PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner Westgold Resources will acquire privately held underground mining contractor Australian Contract Mining (ACM), which is currently operational at three of the company’s underground gold mines.
ASX-listed Westgold on Thursday reported that following the successful commissioning of its fourth gold operation at the Fortnum project, in Western Australia, the company had turned its focus to lowering mining costs and increasing flexibility and efficiency at its projects.
A key driver in this process was a reduction in the contractor margin and increased flexibility in mining plans, Westgold told shareholders.
Westgold will acquire all of the shares in ACM for A$2.5-million in cash and 14-million fully paid ordinary shares.
The company would integrate ACM with its existing internal openpit mining fleet and operate as an internal diversified mining services division. ACM would service Westgold’s own operations, as well as taking on third-party contracting if the opportunity arose.
“This is a fantastic move and opportunity by the company to consolidate and focus the outputs from our operation to the common goal of increased gold production at lower cost per ounce,” said Westgold MD Peter Cook.
“Westgold has an excellent growth trajectory from our gold projects, this primarily involves the re-establishment of a number of larger underground mines to provide sustainable high grade production to our process plant.”
Meanwhile, ACM founder Brian Rodan will continue as the CEO of the wholly-owned subsidiary and will join the executive management of Westgold.