Newcrest hunting for investments, including acquisitions

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner Newcrest Mining MD Sandeep Biswas said on Tuesday that the company was hunting for new investment opportunities, but stressed that it would remain “very disciplined” in its evaluation and execution of any new opportunities.

In a copy of a speech delivered at the company’s annual general meeting, in Melbourne, he said that Newcrest was looking at a range of opportunities, from investment in exploration, early stage project entry, application of step-change technology and innovation, or through acquisitions.

“Given our existing long reserve life and low cost position, Newcrest intends to remain very disciplined in its evaluation and execution of all opportunities, with shareholder value creation being the primary objective,” Biswas said.

“And we want to be low cost. I would like the portfolio to have a lower all-in sustaining cost than what we have achieved in past years.

“This is going to take hard work, discipline and an owner’s mindset. All this is in the spirit of setting challenging aspirations to maximise the potential of our existing assets and skill sets.”

The gold miner has already identified organic growth opportunities. In October this year, Newcrest approved a A$93-million capital investment at its Telfer mine, in Western Australia, which would extend the openpit mine life by four years, until 2023.

The capital will be spent on expanding the West Dome openpit, with the ongoing access to economic grades of ore enabled by the capital investment expected to improve the mine’s narrow margins over time.

A further A$10-million will also be spent on an organic growth project at the Cadia operation, to increase processing capacity from 28-million tonnes to 30-million tonnes a year.

Newcrest announced a “transformational” A$40-million deal in June, when it agreed to invest in Australian junior SolGold, which is exploring the Cascabel project, in Ecuador.