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China to Maintain Golden Focus
By Robin Bromby
The Australian, Sydney
Monday, April 9, 2012
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/china-to-maintain-golde...
It was just the tip of
the iceberg. We're talking about last week's move by Zijin
Mining Group to launch a $299 million bid for Norton Gold Fields, which
operates the Paddington goldmine near Kalgoorlie.
There was some
surprise expressed at this. While Chinese companies have been snapping up
bulk and base metals projects around the world, it was generally thought they
had little interest in picking up gold projects.
Think again. A very
reliable source close to several gold companies tells us Chinese interests
are not only taking stakes in explorers and miners, they are also buying gold
directly from producers and shipping it home.
There is much talk in
gold bug circles in the United States that the recent purchase by the Bank of
International Settlements of more than 4 tonnes of
gold may have been wholly or in part on behalf of the People's Bank of China.
Our
source is quite clear on one thing: The move on NGF is just the beginning.
China wants more gold and it doesn't want to pay full market price for it (as
it doesn't for any mineral) so it will be looking to pick up more Australian
gold producers and add the yellow metal to its existing central bank gold
pile.
Not something the
Perth Mint will be happy to hear.
Chinese interests took
control last year at Laverton-area goldminer A1 Minerals, now renamed Stone Resources after
its Hong Kong parent.
That parent took an
unsuccessful lunge also at Crescent Gold. Last year a Chinese consortium
spent $US79 million on a 17.7 per cent holding in Gold One International.
Chinese interests
spent $80 million to buy the controlling stake in Australian-owned Zara gold
project in Eritrea and Yunnan Tin owns 12.3 per cent of YTC Resources, which
is developing the Hera goldmine near Cobar in New
South Wales.
And Sovereign Gold,
which featured here two weeks ago for uncovering long lost shafts on the
Rocky River-Uralla goldfield in northern NSW, has
subsequently signed up partner Jiangsu Geology & Engineering to pay $4
million to buy 30 per cent of two tenements.
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