Peru Buenaventura scraps hedges for $434 mln - CFO

LIMA, Feb 6 (Reuters) - Peruvian miner Buenaventura (BUEv.LM) (BVN.N) will pay $434 million to unwind hedges on gold slated for delivery in 2010 and 2012, its chief financial officer said on Wednesday.

The payment will be financed with debt as the company pays a fee to release 782,000 ounces of gold from contracts that had set fixed prices for the mineral years before it was slated to reach market.

"This was to free ourselves from the fixed price of the contracts and get the spot price," Carlos Galvez told Reuters.

The hedging contracts were signed before gold hit record highs. It traded on Wednesday at about $900 an ounce.

Unwinding the hedges will allow the company to reap the benefits of selling gold at current market prices.

Peru is the world's fifth-largest gold producer and holds a minority stake in Yanacocha, the biggest gold mine in Latin America.

Prior to Wednesday's announcement, the company unwound a separate batch of gold slated for delivery in 2010. In that case, the company paid $82.6 million in cash to cancel contracts on 140,000 ounces. It said it has now unwound all hedges. (Reporting by Marco Aquino and Terry Wade; editing by Jim Marshall)