The Stratospheric Rise of Greatland
Company has gone from explorer to A$10B producer in less than two years
Greatland Resources (ASX/LSE: GGP) is now Australia’s third-largest listed gold company, less than 18 months since becoming a producer.
The company’s market capitalisation surpassed A$10 billion for the first time this month, putting it only behind Northern Star Resources (ASX: NST) and Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN).
In December 2024, Greatland acquired 100% of the Telfer mine and the 70% stake in the Havieron project it didn’t already own, both in Western Australia’s Paterson Province, from Newmont Corporation (NYSE: NEM) for US$475 million.
That acquisition was paid off in just five months.
“Why have we grown to be Australia’s third largest mining company? We generate more free cashflow per ounce than any other company on the ASX,” Greatland managing director Shaun Day told the Mining Forum Europe in Zürich this week.
“We now have A$1.2 billion in the bank, zero debt and we’ve generated that over 15 months since acquisition.”
The company reported a cash build of A$260 million for the March quarter.
Telfer has produced 249,900 ounces of gold and 11,000 tonnes of copper in the nine months to March 31, and the company is on track to meet or exceed 2026 financial year guidance of 260,000-310,000oz of gold at all-in sustaining costs of A$2400-2800 an ounce.
The rejuvenation of Telfer
Day described Telfer as one of Australia’s most iconic gold assets but there had been long been the perception that the operation was ageing, running out of ore and high cost.
“We’re reinvesting in the site, both in terms of productivity, but importantly in the drill bit,” Day said.
Greatland has already completed half of a planned 240,000m drilling campaign, which resulted in an updated resource of 8 million ounces of gold, up from just 700,000oz.
“We bought an asset that was meant to already be shut down, but I look at my time at Northern Star,” Day said.
Day was chief financial officer at Northern Star when the company acquired four assets from the majors with mine lives of less than 12 months.
“All four of those that we acquired off majors are still operating a decade later, and that is the opportunity, and I think now we’ve kind of been able to demonstrate that opportunity to the market with Telfer,” he said.
Underground development rates have increased from 175m a month to more than 450m per month since acquisition, while recoveries have increased from 81% gold and 71% copper to more than 88% gold and 79% copper.
“We’ve actually taken about one eighth out of our cost structure whilst we’ve delivered that productivity gain,” Day said.
Last month’s resource update included an initial resource of 600,000oz of gold and 35,000t of copper at 2.3 grams per tonne gold and 0.44% copper for the West Dome underground.
“That’s a whole new quartile of the mine that was left untouched for us,” Day said.
“It’s the highest average grade you’ve seen at Telfer since 2005 and it’s just a short 2000m underground horizontal tram to the underground crusher, to the hoist, which has significant capacity.
“That will allow us to probably more than double underground mining tonnes and at a higher grade.”
Telfer has 20 million tonnes per annum of processing capacity, which is the third-largest gold or gold-copper processing centre in Australia.
“This is part of the rejuvenation and rethinking of what Telfer can be, where we focus on one train being high-grade underground ore at significant volumes, coupled with maintaining that open pit,” Day said.
Havieron
The Havieron underground deposit, with a resource of 7Moz of gold and 275,000t of copper, is a greenfields discovery made by Greatland in 2018 but a brownfields development given its proximity to Telfer.
Havieron’s grades are five times higher than Telfer.
Greatland released a feasibility study for the partially developed project in December.
Havieron is expected to produce 266,000ozpa of gold and 9600tpa of copper at AISC of A$1610/oz over 17 years, with ore to be processed through the Telfer plant.
“The opportunity this delivers to Greatland is really extraordinary,” Day said.
Capital costs were forecast at just under A$1.1 billion.
“The primary decline is already 80% down to the orebody, although we’re putting in a second decline from surface, a conveyor decline,” Day said.
Greatland is adding a conveyer decline to take capacity to 4Mtpa to take advantage of Telfer’s processing capacity.
“Havieron’s really important for us as well as part of the rejuvenation of Telfer,” Day said.
“The strongest outcome you get is when you run the two in parallel.”
The project has a base case post-tax net present value (5% discount rate) of A$2.9 billion and internal rate of return of 22.5% at a gold price of A$4500/oz, increasing to a A$5.4 billion NPV and 31.5% IRR at A$6250/oz.
“If we re-ran that spot price today – the Aussie dollar spot price is north of A$7000 – those numbers print even better than A$10 billion of value, even better than a 31.5% IRR, even better than a three-year payback.”
Greatland is awaiting final environmental approval before making a final investment decision, which is expected this year.
“I think a catalyst for value for Greatland is when the market can see there’s a direct pathway to turning on Havieron,” Day said.
Tungsten sweetener
Tungsten is the best performing metal so far this year, surging to a record high of more than US$3000 per metric tonne unit.
Just 10km south of Telfer on a granted mining lease is the O’Callaghans tungsten deposit.
Greatland recently reported a resource of 70Mt at 0.35% tungsten trioxide, 0.3% copper, 0.57% zinc and 0.28% lead for 246,000t of tungsten trioxide, 207,000t of copper, 371,000t of zinc and 182,000t of lead.
“This is arguably the world’s second or third-best tungsten deposit,” Day said.
“We think the tungsten market’s very strong and we have daylighted this by spending the time, energy and effort to make this a JORC resource.”
Day said the company had received multiple inbound inquiries about the project.
“I think it’s another way that we can think about creating shareholder value – whether that means that Greatland has a tungsten division, whether it’s a spin-off or some other way to create value, but it’s something that we are spending time, energy and effort doing,” he said.
“We already have a pretty fantastic organic growth profile, so we’re not looking for something else to do, but certainly tungsten is an important part of Western supply chains for critical minerals, and this is a high-quality tungsten asset – high-grade, high-volume in a tier one jurisdiction, next to existing infrastructure.”