Lihir Gold Ltd, a gold miner in Australia, announced today that had concluded the sale of its Ballarat mine in Victoria to Castlemaine Goldfields Ltd.

Lihir Gold, which currently operates one of the largest gold mines in the world, had informed the share market in March that it would close the mine.

Reportedly, Lihir Gold is selling the Ballarat mine $A4.5 million in cash plus a 2.5% royalty interest in any future production capped at $A50 million.

Lihir announced its intention to offload the mine in July last year after reviewing the Ballarat project. Lihir found this as a technically difficult project.

On the other hand, Castlemaine is reportedly planning a nine months exploration work at the Ballarat mine after taking possession. If successful, a further nine months of development activities would be undertaken before resuming production.

Earlier this week, Lihir agreed to the renewed takeover bid worth $A9.5 billion from Newcrest Mining of Australia.