Orica to buy cyanide maker Cyanco

The Australian explosives and mining chemical firm Orica has agreed to purchase US sodium cyanide maker Cyanco for $640 million from the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. Cyanco makes sodium cyanide in plants at Texas and Nevada; it has annual sales of roughly $400 million and pretax earnings of about $85 million in 2023. Orica’s revenue was $5.2 billion in its most recent fiscal year, which ended in September. The company says the addition of Cyanco will make it a global producer of sodium cyanide, used to extract gold from ore, and will double its total capacity to 240,000 metric tons per year. Orica expects the global market for sodium cyanide to grow at 4% per year through 2028; the North American market, Cyanco’s focus, is forecast to expand 5% annually. Orica says the use of the chemical is growing largely because the quality of gold ore has been decreasing.