More Australian miners are selling their mines as the prices of the yellow metal continues to decline in the world market. The latest to join the growing number of resources companies closing operations is Alacer Gold which would sell its Higginsville and South Kalgoorlie gold operations in Western Australia.

David Quinlivan, chief executive of Alacer, said by disposing of these two mines, it could focus on its Copler mine in Turkey which has higher margins. He said the company had received confidential but non-binding expressions of interests who want to buy the two WA gold mines.

Alacer decided to sell the two mines because in the first quarter of 2013, the miner's total cash cost went up to $932 an ounce, which increased 23 per cent from the same quarter in 2012 at $759. Mining costs at Higginsville increased to $187 an ounce and $274 an ounce in South Kalgoorlie.

Despite the higher cost, the two Australian mines produced 33,049 ounces of gold while the Copler mine in Turkey produced for the same quarter 43,683 ounces of the yellow metal once considered a safe haven.

Meanwhile, Newcrest Mining, Australia's biggest gold miner, is not only facing the threat of a lawsuit from share holders after it announced a $6 billion write-down in the company's assets, but has been summoned by Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Peter O'Neill for an explanation of the write-down.

About half of the write-down is from Newcrest's operations in Papua New Guinea, specifically the Lihir and Hidden Valley gold mines.

Since its peak price of $1,700 an ounce six months ago, gold prices has plummeted by over $350 to its current price of $1,469.88.

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