Historically, Australian gold stocks have traded at a discount to their North American peers. It’s been an odd phenomenon considering Australia is a safe, mining-friendly jurisdiction with a currency like Canada’s.

I have written extensively over the last 12 months about the Commonwealth takeover.

I’ve explained before how the Australian miners, buoyed by a weak Australian dollar and mining-friendly regulations, have been cash flow machines for the last 12 months.

Now these Australian miners are sitting on big cash positions and high share prices.

• And when you’ve got a lot of cash and a high share price, it’s time to go shopping for a new asset.

So let’s take a look at who wants to go shopping…

Big Gold Producers and the Australian Interest

The chart below shows the production profiles for the world’s major gold producers.

The Barrick-Randgold merger followed by the Newmont-Goldcorp merger are leaving the rest of the senior producers in the dust.

The chart below compares the newly formed Barrick Group versus a completed Newmont-Goldcorp and Newcrest Mining. It is evident that Newcrest is going to need to pick up the slack.