Russia's gold industry lobby cut on Monday its forecast for output this year to 175 tonnes from a previous forecast of 183 tonnes, and from 180.5 tonnes produced in 2004.
"The reserves at some deposits had proved to be lower than expected, while at others ... companies had to switch to processing ores with different quality," Valery Braiko, head of the lobby, the Russian Gold Industrialists Union, told Reuters.
The union said in a statement gold output had declined by 6.8 percent to 144.37 tonnes in the first 10 months of 2005 against 154.92 tonnes in the same period last year.
The statement said output of gold from mines fell by 5.2 percent to 131.19 tonnes in January-October versus 138.44 tonnes in the same period of 2004. Gold output as a by-product of other metals rose by 3.1 percent to 9.08 tonnes from 8.81 tonnes, while refining of the metal from scrap fell by 46.6 percent to 4.1 tonnes from 7.68 tonnes a year ago.