Newcrest may open gold mill to juniors
Newcrest Mining could cash in on new discoveries in the Pilbara by opening its giant Telfer mill to smaller players.
Newcrest Mining managing director Sandeep Biswas says the company could cash in on new discoveries in Western Australia’s mineral exploration hot spot in the Pilbara by opening its giant Telfer mill to discoveries by smaller players.
Speaking on the sidelines of Newcrest’s annual shareholder meeting in Melbourne on Tuesday, Mr Biswas said the company was drilling as fast as it could at its Havieron project, which it is farming in from London-listed Greatland Gold, but it would take nine to 12 months before it could declare an initial resource at the promising project.
If Havieron lives up to its promise the discovery is tipped to extend the life of Newcrest’s ageing Telfer mine, which has struggled with high mining costs and falling grades as it moves towards the late stages of its life.
While a decision on whether to mine Havieron is some way away, the Newcrest boss said the company had already been approached by the group of exploration juniors that rushed into the surrounding province in 2017 amid speculation Rio Tinto’s exploration team had made a big new discovery in the region.
Rio is also still drilling out its own discovery, dubbed Winu.
But Mr Sandeep said Newcrest was planning for the possibility Telfer’s massive mill, licensed to process 24 million tonnes of ore a year and the only major plant in the remote region, could be used to treat ore discovered by smaller explorers.
“There’s a lot regional players within trucking distance of Telfer that realise that, not only is the prospectivity of the Paterson increased, but that Telfer infrastructure may be a pathway to them realising their mine quicker than they otherwise would because they don’t need to construct a concentrator — they just have to come and talk to Newcrest,” he said.
Mr Biswas played down the prospect of a deal with Rio, however, suggesting the 120km distance to the Winu discovery may put it out of trucking range.
And the Newcrest boss said the company was still confident it would win approval from the Papua New Guinea government for its giant Wafi-Golpu discovery, despite permitting problems that have pushed back the horizon on the $US2.8bn mine.
The latest delays centre around a legal fight between the PNG government and provincial authorities in Morobe over the division of expected royalties from the mine, but Mr Biswas said the new PNG government of Prime Minister James Marape had shown no sign its support for the project was wavering.
He said Newcrest had seen signs that negotiations between national and provincial authorities were progressing.
“There’s no question that we see more energy there, but until that is resolved we’re not able to sit down with the government negotiating team to take it forward,” he said.
“We’re confident it will go forward.
“The new Prime Minister, two of his stated intentions during the transition of his coming to power, was that he would get the LNG project up and running and he would get Wafi-Golpu up and running.
“We’re pretty clear that is on their agenda and the tune hasn’t changed at all.”
Newcrest shares closed up 11c to $30.66 on Tuesday.
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