4th Mar 2014 09:27
LONDON (Alliance News) - Randgold Resources Ltd Tuesday said opportunities outweigh challenges for gold miners in Africa as emerging-market central banks buy the precious metal and new production is limited.
The major mining company's Chief Executive Mark Bristow said at a convention in Toronto that supply is tight and production costs are high for gold miners, but that depletion of traditional gold mining regions and the opening of highly prospective African regions has meant the continent is a very good place to operate.
The FTSE 100 company is focused entirely on African assets.
"If you want to hunt elephants you have to go to elephant country, and if you want to find world-class gold deposits, Africa is a very good place to look. West and Central Africa now rank high among the world's premier gold destinations," Bristow said.
Bristow cautioned prospective investors that they should focus on social licences to do business in Africa and urged junior miners to continue to focus on exploration rather than developing marginal assets.
"It would be better for the gold mining industry and for African mining countries, he said, if the juniors stopped trying to be developers of marginal assets and reverted to being explorers and entrepreneurs with a focus on finding world class deposits," Bristow said.
Randgold shares, which jumped on Monday with the rising price of gold, were off 1.0% to 4,906.00 pence in early trading Tuesday.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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