Hey there, welcome to The Forward! I’m Bronwyn, I spent many years leading social performance and community relations in mining, including as Head of Social Performance at Rio Tinto. Now I run Cantilever, where I advise mining and resources companies on sustainability strategy and complex stakeholder engagement.
If you want to talk about your strategy, get in touch with me here.
Read time: 4 mins
Last week we looked at Sibanye-Stillwater and discussed what happens when a project restarts and relies on agreements negotiated pre-closure.
This week, I’m looking at what happens to a project’s existing commitments when a company is acquired by a new owner.
On 28 September, Northern Star Resources rejected a $38.7 billion takeover proposal from Gold Fields. Gold Fields has said it will keep pursuing the deal. A new chief executive started at Northern Star yesterday.
Northern Star is a recent buyer itself. In May 2025 it acquired De Grey Mining and the Hemi gold project, 85 kilometres south of Port Hedland.
I was an executive at De Grey for three years and led the company’s side of two agreements: the native title mining agreement with the Kariyarra people, signed in December 2022, and the Community Contribution Agreement with the Town of Port Hedland, announced in October 2023.
I left De Grey before Northern Star bought it and this issue uses public documents only.
This week’s question: when a mine changes owner, what does the new owner’s annual report tell you about the commitments the previous owner made?
- Bronwyn
Northern Star Resources
Source: Northern Star Resources FY26 Annual Report (216pp) · Published 20 August 2026 · Reporting period 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026 · Environment and social responsibility overview, pages 46-53 · Climate Report, pages 54-83, AASB S2 · Climate disclosures reviewed by Deloitte, limited assurance
Northern Star is Australia’s largest gold miner by market value, with mines at Kalgoorlie and Yandal in Western Australia and Pogo in Alaska. Hemi, in the Pilbara, is its one development project and sits on Kariyarra country.
De Grey’s 2023 feasibility study had first gold at Hemi in mid-2026. The final investment decision, the decision to build, had not been made when Northern Star took over. Northern Star now aims to make it by mid-2027.
Passage 1: Inherited equipment orders
Page 35 sets this year’s Hemi budget at $200 to $250 million. Alongside major equipment purchases, the report says the money is mainly for:
“... ongoing engineering and design, commitments for long-lead items agreed with the previous owners ...”
The report notes that water trials at Hemi began once Traditional Owners had agreed to them but there was no other mention of existing agreements in comparable detail to that afforded to equipment purchases.
On timing, one of those agreements has a public starting point. In October 2023 the Town of Port Hedland announced that De Grey would fund a multi-million-dollar investment over three years once Hemi reached commercial production, then expected in 2027/28. On the current timetable, 2027 is the year of the decision to build. De Grey’s study allowed two years to build, so first gold is 2029 at the earliest.
Plain English: The annual report names the equipment the previous owner ordered. It does not name the agreements the previous owner signed.
Passage 2: Inherited agreements
Northern Star also publishes a voluntary community disclosure. Its section on agreement-making says what the company will do with agreements signed by previous owners. The sentence begins:
“Where parties consider existing or inherited agreements to be outdated ...”
The sentence goes on to say Northern Star will consider talks to modernise those agreements. The same section says negotiation protocols and term sheets with other Traditional Owner groups are still being negotiated.
This is good disclosure. Few buyers use the word inherited in public, and fewer say that some agreements are still unsigned. The sentence covers every company Northern Star has bought.
Plain English: The voluntary disclosure tells you inherited agreements exist. It does not tell you which ones, or when their commitments fall due.
The Frame
So, when a mine changes owner, what does the new owner’s annual report tell you about the commitments the previous owner made?
For equipment, it tells you the amount and the year. Contracted equipment purchases have to be disclosed in the financial statements.
For agreements with a town or with Traditional Owners, there’s not much to go on but aren’t they still existing commitments?
When an acquisition affects the project schedule, it also affects any agreement which starts at commercial production.
De Grey had one project. Northern Star has several, and Gold Fields has even more. Each owner sequences its projects to suit its business, and any commitment tied to a milestone moves with that sequence.
Two practical takeaways for anyone who reads or prepares a report after an acquisition:
List what came with the asset. Name the agreements the previous owner signed, the parties and the dates.
Report milestone-linked commitments beside the schedule. If a commitment starts at commercial production, a new schedule is a new start date for that commitment.
Glossary
Final investment decision.
A board’s decision to commit the money to build a project. Northern Star targets this for Hemi late in the 2027 financial year.
Commercial production.
The point at which a new mine is running at a steady rate after commissioning. Agreements often use it as the starting point for payments.
Long-lead items.
Equipment that takes many months to make and deliver, ordered well before construction starts. Northern Star reports $16.3 million of capital commitments for Hemi at 30 June 2026 (page 177).
Native title mining agreement.
An agreement between a company and native title holders on the terms for mining on their country. De Grey Mining and the Kariyarra people signed one for Hemi in December 2022.
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This week at CFS - agreements through a change of owner
When a project is sold, the agreements stay with it and the people who negotiated them often move on. Cantilever helps buyers and sellers set out what has been committed, to whom, and from which milestone, so the new owner knows what it has taken on. If that is a conversation worth having, get in touch by emailing Bronwyn directly at [email protected].