KALGOORLIE (miningweekly.com) – Gold miner Alacer Gold on Monday reported that it would look to place its Australian operations on care and maintenance if a buyer could not be secured.

In June, the dual-listed Alacer announced that it would sell its Australian assets, enabling the company to focus on its high-value Turkish assets.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Diggers and Dealers conference, Alacer president and CEO David Quinlivan told Mining Weekly Online that the company had conducted a significant amount of valuation work ahead of the sales decision, which was prompted by a widespread view that the Australian assets were dragging down the performance of the Turkish assets.

Quinlivan said that, to date, the company had received significant interest in its Australian assets, and was hoping to secure indicative bids within the next month.

He noted that the value of the offers would determine if Alacer decided to proceed with the sales process, or if the company would look to continue mining the Australian assets.

“We have a production plan set out for the next 12 months, that would see us run the production of the Australian operations until June 2014, and pretty much anything after that would depend on where the gold price is and what goes on in the gold space over this 12-month period,” Quinlivan said.

He said the company still had significant reserves at its Higginsville mine, but added that development of these reserves would depend on the capital requirements to develop these reserves, and their financial return.

“We are in a lucky position where we don’t have to sell,” Quinlivan said.

“We believe the operating plan that we have can generate a significant amount of free cash flow for the company over the course of the next 12 months, and these are the numbers that can show our potential bidders where we are looking for an offer price.”

The Australian assets were expected to deliver a combined production of between 168 000 oz and 187 000 oz for the full year, at an operating cost of between $995/oz and $1 100/oz.