Paracatu Minas Gerais: Gold Mine Output and Facts

Paracatu is a city of 94,023 people in north-west Minas Gerais, Brazil, and it is best known for one thing: Morro do Ouro, the country’s largest open-pit gold mine, owned by Kinross Gold. The mine made 601,318 gold-equivalent ounces in 2025, about 18.7 tonnes of gold, which is roughly 23% of the 80 tonnes of gold that the USGS estimates Brazil mined in 2025 (derived: 601,318 oz x 31.1035 g per oz = 18.7 t, and 18.7 t / 80 t = 23%). The ore is very low in grade, about 0.4 grams of gold per tonne, so the operation depends on moving a huge amount of rock cheaply.

This page is written for consultants, analysts and licence owners who need the facts about Paracatu Minas Gerais in one place: the city, the mine’s output and cost per ounce, the geology, the question of diamonds, the tailings dams and the closure rules. It also has a calculator for a bulk-tonnage gold operation. Figures are dated, and each one links to the page we took it from.

Paracatu, Minas Gerais: location and population

Paracatu lies in the north-west of Minas Gerais state. The gold mine sits north of the city, nearly 230 km from Brasília, according to Mining Technology. Open-pit mining there began in 1987, and the operating company, Rio Paracatu Mineração, is a 100% subsidiary of Kinross. Kinross first bought a 49% stake in 2003 through its merger with TVX Gold. In 2006 the processing plant was expanded from 18 to 61 million tonnes of ore a year.

The 2022 census counted 94,023 people in the municipality, up from 84,718 in 2010 (an increase of 11%) and 75,216 in 2000. Of the 2022 total, 84,016 lived in the urban area. These are census counts from the Brazilian statistics institute IBGE, compiled by City Population.

Paracatu gold mine: output, grade and reserves

Kinross reported that Paracatu produced 601,318 gold-equivalent ounces in 2025, against 528,574 in 2024 (up 14%). It was the eighth year in a row above 500,000 ounces. Gold-equivalent means gold plus a small amount of silver converted to gold at set prices. Cost of sales fell from US$1,039 to US$978 per ounce sold between the two years, mainly because output rose.

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Paracatu was Kinross’s largest mine by output

Gold-equivalent production in 2025, thousand ounces, the six mines in Kinross’s results table

Production has kept rising. In the second quarter of 2026 the mine made 157,526 ounces against 149,264 a year earlier, and the six-month total was 318,109 ounces against 295,903, a rise of 7.5%. Kinross called Paracatu the highest-producing mine in its portfolio in that quarter. The company’s average realised gold price in the same quarter was US$4,483 per ounce, against US$3,284 a year before.

On reserves, Kinross said in its release on 2025 results that Paracatu added 700,000 ounces to reserves before mining depletion, through mine design changes and exploration. Kinross’s reserve statement at 31 December 2025 lists 4.84 million ounces of proven and probable reserves at Paracatu (399.6 million tonnes at 0.4 g/t) and 3.52 million ounces of measured and indicated resources. Reserves are the part of a deposit that is economic to mine under stated assumptions. Resources have a lower level of proof. Kinross’s president in Brazil told the newspaper Diário do Comércio on 10 September 2026 that the mine is now planned to end in 2034, that Kinross is studying a longer life, and that there is no guarantee it will happen. A longer life depends on the gold price, on cost control and on converting resources to reserves.

The chart below puts Paracatu next to the other mines in Kinross’s 2025 production table.

Why such low-grade ore still pays: the geology

Paracatu is a bulk-tonnage deposit. A 2020 paper by Oliver and co-authors describes it as a shallowly dipping, low-grade, vein-style orogenic gold orebody in strongly deformed carbonaceous phyllite (a dark, fine-grained, layered metamorphic rock) in the southern Brasília fold belt. The ore sits along the edge of a major thrust fault from the Brasiliano mountain-building event, about 630 million years ago. The authors say mining the low-grade resource was helped by the flat orebody and its weathering, and then by high production rates from a mineralised zone about 100 m thick. Gold and arsenic occur together with the deformed quartz-sulphide veins, which matters for the environmental questions later on this page.

