Coeur Mining (NYSE: CDE) announced Friday the closing of the sale of its southern Nevada projects to a subsidiary of AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU).
Coeur's southern Nevada portfolio comprises the Sterling and Crown exploration properties, which cover 143.7 sq. km of land adjacent to AngloGold's existing gold projects in Beatty County.
The high-grade Sterling gold project hosts a past-producing open-pit and underground heap leach gold mine located in the southern portion of the land package, with major permits in place. The Crown block, which is located in the northern portion of the land package, includes four heap-leachable deposits: Daisy, Secret Pass, SNA and the recently discovered C-Horst zone.
As detailed in the news release dated September 19, Coeur would receive US$150 million cash upfront, plus additional deferred cash consideration of US$50 million should the Sterling and Crown gold resource reach more than 3.5 million ounces.
Shares of Coeur Mining shot up 8.4% following the Nevada asset sale, giving U.S.-based precious metals miner a market value of US$1.1 billion.
"The divestiture of Crown Sterling unlocks significant value for Coeur stockholders and demonstrates our ongoing commitment to allocating capital into our existing portfolio of near-term core growth projects, highlighted by the Rochester expansion in northern Nevada," said Coeur's president and CEO Mitchell Krebs at the time.
On AngloGold's side, this move increases its foothold in Nevada's Beatty district, where it earlier bought all projects held by Corvus Gold after the US$370-million acquisition of the Canadian junior.
"Following its recent acquisition of Corvus Gold, AngloGold has consolidated a significant portion of the Beatty district and is the logical operator of a future standalone mining operation in the Beatty district," Krebs noted.
Prior to this acquisition and pending permits and studies already underway, AngloGold had anticipated first production in the Beatty district by 2025, and said those assets would produce about 300,000 oz. of gold annually, with an all-in sustaining cost of less than US$1,000 per oz., by the end of the decade.