NEWCREST Mining plans to slash 400 jobs from its huge Telfer gold mine in Western Australia by the end of the year in an effort to cut costs.
The move is the main focus of a cost-cutting program at the Pilbara mine and will take employee and contractor numbers down to about 1000.
It comes after US gold giant Newmont said in August that high costs had led it to review operations at the Kalgoorlie Super Pit, which is the only Australian gold mine that rivals Telfer's size.
"A reduction in numbers of about 400 people on site will be done by December," Newcrest chief executive Ian Smith said yesterday on a conference call to discus first-quarter production.
High costs at Telfer were a blip on an otherwise solid production report that included record quarterly gold production of 485,978 ounces, up 12 per cent from the previous quarter.
Telfer currently has about 1300 employees and contractors on site, with the reduction program so far dropping numbers by about 100, a spokesman said.
