The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition over the past few weeks, Barrick has been rumoured to be shopping the Zaldivar copper mine in Chile. The Post's Peter Koven writes that speculation intensified Monday after The Financial Times of London said Zaldivar may be in play. It cited X2 Resources, run by Mick Davis, as a potential bidder for the Chilean mine. A sale would go a long way to help Barrick meet its debt-reduction target of $3-billion for 2015 (all figures U.S.), but no deal is imminent. Barrick is not running a sale process for Zaldivar right now and in the current depressed copper market, experts said it would be difficult for Barrick to fetch the high price it would want. Copper trades at $2.65 a pound, but Barrick would assume a higher long-term price in any proposed sale. The FT report suggested the price would top $1.5-billion. Selling Zaldivar would be logical. When John Thornton became chairman in 2013, his goal was to diversify Barrick and become a bigger player in copper. He subsequently threw out that strategy and decided to focus on gold. Barrick has said it only has five "core" mines -- Cortez, Goldstrike, Pueblo Viejo, Lagunas Norte and Veradero. Every other mine is non-core.