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Paracatu quarterly output, five quarters

Gold-equivalent ounces produced, thousands

Grade is the amount of gold per tonne of rock, in grams per tonne (g/t). One million tonnes of ore at 0.42 g/t holds 420 kg of gold, or about 13,500 troy ounces, before losses in the plant. Recovery is the share of that gold the plant captures. Kinross’s quarterly tables show how the numbers move.

Source: Kinross second-quarter 2026 results, operating statistics for Paracatu. Kinross said the Q2 2026 cost per ounce rose against Q2 2025 because of higher royalties, fuel and labour costs, and the president told Diário do Comércio that freight, diesel and energy costs are under pressure. The same interview says Kinross spent more than US$30 million on gravity separation in the plants to raise recovery of gold that can be caught by gravity, and that sustaining spending at the mine runs between US$60 million and US$100 million a year.

The lesson for a consultant is simple. At 0.4 g/t, a 5% change in grade or recovery moves output by tens of thousands of ounces, and a small rise in diesel or power cost can erase the margin. That is why the mine publishes grade, recovery and cost every quarter.

▶ Shows how a satellite picture is turned into a tonnage and a grade, and which inputs are measured and which are assumed. · 2:54

Does Paracatu have diamond mines? What the record shows

Many pages say Paracatu is home to famous diamond mines. GIA’s review does not support that. The standard review of Brazilian diamonds, published by the Gemological Institute of America, says Minas Gerais was the world’s main supplier of gem diamonds for about 150 years, after artisanal miners found diamonds while panning for gold near Arraial do Tijuco, later called Diamantina, in the early 1700s. The review’s list of notable Brazilian stones names the Abaeté, Santo Antônio do Bonito, Bagagem, Santo Inácio and Dourados rivers in Minas Gerais. Paracatu does not appear in it. The Star of the South, a 261.4-carat stone, came from the Bagagem River in 1853.

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Brazil’s reported diamond output has fallen

Rough diamonds, thousand carats, Kimberley Process data

Brazil’s diamonds are mostly alluvial, which means they are found loose in river gravels, and are recovered by small-scale miners called garimpeiros. GIA says Brazil made less than 1% of world diamond output in 2015. The Kimberley Process, the certification scheme for rough diamonds, reports small and falling volumes: 87,857 carats in 2025, 49,808 in 2024 and 250,940 in 2018, as published in the Kimberley Process annual global summaries (also compiled by TheGlobalEconomy). Output reported through official channels is likely to understate informal mining.

The money in Paracatu is in gold, not diamonds. Brazil’s mining royalty, the CFEM, is also lower for gold than for diamonds: 1.5% for gold and 2% for diamonds, in a presentation to the Chamber of Deputies in August 2025. If you are screening ground near Paracatu for diamonds, the places to start are the river systems GIA names, not the Morro do Ouro pit.

Tailings dams and arsenic near Paracatu

Ore from Morro do Ouro is sulphide ore, and the leftover rock after gold recovery is stored behind dams. Kinross’s president told Diário do Comércio that, because the ore is very low grade and sulphide-bearing, the company considers a tailings dam the safest option for its tailings and is still studying other ways to store them. Kinross has two dams at Paracatu, Santo Antônio and Eustáquio, both built by the centreline method. Eustáquio is getting its final raise. The company plans to start de-characterising Santo Antônio, meaning removing its dam function, in 2028 and Eustáquio in 2033. A longer mine life, the executive said, is linked to having dam capacity.

Arsenic is the second issue. Because gold in the ore occurs with arsenic minerals, soils around the mine have been studied. A 2014 Goldschmidt conference abstract by researchers from Fluminense Federal University, the Brazilian mineral technology centre CETEM and Hamburg University of Technology tested three contaminated soils near the mine. It found that arsenic was mostly bound to iron oxides, in a form less available to move into water, and that leaching tests showed arsenic being retained. The authors said further studies were under way, so treat this as one early result, not a clearance of any site.

Mine closure and land restoration rules in Brazil

Restoration is planned, not improvised. In Brazil the National Mining Agency (ANM) issued Resolution 68 on 4 May 2021, which sets out how a mine closure plan is prepared and carried out. It replaced the older mining regulation standards 20.4 and 20.5 and took effect on 1 June 2021, as summarised by the law firm Demarest. Check the ANM site for later amendments before you rely on it for a project.

