Newmont bids for Las Bambas to beef up copper assets – CEO Goldberg – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – October 1, 2013)

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Newmont, which began as a copper-gold miner in the early 1900s, is seeking to increase its copper mining operations as “pure gold plays” appear to be losing favor with investors.

RENO (MINEWEB) – In seeking to increase its copper holdings, Newmont Mining is apparently returning to its historic copper roots under the leadership of new CEO Gary Goldberg, a former copper mining executive for Kennecott Utah and Rio Tinto.

In an interview with the Financial Times published Monday, Goldberg said the company had expressed interest in the hotly sought after Las Bambas copper project in Peru. Mineweb was told of Newmont’s potential Las Bambas acquisition by a former top Newmont executive at last week’s Denver Gold Forum in Denver.

Newmont Founder, William Boyce Thompson, accumulated a large fortune by buying undervalued copper and gold claims through Newmont Mining. By the 1940s Newmont would become one of the world’s largest copper producers, eventually becoming a major shareholder in Magma Copper, which would be acquired by Australian uber miner BHP in the mid-1990s. By the 1960s, the company’s Carlin Trend discovered in northeastern Nevada would issue a new era for Newmont as a gold producer.

In the 1980s Newmont was targeted by hostile takeover bids including various corporate raiders including oilman T. Boone Pickens and Sir James Goldsmith. The resulting debt from successfully fighting off the bids would force Newmont to sell its non-gold assets and concentrate on being mostly a pure gold producer.

By 2002, Newmont became the world’s largest gold producer, a position it held till 2006. The company has continued to mine small quantities of gold from the copper concentrate produced by its Batu Hijau joint venture with Sumitomo in Indonesia.

The company also mines copper and gold from its Phoenix operation near Battle Mountain, Nevada. Gold is often found with copper, but many gold miners have resisted diversifying into copper mining since investors seem to more highly value pure gold producers.

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