The South African company owns the Agnew and St Ives mines in the Goldfields. It has been one of the names thrown into the mix as speculation circulates over a potential buyer for Barrick’s Yilgarn South and Plutonic assets, and Alacer’s Higginsville and South Kalgoorlie operations.

Weston would not comment on speculation, but did not rule the company out.

“I think there’s great opportunity at present for acquisitions,” he told media on the sidelines of Diggers & Dealers 2013 in Kalgoorlie.

“We’re always looking. I don’t know how many CAs [confidentiality agreements] we sign on an annual basis, it’s quite a lot.”

Weston said that with about $600 million in cash, the company was well-placed to buy something.

Meanwhile, Gold Fields cut about 130 WA jobs late last year.

“A lot of those positions were vacant positions, so we eliminated those and that cuts costs as well,” Weston said.

“And that was all done by voluntary redundancies.

“Recently at Agnew, we’ve gone to full contractor model and we’re still in the process of that transition, and it might be about 20 or 30 people that may be made redundant.”

Gold Fields has re-tendered all major contracts, resulting in a $53oz saving, or about 20% of total contract costs of $114m.

The company is already reaping the benefits, with costs at Agnew dropping from $799/oz in 2012 to $680/oz in the first quarter of 2013.

Weston described Agnew as a “great little mine”, while St Ives was “complex” but costs were dropping.

“Old gold mines never die,” he said.

Gold Fields has also been getting some encouraging exploration results in WA and Weston confirmed a $25m exploration spend at St Ives alone this year.