The Live Wire



Press Release

Rio Tinto completes sale of Cortez Gold Mine interest

5 March 2008

Rio Tinto subsidiary Kennecott Explorations (Australia) Ltd has completed the sale of its 40 per cent interest in the Cortez gold mine in Nevada, USA to a subsidiary of its joint venture partner, Barrick Gold Corporation, giving Barrick 100 per cent ownership.

The sale price includes a cash consideration of US$1.695 billion. In addition, Rio Tinto will benefit from a deferred bonus payment in the event of a significant discovery of additional reserves and resources at the Cortez gold mine and will also retain a contingent royalty interest in the future production of the property.

The transaction, which was announced on 21 February 2008, is part of Rio Tinto’s planned programme to divest at least US$15 billion of assets. Rio Tinto has also announced the sale of Greens Creek silver, gold, zinc and lead mine in Alaska for US$750 million, meaning the Group is on track to achieve almost one quarter of its target of realising asset sales of US$10 billion in 2008.

In November 2007, Rio Tinto announced the results of its overall strategic review of the Group’s asset portfolio following its acquisition of Alcan. Options are also being explored to divest Rio Tinto Energy America (coal), Rio Tinto Minerals’ talc business and borates business, Rio Tinto Alcan Packaging, Rio Tinto Alcan Engineered Products, Rio Tinto’s interest in the Northparkes copper mine in Australia and Rio Tinto’s Sweetwater (USA) and Kintyre (Australia) uranium assets.



Press releases, papers and documents published on this page are the intellectual property of an organisation unrelated to Central Lobby. We promote their parliamentary and political campaigning activities as they are subscribers to the Central Lobby service.

As such, Central Lobby does not edit, endorse, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases and other such types of content are the responsibility of the originating organisation.

More from Dods

© Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd