Newmont chief says climate change will drive gold miner consolidation

Newmont chief says climate change will drive gold miner consolidation

The head of Newmont Corporation, the world’s biggest gold producer, has said the costs of cutting emissions and going green will drive a further wave of consolidation in the industry.

Tom Palmer, chief executive of the only gold miner in the S&P 500 index, said the investments needed to reduce emissions — from electric trucks to renewable energy — required scale and long-life mines.

“One of the challenges for the gold industry is the number of gold companies,” Palmer told the FT Mining Summit. He noted that there were significantly more gold companies than in other mining sectors. “So I think the industry needs to consolidate and I think the catalyst will be climate change.”

The comments come as gold executives predict a growing wave of consolidation in the sector after last month’s “merger of equals” between Canada’s Kirkland Lake Gold and Agnico Eagle Mines.

The gold industry is fragmented among hundreds of medium-sized and smaller companies, many of which mine just one asset, all competing for the attention of investors.

Yet that constrains their ability to meet climate change targets and reduces their attractiveness to mainstream investors, who are increasingly focused on environmental, social and governance metrics.

“In order to . . . deliver on 2030 targets and net zero