PwC’s Aussie Mine report released last month highlighted the 2014 trend of mid-tier miners picking up “unloved assets” from the majors.

Metals X kicked it off in late 2013, acquiring Alacer Gold’s Higginsville and South Kalgoorlie operations for $A40 million.

The company achieved payback on the acquisition within six months and the assets have performed strongly, generating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $A106.9 million.

Production guidance was 150,000 ounce of gold at total costs of $1000 per ounce, but the operations produced 180,361oz at $999/oz.

Gold production in the September quarter beat guidance by 20%.

“We've always bought unloved assets,” Metals X CEO Peter Cook said at Diggers & Dealers in Kalgoorlie in August.

“All we're doing different is love. We want to own them.

“We've shrunk a few costs. We've refocused the management. We've taken out all the fat and we operate them to make a return.”

Northern Star Resources acquired three of Barrick Gold’s mines and Jundee from Newmont Mining this year and managing director Bill Beament has admitted in the past that the company’s success had spurred on others to approach majors for assets.

The company is focusing on expanding the mine lives through exploration after limited work by Barrick and Newmont in recent years.

“It wasn’t starved for capital, drilling starved yes, and that’s what we’re working on,” Beament said at the company’s annual general meeting last month.

Beament said at the company’s recent annual general meeting that it had a great “head start”, with 84 targets generated by previous owners.

“Yes, they haven’t drilled the past four or five years, but they had the geos on the ground,” he said.

The $50 million strategy is already paying dividends with two discoveries announced in recent months at Kundana and Kanowna.

And Saracen Mineral Holdings is hoping for the same success after it acquired the Thunderbox gold project from Norilsk Nickel at the start of the year, an asset which had been largely forgotten about at the time.

The company, which has had a strong year of production from its Carosue Dam operation, will release the development plan for Thunderbox in March.

That sale was part of Norilsk’s exit from Australia.

It’s not just gold assets that have found new homes with smaller miners, with Poseidon Nickel taking on Norilsk’s Lake Johnston project for $1 million and the Black Swan project for $1.5 million.

At the time, CEO David Singleton acknowledged the bargain the company had won.

“I’ve seen exploration ground go for more than that,” Singleton said in October.

The company has secured an offtake deal with BHP Billiton Nickel West and its first ore deliveries from the Windarra project are due by February.

The acquisitions have also reduced capital costs for Windarra to about $11 million from earlier estimates of as much as $290 million.

Talisman Mining has taken a similar approach and will work on restarting the Sinclair nickel project it acquired from Glencore for $10 million in November.

The company is thought to be a likely buyer for Glencore’s Cosmos nickel project, also up for divestment.

Cassini Resources is surely a candidate for deal of the year when it acquired BHP’s very unloved West Musgrave project in April.

Cassini paid just $250,000 up-front for the asset, with $10 million in cash, as well as a net smelter royalty of 2%, due when the project begins production.

The company has already had success, more than doubling its share price and returning high-grade nickel and copper results.

And Nickel West – an asset unloved by BHP – could have had a new lease on life if the price is right.

Insiders say Glencore is still interested in securing the asset.

The company’s nickel marketing director Kenny Ives spoke about the company’s failed tilt for Nickel West earlier this month: “We would have loved to have bought it but literally it didn’t work out – it’s as simple as that,” Ives told Glencore’s investor day.

“But who knows what the future brings.”