12 July 2024
The Australian - Telfer for Sale: ASX juniors could play a role in the consolidation of a legendary WA gold field
- Newmont is selling Telfer and its stake in Havieron after taking over Newcrest Mining in a US$15bn deal last year
- That means the M&A potential of the Paterson Province in WA's East Pilbara has been blown wide open
- Newmont-backed Antipa Minerals is one of the biggest resource holders across the district, holding the 1.8Moz Minyari Dome project and JVs with Rio, Newmont and IGO
The US$15 billion dollar takeover of Aussie gold icon Newcrest Mining by the world's biggest producer, Denver based Newmont Corporation (ASX:NEM), has seen the historic Telfer gold mine and a majority stake in the adjoining Havieron discovery hit the auction block.
Considered non-core by the near 7Mozpa gold producer, it promises to be the biggest restructure of one of Australia's most significant gold fields in decades.
Operating since the 1970s, Telfer is the crown jewel of the Paterson province on the eastern edge of the legendary Pilbara mining district.
But it has been crying out for a major discovery to extend its life and keep the ~400,000ozpa gold mine and copper producer operating in full flight.
The first step to rejuvenating the 32Moz Telfer has been uncovered in the form of the 7Moz inventory at the 70:30 Newmont/Greatland Gold Havieron JV.
But with the underground development only likely to fill a portion of Telfer's enormous processing plant and a number of challenges around tailings management at the Telfer mine itself, a premium will be placed on additional discoveries made in the surrounding region.
Newmont sale shakes up Paterson
Back in February, Newmont put Telfer and its Havieron stake in the shop window.
This wasn’t exactly a surprise, as the miner flagged the Newcrest takeover would require divestments to the tune of US$2 billion, and its higher cost WA assets were understandably “non-core”.
The miner has also had to halt production while it fixes tailings issues and rumours are a restart won’t be on the cards until Q3 this year.
London-listed Greatland Gold, the minority at the higher grade Havieron, is an obvious buyer.
“Overall, we are confident there is currently significant option value in Greatland with Newmont’s 70 per cent interest in Havieron considered non-core and our existing last right of refusal on any sale,” Greatland MD Shaun Day said on April 30.
“If an opportunity to consolidate ownership of Havieron were to arise we would be highly focused on delivering an accretive outcome for our existing shareholders with a view to delivering a world-class Australian gold-copper asset.”
But Newmont is not entirely looking to get out of the region, which also hosts Rio Tinto's 7.9Moz Winu discovery.
It opted to top up and maintain its 8.6% stake in Antipa Minerals (ASX:AZY) last week, which suggests that it will be keeping an eye on developments in the region and has high hopes for Antipa's potential to make a game-changing discovery.
Couple that with Telfer’s strategic importance in the Paterson district and proximity to Havieron, and juniors who can make discoveries around the gold and copper mining hub are likely to have plenty of eyes on them.
Paterson's growth potential
Antipa has been exploring around the region for more than a decade, creating partnerships with mid and top tier miners interested in the Paterson.
It’s currently concentrating efforts towards its flagship 1.8Moz Minyari Dome project, and holds 5100km2 of ground in the middle of the fertile province.
Its farm-in and JV agreements include:
- Paterson, where IGO (ASX:IGO) will spend $30m for a 70% interest (over $7m spent to-date)
- Wilki, with Newmont to spend $60m for a 75% interest (over $10m spent to-date); and
- Citadel JV with Rio Tinto (ASX:RIO) (Antipa 32%)
Could Antipa help fill the hungry Telfer mill, or find something strong enough to stand alone as the focus shifts to Havieron?
To get the lowdown on what's happening in the district, Stockhead got in touch with Antipa MD Roger Mason for his thoughts on the seismic shift that will come with the sale of Telfer, which has been in the Newmont/Newcrest stable since operations began in 1977.
"It's pretty interesting in terms of the overall size of the region," Mason says.
"With the sale of Telfer and Havieron, if you think about it, there's the potential for a once-in-a-generation, provincial-scale opportunity by a new owner to come in and acquire Telfer and its 22Mtpa processing facility and look out towards other deposits such as Winu, Havieron and others."
That opens the door, potentially, for a single company to enact a district scale consolidation play in the vein of Genesis Minerals (ASX: GMD) approach in Leonora and Northern Star Resources (ASX:NST) cornering of Kalgoorlie.
"The potential is huge. Between Rio, Newmont, Antipa and Greatland there's roughly 20Moz of gold and 3.7Mt of copper in a ready to develop state and very well primed for consolidation," Mason said.
"And the province is pretty immature from an exploration perspective too. Most of the surveying and initial groundwork across the region was done decades ago.
"So the overarching M&A noise is there and our strategy is to add as much value to our projects in as short a time as possible."
Proving up Minyari
Phase 1 drilling has been completed at the flagship Minyari Dome project and a $6.75m cap raise in June is being injected straight into Phase 2 in a plan to grow resources and update mining studies.
That raising not only sparked Newmont's decision to top up and maintain its 8.6% stake, but also brought influential junior resources investors Lion Selection Group (ASX:LSX) on board by cornerstoning with a $2m investment.
The resource currently stands at 1.8Moz gold, 64,300t copper, 584,000oz silver and 11,100t of cobalt.
“The economic outcomes of our scoping study in 2022 were credible enough, however we thought we could gain more value and push it out to a 10+ year project life,” Mason says.
“We’re looking to revisit that in August, and we can leverage off the new gold price.
"Our previous study for Minyari Dome was $2430/oz, so with upgrading that and our resource those two factors should materially shift our project life and economics by quite some distance.”
Mason is also excited about GEO-01, a prospect to the south of the main 1.5Moz Minyari orebody which delivered high-grade hits near surface earlier this week, including a strike of 35m at 3g/t from just 20m downhole.
AZY is also awaiting assays from diamond holes drilled at its Pacman targets as it works towards a resource update.
“We are advancing work streams designed to deliver a GEO-1 maiden resource and an update to the existing Minyari resource, both scheduled for July, while we prepare for the upcoming CY2024 Phase 2 drilling program to commence later this year,” Mason said.
Who else is kicking about in Paterson?
A number of juniors are scoping out resources across the Paterson Orogen, notably St George Mining (ASX:SGQ) and SIPA Resources (ASX:SRI), who have staked tenure to the north of Telfer.
The latter, which recently appointed former NTM Gold boss Andrew Muir as its MD, previously had a similar approach to Antipa, benefitting from $6m spent on exploration by Rio during a farm-in that lasted from 2020 to earlier this year.
St George's Paterson ground is located north of Winu and surrounded by a massive swag of ground, curiously, held by Andrew Forrest's Fortescue (ASX:FMG).
It's known FMG, a near 200Mtpa iron ore exporter worth $68 billion, has been keen on diversifying into copper if it can make a discovery, with exploration programs in South Australia and South America seeking the metal.
FMG also has an intriguing link to Greatland, with Forrest's private Wyloo pumping $120m into the Havieron owner in 2022 and longtime Twiggy lieutenants Mark Barnaba and Elizabeth Gaines on its board.
To the west of the region is the historical Nifty copper mine, which has been in care and maintenance since 2019.
Once held by Metals X (ASX:MLX), Nifty is now in the hands of Cyprium Metals (ASX:CYM), which bought the mine for $60m.
It wants to redevelop the underground mine as an open pit operation near surface at a cost of $175m according to a recent scoping study.
Then there’s Venus Metals (ASX:VMC), which was recently granted the Copper Hills exploration licence in the underexplored southeast of the Paterson Orogen, to the south of Cameco's Kintyre uranium deposit.
By CAMERON DRUMMOND
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