Newcrest commences trading on TSX

By Cepi Setiadi

Australia-listed miner Newcrest Mining Limited said that the company has commenced trading its shares on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) following a listing ceremony in Toronto, Thursday morning Toronto time. The Company said that it has satisfied all conditions necessary for a secondary listing on TSX. Macquire Capital Markets Canada Ltd and Torys LLP acted as advisers to Newcrest's TSX listing application.

Newcrest CEO, Greg Robinson said a secondary listing offers Newcrest greater exposure to the global investment community and an opportunity to attract a new group of investors. ''The TSX is one of the most active markets in the world for resource companies and particularly for gold producers,'' added Robinson in its announcement to ASX on Friday morning.

Newcrest will be the 17th largest company listed on the TSX by market capitalisation and the 4th largest mining company on the exchange. In conjunction with the listing, Newcrest's Head of Investor Relations, Steve Warner, is relocating to North America to improve access for the North American and European investment community. While Kim Kerr, based in Melbourne, will lead Newcrest's investor relations activities in Australia, Asia and the Pacific.

Newcrest's ordinary shares are listed on the TSX under symbol NM. There is no equity offering associated with this listing as the Company's strong balance sheet and operating cash flow mean that Newcrest is well positioned to fund future growth projects internally.

Newcrest is Australia's largest gold producer and one of the world's top 10 gold mining companies by production, reserves and market capitalization. Newcrest has a portfolio of predominantly low cost, long life operating mines, a strong pipeline of growth projects and highly prospective brown and green field exploration projects. The company has a substantial reserve and resource base with current gold reserves representing more than 25 years of future production. As at 30 June 2011, it had gold reserves of 80.0 Moz and copper reserves of 8.36 Mt and gold resources of 147.5 Moz and copper resources of 19.9 Mt.

Newcrest's asset portfolio includes eight operating mines using a variety of efficient predominantly low cost bulk mining methods for large ore bodies together with selective underground mining methods to optimize high-grade epithermal deposits. Gosowong Mine project in Halmahera, North Maluku Indonesia is one of the portfolio of Newcrest. Over 5 million ounces of gold have been discovered in the Gosowong world class epithermal field.

Future exploration is focused on discovering extensions to the existing Kencana deposit, testing known fertile structures around the Toguraci area that was previously mined as an open pit and regional exploration in the 30,000 hectare contract of work. Kencana is owned and operated by PT Nusa Halmahera Minerals, an incorporated joint venture between Newcrest (82.5%) and PT Aneka Tambang (17.5%).For the financial year ended 30 June 2011, Newcrest produced 2.7 million ounces of gold at a cash cost of A$493 per ounce and 75.6 kilo tons of copper. For 2011-12, Newcrest is targeting gold production of 2.775 - 2.925 million ounces and copper production of 75 - 85 thousand tons.

Editing by David Mustakim