Barrick Gold Corporation – Page 46

Gold mining: Squandered opportunity – by James Wilson (Financial Times – January 14, 2014)

January 14, 2014

http://www.ft.com/home/us

In the vast open pit at Goldstrike, electric shovels 20 metres tall crunch easily through the rock of northern Nevada. Three scoops fill a truck that hauls off 300 tonnes of gold-bearing ore, while underground teams nearby bore richer deposits at 25 metres a day.

The site, excavated over almost three decades, set Barrick Gold on its way to becoming the world’s largest gold miner. Yet more than 9,000km to the south, at a mine the company hopes will one day be as successful, things are very different.

Pascua Lama, 5,000 metres up in the Andes straddling Chile and Argentina, has been blighted by cost overruns and environmental disputes. Barrick has written off more than $5bn on the incomplete project: engineers are now putting it into what might be a long hibernation until the gold price – and the Canadian company’s balance sheet – recover.

The tale of two mines epitomises the profound change in fortunes for the gold mining industry. Barrick and its peers once enjoyed premium valuations as eager investors anticipated outsized returns from a climbing gold price. Profits flowed easily from the likes of Goldstrike’s 2m ounces of annual production in pro-mining and accessible jurisdictions such as Nevada. Now, mishandled investments and bloated projects have taken the shine off gold miners, which in recent years have generally underperformed the metal itself.

Tanzania: Gold Mine Boosts Villagers’ Livelihoods – by Mugini Jacob (All Africa.com – January 3, 2014)

January 3, 2014

http://allafrica.com/

Tarime — TARIME District Council has said it is now seeing remarkable development in the villages surrounding the North Mara Gold Mine at this time compared to the past.

Located in Nyamongo area, North Mara Gold Mine is one of Tanzania’s largest gold mines operated by African Barrick Gold (ABG) “There are big things happening in Nyamongo.

Nyamongo of today is not Nyamongo of the past”, Tarime District Council Chairman Mr Amos Sagara told a full council meeting at the District Council Conference Hall recently.

The latest full council meeting which sat to discuss development issues was attended by all Tarime councillors including those hailing from the villages around the mine and senior government experts based in the area.

The top council leader commended ABG, Tanzanian largest gold producer for speeding up implementation of Villages Benefits Implementation Agreements (VBIA’s) signed between the mine and surrounding villages late 2011.

REPEAT-FEATURE-Dominican gold rush hits a bureaucratic slowdown – by Ezra Fieser (Reuters India – December 23, 2013)

December 23, 2013

http://in.reuters.com/

Dec 23 (Reuters) – Little more than a decade ago, one of the world’s largest known gold deposits sat abandoned in the foothills of the Dominican Republic’s Central Cordillera mountain range. Car-sized boulders leached heavy metals into what locals called the “blood river,” its waters ran so red from contaminants.

Today the mine, which reopened as Pueblo Viejo this year, hums with activity. Trucks with tires twice the size of an SUV roll through its massive open pits on roads that cut through the 11-square-kilometer site (4.24 square miles), transporting tons of rock to a processing facility.

Some 2,000 people already work here, churning out shimmering gold bars that are exported to Canada and the United States, but the mine has the potential to create 12,700 more direct and indirect jobs and contribute $1.3 billion a year in exports. This dynamic, foreign-operated enterprise is part of the country’s effort to develop an industry that could help boost and diversify its tourism-dependent economy.

Yet despite robust commercial production by two of the world’s largest gold mining companies, Canada’s Barrick Gold Corp and Goldcorp Inc, development of the mining sector is vexed by bureaucratic delays and agitation by activists still concerned about pollution and government deals with foreign companies to exploit the nation’s riches.

African Barrick to compensate assault victims – by Geoffrey York (Globe and Mail – December 20, 2013)

December 20, 2013

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

JOHANNESBURG — A Canadian-owned gold company says it is giving cash payments and other compensation to 14 women who were sexually assaulted by police and security guards at its controversial North Mara gold mine in Tanzania.

African Barrick Gold, a subsidiary of Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp., says it spent two years questioning more than 200 people in an independent investigation of the sexual-assault allegations, which were first disclosed by Barrick in 2011. “Fourteen women are presently receiving remediation packages,” the company said in a statement to The Globe and Mail on Thursday.

“Although the exact components of each package depends on the individual claimant, they have included cash compensation, sponsored employment to provide job training, financial and entrepreneurial training, education expenses for claimants’ children, relocation expenses, home improvements, health insurance for claimants and their families, and counselling services.”

Barrick Gold loses two more directors – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – December 18, 2013)

December 18, 2013

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Two of Barrick Gold Corp.’s independent directors resigned suddenly on Tuesday, the company said in a surprise announcement that came less than two weeks after it overhauled its board and nominated four new independent board members.

Robert Franklin and Donald Carty had been in charge of talking to Barrick’s institutional investors about their concerns regarding the company’s governance. They joined Barrick in 2006 when the gold producer bought Placer Dome, where they served on the board. Mr. Carty is currently the chairman of Porter Airlines Inc.

