JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – South Africa’s Harmony Gold on Thursday expressed excitement at the prospect of working with the Newmont team as its new Wafi-Golpu Joint Venture (JV) partner in Papua New Guinea (PNG).

Denver-based Newmont closed its roughly $15-billion acquisition of Newcrest Mining on Monday, ending a nearly year-long effort to buy the Australian gold mining company.

“As the largest gold mining company in the world, Newmont is an excellent partner with great credentials,” Harmony investor relations head Jared Coetzer commented in response to a Mining Weekly request.

“As it relates to the permitting of Wafi-Golpu, nothing has changed and we now look forward to working with Newmont to ensure that this project is brought to fruition, creating value for all stakeholders.

“Until now, we have not been in any operating partnerships with Newmont but we will continue the close working relationship we established with Newcrest through the JV.

“It is encouraging that ex-Harmonites and many South Africans are working at Newmont. Their CEO, Tom Palmer, is familiar with South African mining, as he worked in South Africa for close to six years, and Alwyn Pretorius, who was recently announced as country manager for PNG by Newmont, was the COO at Harmony from 2008 to 2015,” Coetzer added.

Mining Weekly understands that with the takeover of Newcrest, Newmont will operate 20 mines in 11 countries. The move reportedly boosts the company’s gold output to an estimated 8.5-million ounces a year while significantly increasing its exposure to copper.

“Our attention now turns to safely, and efficiently and responsibly integrating Newcrest’s assets and people into Newmont’s proven operating model, so we can accelerate the delivery of our value-focused strategy for all our stakeholders,” said Palmer, following this week’s takeover announcement.