At Paracatu, Kinross said in its second-quarter 2026 report that it continued work to protect the Cerrado biome (the savanna-type vegetation of central Brazil) and spring-protection programmes near the mine. The plan for the two tailings dams, above, is part of the same closure picture. The video below explains the main environmental impacts of mining and how they are managed.

▶ Explains the seven environmental impacts of mining in plain words, with satellite maps. · 2:31

Costs and royalties: a Paracatu-style calculator

Use the calculator below to test how a bulk-tonnage gold operation responds to grade, recovery and price. Enter your own ore rate and costs. The defaults are round examples that sit near the scale of Paracatu, not Kinross’s actual figures, and the price is an example you should replace with today’s price. The royalty line applies the 1.5% CFEM rate for gold to gross revenue as a simplification; the legal base is set in Brazilian law, so confirm it with the ANM.

How satellite screening fits around Paracatu

Satellite images do not see gold at 0.4 g/t. They can map the rock alteration, structure and surface changes that point to where to look, and they can track land disturbance around a pit, dam or rehabilitation site over time. For a licence holder in the Paracatu belt, a screen before fieldwork helps decide where to put soil lines and drill holes. Farmonaut turns a licence boundary into a satellite-based mineral and land screen in 5 to 20 business days, from a KML, KMZ or polygon file. Results are exploration targets, not a resource estimate, and they are not an environmental clearance. See our guide to satellite-based mineral detection, send the boundary through the mining query form, or contact us.

For wider context, see our guides to finding gold deposits, gold exploration in Guyana and which countries are richest in minerals.

▶ A short look at Farmonaut Mining Pro, which turns a licence boundary into a geological and economic picture. · 4:56

Related reading on this site: Pueblo Viejo Mine, Dominican Republic: Facts and Output.

We cover a connected topic in Diamond Mines in the Northern Cape: Kareevlei, Finsch.

Frequently asked questions

Where is Paracatu, Minas Gerais?

Paracatu is in the north-west of Minas Gerais state, Brazil. The gold mine is north of the city and nearly 230 km from Brasília (Mining Technology).

What is the population of Paracatu?

The 2022 census counted 94,023 people in the municipality, 84,016 of them in the urban area (IBGE census data, compiled by City Population).

Who owns the Paracatu gold mine?

Kinross Gold owns it through a 100% subsidiary. Kinross took a 49% stake in 2003 and operates the mine under the name Morro do Ouro.

How much gold does Paracatu produce?

Kinross reported 601,318 gold-equivalent ounces in 2025, up from 528,574 in 2024. In the second quarter of 2026 it reported 157,526 ounces.

What is the gold grade at Paracatu?

Mill grade was between 0.39 and 0.45 g/t in the five quarters from Q2 2025 to Q2 2026, according to Kinross’s quarterly tables. The company’s Brazil president described the grade as 0.4 g/t.

How long will the Paracatu mine operate?

The current plan ends in 2034. Kinross is studying a longer life but says there is no guarantee (Diário do Comércio, 10 September 2026).

Does Paracatu have diamond mines?

Paracatu is a gold mining district; GIA’s list of notable Brazilian diamonds does not name it. The main historic diamond areas of Minas Gerais are around Diamantina and along rivers such as the Abaeté and Bagagem (GIA).

How much diamond does Brazil produce?

The Kimberley Process data compiled by TheGlobalEconomy shows 87,857 carats in 2025 and 49,808 in 2024. Informal mining is likely to be undercounted.

What royalty does gold pay in Brazil?

The CFEM rate for gold is 1.5% and for diamonds 2%, according to an August 2025 presentation to the Chamber of Deputies.

What happens to the tailings dams when the mine closes?

Kinross plans to start de-characterising the Santo Antônio dam in 2028 and the Eustáquio dam in 2033, as the company’s Brazil president told Diário do Comércio.

Can satellite data help with exploration near Paracatu?

It can map alteration and structure to rank ground before fieldwork, and it can monitor land change around pits and dams. It does not replace drilling or a resource estimate.