They had led the search for the new slate of independent Barrick directors, which culminated in a board revamp announced early this month that included the planned exit of chairman Peter Munk along with two other long-standing directors. Major Barrick shareholders had clamoured for boardroom changes after it awarded Barrick co-chairman John Thornton with a $11.9-million (U.S.) signing bonus, which he used to buy Barrick stock.

The unexpected departure of two more Barrick directors signals that institutional investors continued to look for governance improvements even after the board overhaul, earlier this month.

Miners faced environmental and political challenges around the world in 2013 – by Craig Wong (Canadian Press – December 17, 2013)

December 17, 2013

http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/

OTTAWA – After years of riding surging metal prices and spending freely on takeover deals and massive new projects, Canadian miners were forced to tighten their belts in 2013 as the cycle turned against them.

The industry took billions in write downs as companies re-evaluated projects that they believed were worth far more just a couple of years ago and slashed spending as falling commodity prices squeezed margins.

But it wasn’t just financial problems for the miners, as political and environmental issues made headlines around the world for several Canadian mining companies.

The largest company to face problems was Barrick Gold, which suspended nearly all of the work at its massive Pascua-Lama project high in the Andes mountain range.

The halt followed massive cost overruns and protests from an indigenous community living below the project who tried to have Barrick’s licence revoked and force a new environmental impact study.

Chilean communities struggle after halts at Pascua Lama, other mines – by Marta Lillo (Globe and Mail – December 17, 2013)

December 17, 2013

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Real estate broker Patricia Cortés began a small corporate events business in the northern Chilean town of Vallenar four years ago, with her eye on a gold mine.

Her hopes for success were pinned on the vast Pascua Lama gold-copper project that had begun taking shape 150 kilometres away in a glacier-covered area of the Andes on the border with Argentina.

Vallenar is the closest commercial centre to Pascua Lama, and the town was set to reap rich benefits from the $8.5-billion (U.S.) project. Once it gets going, Pascua Lama, with 18 million ounces of proved and probable gold reserves, is expected to produce up to 850,000 ounces in its first five years.

But prospects for the Cortés’s business look much bleaker now that Barrick Gold Corp. has shelved construction of the mine, citing lower metal prices and a series of regulatory and legal roadblocks imposed by the Chilean government.

Barrick considers new executive compensation rules – by Rachell Younglai (Globe and Mail – December 16, 2013)

December 16, 2013

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Barrick Gold Corp. is seeking to align the bulk of its executives’ compensation with the gold company’s performance and is expected to require top managers to hold their stock until retirement.

After a tumultuous year where Barrick’s stock plummeted 50 per cent and the company recorded nearly $14-billion (U.S.) in writedowns, the miner is considering a plan that would require its executives to hold their shares until they leave the company.

Currently, executives are paid a mix of cash, stock options, restricted share units and performance-based share units. They are not required to hold their Barrick shares until retirement and can exercise their stock options at certain dates.

“That would be a step in the right direction,” said Chris Mancini, an analyst with the Gabelli Gold Fund, which holds 2.9 million Barrick shares. “To the degree that this could have executives think toward long term, that would be a positive development,” he said.

MUST READ: Gold – the race for the world’s most seductive metal – by Frik Els (Mining.com – December 10, 2013)

December 10, 2013

http://www.mining.com/

When it comes to putting together a book on a storied subject like gold, the hardest task for the writer is not gathering the material.

It is which tales to leave out. Matthew Hart, author of Gold: The Race for the World’s Most Seductive Metal, does a splendid job of transporting readers from one defining moment in the history of gold to the next. Hart, author of seven books including Diamond and a veteran journalist who has appeared on CNN and 60 Minutes and contributed to Vanity Fair, Globe & Mail and others, had to pick his targets carefully to fit into Gold’s brisk 233-page narrative.

Hart does not find the space to chronicle India’s ongoing love affair with gold, the Bre-X scam of the late Nineties, or today’s headline-making dispute over Europe’s largest gold project in Romania, but the omissions provide Gold with admirable pacing and cohesion.

He often jumps back and forth hundreds or even thousands of years to create an arc that spans from the first gold jewellery created more than 6,000 years ago through vivid descriptions of how Inca gold transformed the European financial system, the “Nixon shock”, the game-changing creation of gold-backed ETFs and right up to how the centre of the gold universe has shifted to China.

Peter Munk’s lament: Barrick’s spiral started with formation of gold ETF – by Peter Koven (National Post – December 7, 2013)

December 9, 2013

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Peter Munk admits it: he is not handing over his pride and joy in the best of condition. “If I were to [look at it] as a photograph, a snapshot in the moment of time, I would be unhappy,” he said in a detailed interview in his office this week.

If he’s in the dumps, there’s good reason. This last year has been one of the worst in the history of Barrick Gold Corp., and plenty of the damage was self-inflicted. Fixing up the company during a bear market for gold will be a major challenge for John Thornton, his handpicked successor.

