Australia’s soon-to-be top two gold miners say they’re not interested in buying two operations predicted to be put up for sale by Newmont Corp. after its $19 billion acquisition of Newcrest Mining Ltd.
Newmont is widely expected by sector executives to sell the two Newcrest-operated mines in Western Australia when the deal is completed later this year. Telfer is too mature and Havieron is too small for the US-listed giant, Daniel Morgan, an analyst with Sydney-based investment bank Barrenjoey, said in May.
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Northern Star Resources Ltd., which will be Australia’s biggest domestic gold producer when Newcrest is absorbed into Newmont, won’t bid for those mines and will instead focus on a major expansion of existing operations, Managing Director Stuart Tonkin said in an interview at this week’s Diggers and Dealers conference in Western Australia.
“Anything that did get divested won’t necessarily meet Northern Star’s strategy,” he said, adding that Newmont was likely to retain any mines that his group would potentially be interested in.
Evolution Mining Ltd., which will be Australia’s second biggest gold miner, said it didn’t see the projects as attractive.
“We have a number of people who used to work at Newcrest who have had experience with some of these assets before, and generally their recollection of the experience wasn’t that positive,” Executive Chairman Jake Klein told media at the conference on Wednesday.
The operations may still find new homes. Greatland Gold Plc, Newcrest’s junior joint venture partner at Havieron, said on Monday it would bid for full ownership of the mine if Newmont puts it up for sale.
