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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LoneClone who wrote (30611)	1/23/2007 9:48:27 AM
From: LoneClone	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78418

Gold Fields Sells Avoca Stake, Focuses on China By Gareth Tredway 22 Jan 2007 at 11:02 AM EST resourceinvestor.com JOHANNESBURG (I-Net Bridge) -- Gold Fields [NYSE:GFI], the world’s number four gold producer, has sold its second junior gold holding in a month as it narrows its strategic focus and looks for large deposits in China. “It is Gold Fields taking a strategic look at its own portfolio,” said Willie Jacobsz, a spokesman for the company. “It is positive for us and for them [Avoca].” The sale of the 13.3% stake for A$26.2 million (US$20.6 million) in cash to Pala Investments, is Gold Fields’s second junior stake disposal in a month, following the sale of its holding in Comaplex [TSX:CMF] on December 27 to Troy Resources [ASX:TRY] for a cash payment of C$16.3 million and 3.25 million shares. Avoca owns the Higginsville Gold Project in Western Australia. Since its discovery in late 2004, the Trident Gold Deposit within the project area has increased to a total resource base of 797,000 ounces, according to a company statement. John Munro, head of new business development at Gold Fields, says his company made sure that the shares were placed with good strategic partners and that Gold Fields had taken time to carefully choose the new investors. In the announcement on Monday, Jan Castro, Managing Director Pala Investments, said that his group “looks forward to providing additional capital to the company for the development of Higginsville.” In late November, Gold Fields announced an additional share purchase and strategic partnership with Chinese gold company, Sino Gold [ASX:SGX]. According to that announcement, Gold Fields purchased increased its stake in Sino to 17.4% for about 260 million rand and also integrated its own exploration activities in China with Sino’s. Munro says part of the funds from the recent Avoca sale will be redeployed to China. He says that by placing all of the company’s China expertise into the Sino partnership, it “narrows the strategic focus” as the company searches the largely unexplored country for large, Gold Fields-type deposits. These deposits would need to comply with the Gold Fields’ benchmark "rule of fives" criteria, according to the original announcement. In other words they would need to contain resources of at least five million ounces of gold and production capacity of 500,000 ounces of gold per year. Other investments in Gold Fields’s investment portfolio include a small stake in its empowerment partner, Mvelaphanda Resources [JSE:MVL] and a stake in Aflease Gold [JSE:AFL], following a land sale a few years back. Last week Gold Fields announced that it had just about completed its acquisition of Western Areas [JSE:WAR], a South African gold miner, owning half of the large South Deep deposit. The company has also purchased the other half of the mine from Barrick Gold [NYSE:ABX; TSX:ABX] for US$1.525 billion in cash and shares. © 2007 I-Net Bridge. All rights reserved. I-Net Bridge, Tel: +27-11-280-0644 newsdesk@inet.co.za.