Greatland all-in on Australian gold

As Australian gold giant Newmont (ASX: NEM) turns to give full attention to its tier one assets, London-based hopeful Greatland Gold is cutting a clear path to renewing a major mining complex in WA.

With its planned acquisition of 100% of the Telfer mine and the remaining 70% of its neighbour, Havieron, for about $723m (US$475m), Greatland Gold is heading straight to the ASX. The company says it intends to establish dual listing within six months of acquisition completion.

Why is the company going all in on its Australian assets? Greatland Gold chief executive Shaun Day says it’s about getting the best of both worlds.

“We were really focused on the initial integration and installing the operating disciplines we want around, Havieron and Telfer, but equally, we think we can establish a really substantial platform,” he said.

“We expect to be a top five Australian gold producer.

“On the back of that, I think that gives us an opportunity to leverage that into becoming a multi asset, multi-billion-dollar platform.

“Although we’re listed in London, our management and our asset base is all here in Australia.

“We have a really engaged investment base that has a very good understanding of Australian gold-copper projects, but also one of the world’s great capital markets in London.

“It’s a matter of coming to the ASX and bringing additional demand and additional indexation, or passive buying for our stock to reward existing shareholders.”

Greatland Gold is confident in the strength and opportunities in Australian gold, which Mr Day says is a premium market.

“WA is typically ranked in the top five mining jurisdictions in the world, I think presently it’s ranked number one,” he said.

“That’s hugely important for us.

“What we have is this confluence of a tier one asset in terms of size, in terms of lowest quartile cash costs, but also in terms of one of the world’s best mining jurisdictions.

“Having had experience of operating mines offshore, I am delighted to be operating here in Australia.”

World class gold-copper project

According to Greatland Gold, Havieron’s 8.4moz of gold equivalent mineral resource will make it the second largest gold project in Australia, with the miner aiming to produce 258kozpa over Havieron’s multi-decade mine life.

“In our expert report, we demonstrated a 20-year mine life at lowest all in sustaining cost,” Mr Day said.

“We think that’s pretty unique to have an established 20-year mine life in an underground ore body in Australia.

“In terms of Telfer, you’ve got that existing infrastructure, initial very high confidence and 15-month mine plan.

“We feel really confident about the opportunity to extend [the mine life], but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done to demonstrate that.”

Mr Day is no stranger to revitalising Australian gold projects, as the former chief financial officer for Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST).

“I’m reminded that at Northern Star, we bought four or five assets off global majors with mine life of less than 12 months — all of those are still operating 10 years later,” Mr Day said.

Mr Day says the high gold price is hugely advantageous when considering a mine life extension.

“There hasn’t been a better time to own Telfer since 2005,” he said.

“There’s a really strong gold price, and there’s now 30mt of inventory at surface, that’s around 500,00oz.

“What that does in terms of the economics is hugely attractive, but even better than that is the operational flexibility and robustness that delivers.”

Telfer’s glowing outlook has been made possible thanks to ongoing remediation of the tailings storage facility by Newmont, which previously halted production in early 2024. The remediation is to be completed, and processing resumed as a condition precedent to the acquisition.

“Newmont determined to pause deposition into the tailings dam,” Mr Day said.

“That was a voluntary decision by Newmont that reflects the high values and standards that Newmont operates at.

“They’ve spent the last 10 months effectively studying, rebuilding and rectifying the tailings there.

“They’ve done a great job — deposition has restarted and the mill has restarted.

“What that allowed them to do is, because they continued mining, they built a stockpile, so Telfer is no longer operating hand-to-mouth.

“It has this operational buffer, which is really attractive, both from an economics and a mine planning perspective.”

In addition to being ideally located near the Havieron mine, Telfer offers opportunities which Greatland Gold is uniquely poised to leverage. Telfer is the only operating mill in the Paterson, enabling a ‘hub and spoke’ regional strategy to be pursued.

Greatland Gold plans for Havieron to become a brownfield expansion project, with ore to be processed using existing Telfer infrastructure.

“What’s really unique about the [Telfer processing plant] is the sheer amount of infrastructure at Telfer,” Mr Day said.

“[Processing] is done in two parallel 10mtpa trains, which gives flexibility, as it effectively [has] a 20mtpa processing capacity.

“This [was put in place] as a premium construction at the time, so the infrastructure we inherit there is stunning.

“What this allows us to do is turn out gold doré — which we can refine through the Perth mint — and also a copper concentrate.

“The copper concentrate has a 20-year track record of being accepted in in global markets as a really high-quality product because it doesn’t have any deleterious elements.”

Going forward

Following acquisition completion, Greatland will investigate ore extension opportunities at Telfer to extend the current mine plan and supplement Havieron ore. The company is targeting Havieron ore production in H2 2026, with first gold in H2 2027.

Mr Day says the growth options for Greatland are multifactorial.

“We are going to be updating the Telfer resource, or the JORC resource, in the March quarter of 2025; in the following quarter, June 2025, we will update the JORC reserve and potentially demonstrate that mine life extension at Telfer and additionally, we will finalise a feasibility study for Havieron, which will build on the existing 2.8mtpa for 20 years,” he said.

Telfer features several open pit and underground brownfield extension opportunities, including the West Dome open pit Stage 8 extension, the West Dome open pit Stage 7 cutback, Main Dome pit cutback opportunities and more.

“The major cutback has been undertaken on the West Dome open pit,” Mr Day said.

“There’s a donation that’s already in the existing mine plan and in addition to that, there’s the stage seven extension at the bottom of the pit and the stage eight extension on the western pit wall.

“All of those have already been fully drilled out, so we’re really optimistic that as we complete the studies on those areas, they can come into a mine plan.”

Greatland Gold’s enlarged exploration portfolio includes about 3,800km² of exploration tenure within 60km of Telfer.