China drills a 4006.17 meter deep small diameter hole, finds 200 tons of gold.
(media.greatawakening.win)
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Well having "reserves" of anything -- gold, oil, coal, whatever -- only means that the raw material lies somewhere "down there." Economically, however, it's quite another thing to actually bring it to to surface. Known oil reserves in the US and Alaska are quite large, but at the moment, most of it is uneconomical to get to... it would cost more to drill for it and pump it than it would return in profits. Even if oil prices were double what they are now, most oil reserves will remain untapped because there would be no to little ROI (Return On Investment).
So yeah, China claiming it has "gold reserves" has no real economic meaning unless they can retrieve it.
And (as you know, I'm sure) the ECONOMIC inefficiency is only part of the problem -- the energy cost to harvest the oil is an even more important factor.
When it takes two barrels worth of energy to harvest one barrel of oil, there's not much point in continuing.