March 15 (Reuters) - Barrick Gold Corp may put its Chilean copper mine on the block as the Canadian miner tries to meet an ambitious debt reduction target, the Financial Times reported.
A sale of the Zaldivar copper mine could raise more than $1.5 billion and draw interest from Chinese companies looking to acquire resources as well as private equity firms such as Mick Davis's X2 Resources, the newspaper said, citing bankers and mining executives. (http://on.ft.com/1GTA2oW)
Davis headed Xstrata before its 2012 sale to Glencore . X2 has raised $5.6 billion and is hunting for mining deals, the newspaper said.
Barrick has not said it would definitely sell Zaldivar but the miner would find a substantial offer difficult to resist for what has become a "non-core commodity", the newspaper said, adding that some of Barrick's investors have also urged a divestment of the mine.
The miner said last month it was focused on gold mining and had no plans to boost its copper operations. Barrick also said it would sell its Porgera gold mine in Papua New Guinea and its Cowal gold mine in Australia to help reduce net debt by at least $3 billion by the year-end.
Barrick has total outstanding debt of $11.65 billion, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The Zaldivar copper mine, one of Barrick's key assets, is located next to Escondida - the world's largest copper mine.
Representatives at Barrick Gold did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
(Reporting by Supriya Kurane in Bengaluru; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)