BHP Billiton’s new boss has one initial priority: to cut costs.

Cost-cutting and write-downs are becoming the new black for the big miners. The headline in today’s The Financial Times says it all: “Mining’s new guard focuses on returns”, with the new chiefs at BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Glencore Xstrata all featured. (Which begs the question: what were their highly paid predecessors doing?)

We are also seeing speculation this week about the gold majors selling off some of their less attractive projects.

Given the trend this week on the London Metal Exchange with no end in sight to the long liquidation and technical selling in the base metals – which also spilled over into palladium and platinum - there will be even more thinking time being spent on cutting costs and keeping the shareholders at bay.

As for those companies putting gold projects up for sale, all one can say is good luck. The downtrend in the gold price this week must have induced an awful sinking feeling among the gold miners, especially those whose real (as opposed to cash) costs were in four figures. Those smaller ones with spare cash should be able to strike quite a bargain.

Ernst & Young reported this week that there was a “capital strike” going on in the mining sector. Funds raised were down 25% in 2012 (with bank lending to the sector down 43%). And the accounting giant sees the purse strings being kept tied until there is a substantial up-tick in commodity prices, which doesn’t seem to be on the horizon at present.

This is hitting the junior sector hardest. Indeed, this writer has been surprised at some of the recent capital raisings among the juniors. No names, no pack drill, but in some cases the investors demonstrated the triumph of hope over expectation. Perhaps it’s just the Indian summer effect; the reality has not sunk in among some of the investment community and it will need a few more jolts of bad news and falling prices to see capital dry up.

Gold producers will be coming under greater pressure to maximise profits and rein in capital spending.

Some scant attention was paid in the papers to the Deutsche Bank report this week that looked at which Australian gold assets the global majors could divest. So it may be interesting to analyse which under-performing operations may be put under the hammer. The reports did not pick up the big “but” imposed by the Deutsche analysts: in many cases, selling off might bring in cash but it just creates new problems. The term “cleft stick” springs to mind.

Barrick Gold’s operations here constitute about 25% of group production. Cash costs, at $US803/oz, are substantially higher than at its North American and South American ones (being $500/oz and $467/oz respectively). Barrick has net debt of $11.6 billion and has eight operating mines here. Deutsche sees one problem if they start selling off those assets: it will increase the proportional exposure of the group to its African Barrick arm, for which it is still seeking a buyer.

Newmont Mining might also like to free up some capital – but that would only make it harder (and it’s hard enough already) to maintain its bank of ounces in the ground. So Deutsche doesn’t see any sales among Newmont’s four Australian operations, although the high-cost, short-life Waihi mine in New Zealand might get the chop. It would be a buyer’s market, one suspects.

AngloGold Ashanti is actually increasing its Australian exposure through its 70% stake in Tropicana, with first gold due there late this year. As the analysts note, AngloGold’s Sunrise Dam has struggled since a pit wall failure in 2011 and there’s still a lot of work needed to bring cash costs below $1000/oz. You have to ask what company would be prepared to wrestle with this project, although the lure of underground potential might be enough.

And then there’s Gold Fields. Following the spin-offs of two South African operations, this company is more leveraged to Australia than ever before. But why would they sell Agnew/Leinster and Kambalda/St Ives with their combined 660,000oz a year? Specially with South African production down significantly.

So, contrary to the headlines, fire sales by the global majors look unlikely.

One suspects this is a problem being replicated throughout the mining industry: divided opinions about selling assets pitted against the need to rein in costs, but scant numbers of willing buyers at a time of capital strike.

Mining bosses may actually get close to earning their salaries this year.