The sale of the Vatukoula goldmine in Fiji is expected to be signed today although no money will change hands.
The Emperor Gold Mining Company's Director of Communications, Patrick Bindon, says the deal involves the new owners Westech Gold Limited taking on the mine's liabilities as well as any gold.
These include redundancy payments and compensation claims from 1700 miners many of whom are currently involved in industrial dispute procedures against the mine.
Westech directors Brian Wesson and his wife Amelia, who both worked at the Vatukoula mine in the 1990s, say there is still four million ounces of gold worth 3.8 billion US dollars there.
But Mr Bindon says the Emperor Gold Mining Company is selling because its strategic review of the existing gold reserve and mining plan revealed that it was not economic to continue mining there.
"We've never said that there's no gold in the ground, there is significant gold in the ground, but the real issue is under the current mining plan just what does it cost you to take that gold out of the ground and all of our assessments show that at present it would be uneconomic to mine that gold and that further exploration needs to occur to better identify the ore body and target the gold that can be mined profitably."
Patrick Bindon of the Emperor Gold Mining Company
