces, a figure
quite compatible with the 0RR estimate of 4,800,000 ounces in 1954.
4. In the meanwhile both have been unable to solve
the gold bar wMalth the rest t that the preliminary
estimates of Soviet gold bar production mentioned in paragraph 2 now
appear quite doubtful. Throughout the period from 1939 to the present,
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It should be noted that in any particular year gold refined is not
the same as gold production (at the mine). There is necessarily a time
lag between production and refining. More important, in some years
gold not of current production may represent an important part of the
total refined. For example, about 16 million ounces of the Spanish 25X1B4d
Republican gold reserves reached the USSR during the Spanish Civil War.
This gold would surely have been refined in the USSR in order to
Thus it is possible that gold produced during the
war was not refined until 1945 or later years. A high gold bar production,
accordingly, is not necessarily incompatible with a much lower gold
production in any year, particularly the early postwar years.
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