Bloomberg thinks otherwise: ( BEST-PERFORMING, WORLD) St Barbara...

Bloomberg thinks otherwise: ( BEST-PERFORMING, WORLD)

St Barbara Ltd., the best-performing gold producer in the world this year, is getting interest in the potential sale of a shuttered underground mine in Western Australia.

“We are looking at divesting King of the Hills and there is some interest,” Chief Executive Officer Bob Vassie said today by phone. “There’s still gold to recover there, it’s just how you do it. The value lies in the mining method.”

Melbourne-based St Barbara shuttered the King of the Hills mine in April. It has appeal for producers with expertise in exploring for and extracting gold held in narrow vein deposits, Vassie said.

Gold producers completed acquisitions worth $18 billion last year, the highest annual total since 2011, and are continuing to chase deals in 2015. Newmont Mining Corp. last month agreed to buy the Cripple Creek & Victor mine in Colorado from AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. for $820 million.

The King of the Hills site, discovered in 1897, has a resource of as much as 279,000 ounces of gold, St Barbara said in a filing last year. About 1.8 million ounces have been produced from open pits and an underground mine at the site, the company said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...-buyers-interested-in-its-shuttered-gold-mine