"That's what the Yamana assets do, they tick all those boxes for us. They bring high quality assets in Canada, Chile and Brazil, with great pipeline projects in both Canada and Argentina in particular," Griffith said. Apart from mines in SA, Australia and Ghana, Gold Fields operates the Cerro Corona mine in Peru and is developing the Salares Norte project in Chile, which it expects to start production in the first quarter of 2023. "We will have some synergy savings in overheads and some savings by bulking up and putting our assets together in South America around supply chains," Griffith said. After a pandemic-induced lull, merger activity in the gold industry is bouncing back, driven by a need to grow and prop up share prices that have suffered from poor performances. Canada's Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd bought rival Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd for more than $10 billion earlier this year.