Gold mining to increase at Cadia under Newcrest sale to Newmont

Parent company Newcrest backed a $28.8 billion takeover bid from US gold giant Newmont on Monday, following weeks of negotiations.

The acquisition remains subject to regulatory approval, but would create one of the world's largest mining companies. It is not yet clear how jobs and investment in Orange will be impacted long term.

"At Cadia, we see the potential to increase average mill throughput from 33 million tonnes per year to 35 million tonnes by optimising maintenance schedules and working to debottleneck the processing circuit," Newmont CEO Tom Palmer said in a statement.

"Cadia has the potential to enhance the performance of the current equipment in the mill to push to - and possibly beyond - its nameplate capacity."

It was not immediately clear how jobs and investment in Orange will be impacted long term.

"We are continuing with business as usual at Cadia and our focus right now is on continuing to operate safely, support local jobs and partner with our local communities," a spokesperson for Newcrest told the Central Western Daily.

Denver-based Newmont Chief Operating Officer Rob Atkinson has spent several weeks in Australia for inspections as part of per-purchase research.

"Cadia is a tier one, world class operation by any measure so it is firmly entrenched in the portfolio of the combined business. Under this transaction, Newmont will own 10 tier one, world class operations and Cadia is very much one of those," Palmer said.

"The combination of four operations [in the Pacific] will leverage Newmont's existing scalable operating model in Australia to combine both company's leaders, subject matter experts, supply chains and regional infrastructure to drive best-in-class performance.

"By bringing these four operations together into a consolidated Australian portfolio, we will create unprecedented economies of scale in one of the world's most favourable mining jurisdictions creating efficiencies and value with a shared workforce, technical expertise, and large-scale supply chain optimisation."

Cadia is the sixth largest gold mine in the world, extracting about 27 tonnes every year on the outskirts of Orange. This equates to about 0.7 per cent of all global production.

The site is among the largest employers in the Orange region. Its ongoing environmental impacts have raised controversy, with dangerous dust levels continuing to be recording in surrounding areas.

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