ISA, Kagoshima Prefecture--Here, in the “town of gold,” things couldn’t be better as the price of the precious metal continues to hit new heights.

For one thing, it is helping to extend the life of Japan’s sole commercial gold mine, a pit that miners first began digging out by hand in the feudal Edo Period (1603-1867).

The ore from the Hishikari Mine here boasts some of the world’s highest gold content.

Located a 40-minute drive from Kagoshima Airport, the mine is nestled in the rural landscape of Isa and run by Sumitomo Metal Mining Co.

Shoki Aono, a company representative, explained that the gold deposits in the peaceful farming village area “lie right below where we are standing.”

Taking a van to explore the mine meant descending slowly toward the excavation site through a narrow, pitch-black tunnel measuring 4 meters by 4 meters.

In 1995, it was decided to resume full-blown mining operations after a survey by Sumitomo Metal and other entities found 170 gold-rich veins extending to a total of 120 kilometers.

Gold mines in Japan started closing for good one after another in the postwar period. The Sado mine in Niigata Prefecture, which also dates from the Edo Period and was recently awarded UNESCO World Heritage status, shut for good in 1989.

The Hishikari Mine is now Japan’s only dedicated operational gold extraction site. However, a limited volume of gold is produced at a few other locations that focus on different metals.

After driving for 20 minutes inside the mine, the dark gray rock face with white-striped veins emerged at the frontline excavation zone. The white bands are where the gold exists.

A miner busy wielding specialized heavy machinery to drill holes into the rock face completed around 50 holes in the morning.

Sticks of dynamite were inserted into the hollows in the afternoon for detonation in the evening when no one was around. A single round of blasting produces just XXX 2 meters of rock,?? XXX underscoring the painstaking process to obtain gold.

Even so, the Hishikari Mine is among the most efficient in the world. Elsewhere, the typical gold content average, or grade, per ton of gold-rich ore is 3 to 5 grams, but the figure for the Hishikari Mine is an astonishing 20 grams.

It also outshines those of rival mining companies in Japan.

Sumitomo Metal estimated that the total amount of gold ever produced at the Hishikari Mine came to a staggering 264.5 tons by 2023, compared with 80 tons from the Sado mine, the No. 2 gold producer until it closed.

The recovered rocks are brought to the surface and sorted into three size categories. Gold ore, marked by a whitish pattern, is separated from blackish stones with a lower gold content.

Gold ore is melted with copper ore at a smelting factory in Ehime Prefecture to be refined to 99.99 percent purity for use in jewelry and circuit boards for electronic devices, among other things.

Metals trader Tanaka Kikinzoku Kogyo KK noted that the gold price a few weeks ago quickly surpassed the 10,000-yen mark ($65) per gram, buoyed by uncertainties in global politics and the weakening yen. In early November, gold was trading at around 15,000 yen per gram.

The soaring value of the metal bolsters the chances of the Hishikari Mine continuing to operate for years to come. The reasoning is that Sumitomo Metal can now afford to explore even low-grade veins that entail higher excavation costs.

If only easy-to-mine, high-grade ore is extracted, all that’s left behind are low-grade veins. Once that happens, a mine becomes unprofitable and is forced to shut down even though gold is still there to be mined.

To avoid that happening, companies tend to focus on difficult-to-mine gold veins.

At its peak, the Hishikari Mine produced 8 tons of gold annually. But its output has been deliberately reduced to 4 tons.

“Our mission is to produce gold for as long as possible by carefully managing this precious resource,” Aono said.

He added that Sumitomo Metal is forging ahead with digital transformation, for example, by incorporating a Wi-Fi network into the pit.

It is also moving to automate heavy machinery for ore transportation and to cope with personnel shortages, as well as improve work efficiency.

As the Hishikari Mine is located in Isa, the city labels itself the “town of gold.”

This is partly because the municipality promotes its gold ore as a gift under the “furusato nozei” (hometown tax payment) program, which is proving to be particularly popular, even though the gold content is miniscule.

“Despite having no asset value, we have been flooded with inquiries, presumably because the high price of gold has caught people’s attention,” said a city official.