UPDATE 1-Canadian miner B2Gold hunting for more assets after Sabina Gold deal
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B2Gold searching for mines being spun off by big producers
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Company could also explore merger with a smaller producer
(Adds details on planned growth projects in paragraph 10)
By Felix Njini
NAIROBI, July 17 (Reuters) - B2Gold Corp said it would consider further opportunities to acquire gold assets to accelerate growth even after its recent purchase of Sabina Gold, which gave it its first project in home country Canada.
B2Gold's C$1.1 billion ($832.1 million) acquisition of Sabina Gold, completed in April, included Sabina's untapped mineral-heavy Back River Gold district in Nunavut, Canada, which is expected to start production in 2025.
The CEO of the Vancouver-based producer, which currently mines gold in Mali, Namibia and the Philippines, said the company was looking now at assets that are already producing, rather than those in development.
Clive Johnson said it would consider potential opportunities from assets that are being spun off when big producers consolidate.
"We're definitely still looking for other opportunities, and as you know there's a lot of big companies that are merging with each other right now," Johnson told Reuters.
"We're not looking at adding more development projects, but looking at mines that are in production that don't fit the criteria for some of these majors."
He said the company had a healthy cash position that could enable it to also consider opportunities such as combining with a smaller producer, the CEO said.
"There's smaller companies that could have some production but maybe see it would be sensible to merge with somebody larger," he added.
The CEO declined to say if the company is negotiating for any deals currently, and said there were no timelines currently in place for making new acquisitions.
B2Gold is weighing expanding output at the flagship Fekola operation in Mali to 800,000 ounces from about 610,000 ounces currently while its Goose project in Nunavut, Canada, could start producing about 300,000 ounces by 2025.
The miner has gradually ramped up output to around 1 million ounces of bullion currently from about 366,000 ounces in 2013.
B2Goldcer is also searching for gold in Finland, Uzbekistan, Japan and other parts of Africa including Ivory Coast, Johnson said.
($1 = 1.3220 Canadian dollars) (Reporting by Felix Njini; Editing by Jan Harvey and Conor Humphries)
