See Newmont's CEO comments on climate change and his views on how it will affect the gold mining sector.

RSK, Jamie, and the BoD brain trust, wake the up - this should show the team that the comments in the annual report are unnecessary and potentially even damaging to our interests in the long run (certainly wouldn't bode well in the face of industry leaders). Does RSK want to depress our valuation or potentially push investors away just for the sake of making 'contrarian' comments....? Let's maybe save the venting for the annual address to the Australian Flora Foundation.

https://www.ft.com/content/85e87ae5-9699-4134-bbf5-c1e15e16215a

Newmont chief says climate change will drive gold miner consolidation

The head of Newmont Corporation, the world’s biggest gold producer, has said the
costs of cutting emissions and going green will drive a further wave of
consolidation in the industry.

Tom Palmer, chief executive of the only gold miner in the S&P 500 index, said the
investments needed to reduce emissions — from electric trucks to renewable
energy — required scale and long-life mines.

“One of the challenges for the gold industry is the number of gold companies,”
Palmer told the FT Mining Summit. He noted that there were significantly more
gold companies than in other mining sectors. “So I think the industry needs to
consolidate and I think the catalyst will be climate change.”

The comments come as gold executives predict a growing wave of consolidation in
the sector after last month’s “merger of equals” between Canada’s Kirkland Lake
Gold and Agnico Eagle Mines.

The gold industry is fragmented among hundreds of medium-sized and smaller
companies, many of which mine just one asset, all competing for the attention of
investors.

Yet that constrains their ability to meet climate change targets and reduces their
attractiveness to mainstream investors, who are increasingly focused on
environmental, social and governance metrics.

“In order to . . . deliver on 2030 targets and net zero aspirations by 2050, you are
going to need to have [mine] life and scale,” Palmer said.

“That will be a key contributing factor to more generalist investors coming into
gold equities because they can see long-life businesses that are being well managed
and are part of the solution to the climate challenge,” he said.

Last November, Newmont committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by
30 per cent by 2030, and said it wanted to achieve net zero carbon emissions by midcentury.
The miner said it would spend $500m between now and 2025 on projects that reduced
emissions. Newmont also said it would cut its Scope 3 emissions — those from its suppliers and
joint venture partners — by 30 per cent by 2030.

Newmont has switched to electric trucks at its Borden underground mine in Canada, and
solar power at its gold mine in Ghana. Palmer said the costs of electric trucks would only
be reduced by the use of them at scale across its mining operations.

Last week, gold companies including Newmont, Newcrest, AngloGold Ashanti,
Barrick Gold and Gold Fields all committed to achieve net zero emissions by 2050,
under an initiative co-ordinated by the International Council on Mining and
Metals, an industry body.

Mining companies that did not make the investments to reduce their emissions
and align themselves with the goals of reducing climate change faced an
“existential threat”, Palmer said.

“I don’t think they will be around in decades’ time because the world is going to
need businesses across the board and mining companies included to find those
pathways,” he said.

11/10/2021, 22:29 Newmont chief says climate change will drive gold miner consolidation | Financial Times
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