The head of global gold giant Newmont Mining will next week try and convince West Australian premier Colin Barnett not to increase the state's gold royalty.
Gold miners fear the royalty rate might be doubled as part of a current state government review of the regime.
Newmont's chief executive Gary Goldberg warned that the profitability of Australia's two largest gold mines: the Superpit and Boddington mines both in WA would be threatened by a royalty hike.
Denver-based, US listed Newmont is Australia's largest gold producer, owning all of Boddington and half of the Superpit with the world's largest goldminer Canada's Barrick.
"It would present challenges to the operating cost structure of either one of those," Mr Goldberg told reporters after speaking at a Melbourne Mining Club lunch on Thursday.
He said he wanted to make clear to Mr Barnett on Tuesday that he thought the industry already paid its fair share of taxes, echoing the recent sentiments of Australia's Newcrest Mining boss Sandeep Biswas.
He also wanted the government to be aware of the industry's economics, including the contribution Newmont and the industry generally made to employment and the economy in the biggest mining state.
He said that gold miners had brought many of their problems with governments and investors on themselves by only reporting production costs - and not their other "all-in" corporate costs - until recently, making their margins for each gold ounce appear higher.
That prompted governments from Africa to Indonesia - where Newmont is fighting the government in court - and to Nevada and WA currently to chase a bigger slice of the pie while investors concluded returns on investment were poor.
"Part of this is our own fault," he said.
He said Newmont's Australian assets were running well but he did not plan to separately list them - as had been mooted during the recent failed attempt to merge with Barrick.
Share