Mr. Munk, 86, announced his retirement from Barrick on Wednesday. The lifelong entrepreneur will finally step aside next spring, paving the way for Mr. Thornton to put his China-influenced stamp on the company.

Mr. Munk’s accomplishments at Barrick are too lengthy to list. In three decades, he took a company that started with US$20-million in the bank and built the world’s biggest gold producer, acquiring several industry stalwarts along the way and beating the Oppenheimers at their own game. Mr. Munk had the time of his life as he built Barrick into a powerhouse.

The man with the key to China: Barrick Gold’s quest to open new doors – by Rachelle Younglai (Globe and Mail – December 7, 2013)

December 9, 2013

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Incoming Barrick Gold Corp. chairman John Thornton has friends in high places in China – including the country’s premier, central bank chief and anti-corruption czar, to name a few.

Now Mr. Thornton’s job is to turn those connections into new business opportunities for the gold miner as it seeks to turn the corner on a string of costly setbacks.

Mr. Thornton’s clout in China is the key reason Barrick founder and outgoing chairman Peter Munk chose him as his successor and persuaded the company’s board to award a $11.9-million (U.S.) signing bonus – an amount that became a flashpoint for shareholders already upset with the company’s performance. Barrick’s stock price has dropped sharply amid nearly $14-billion in writedowns tied to two major projects and a recent $3-billion share issue to help pay down its $15-billion debt load.

Since becoming Barrick’s co-chairman in a June, 2012, management shakeup, Mr. Thornton said he has been laying the groundwork with the Chinese.

Investors dismayed as new Barrick chairman talks diversification – by Euan Rocha (Reuters U.K. – December 6, 2013)

December 6, 2013

http://uk.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – Barrick Gold Corp investors have taken in stride news that the world’s largest gold producer may consider hedging its gold exposure, but they are roundly panning its plan for more diversification into other commodities.

John Thornton, who was confirmed after markets closed on Wednesday as Barrick’s next chairman, told reporters he would consider revisiting a hedging strategy for selling the company’s output because of the volatility of gold prices.

He also said he thinks Barrick, which already has a copper sideline, is well placed to look more at copper and perhaps at other commodities, once it puts its recent troubles behind it.

That pronouncement stung some Barrick shareholders, many of whom are invested in the Toronto-based miner only because they see a bright future for the gold price.

“It’s like saying to the market, once I recover from all the bad decisions I have made and paid back the mountains of debt I incurred doing it, I am going to go out and do it all over again, but not in the commodity I’m in right now,” said John O’Connell, the head of wealth management firm Davis Rea Ltd.

From pay package to history of losses, Barrick chair John Thornton has a lot to overcome – by Peter Koven (National Post – December 6, 2013)

December 6, 2013

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

John Thornton admits it: building relationships with Barrick Gold Corp.’s shareholders did not go as smoothly as he planned this year. “I can think of better ways to start,” he quipped in a wide-ranging interview at the Toronto-based miner’s head office on Thursday.

But controversies over pay are the least of his problems now. As Barrick’s next chairman, he becomes leader of a company with falling production, excess debt, a stock price near a 20-year-low, and retained earnings of minus US$4.7-billion to show for its 30-year history.

Turning around this company will be a massive feat, especially given that the falling gold price is putting serious strain on Barrick’s cash flow.

Mr. Thornton, like his predecessor Peter Munk, believes that forming Asian partnerships is key to overcoming Barrick’s challenges and ensuring its future growth. But even he acknowledged that potential partners will have reservations about Barrick after seeing how badly the company screwed up the now-idled Pascua-Lama project.

Barrick Chair John Thornton plots overhaul for post-Munk Era – by Peter Koven (National Post – December 5, 2013)

December 5, 2013

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

John Thornton has laid out his vision for Barrick Gold Corp.: a more diversified mining company that can tackle big projects by accessing capital and partners in Asia. With his leadership, he thinks Barrick is in position to become a world-leading company, not just in gold but in “a range of minerals.”

“That’s where I’d like to see Barrick go,” he told reporters. His comments indicate that the world’s biggest gold producer could undergo a significant facelift in the years to come. Mr. Thornton even suggested that hedging, an extremely unpopular strategy among gold investors and one that previously backfired on Barrick, is something the company should be “carefully following at all times.”

Mr. Thornton was officially declared the Barrick’s next chairman on Wednesday after Peter Munk, 86, retires at next year’s annual meeting.

In a joint meeting with reporters, Mr. Munk talked about how he feels the world’s centre of gravity has shifted from West to East, and that Barrick needs a leader who can access capital and key business leaders in that country.

Munk, Mulroney leave, new faces slated for Barrick board – by Lisa Wright (Toronto Star – December 5, 2013)

December 5, 2013

The Toronto Star has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Outgoing board co-chairman Peter Munk welcomes former Goldman Sachs executive John Thornton as new board chairman.

A major shakeup on Barrick Gold Corp.’s board of directors Wednesday included the replacement of chairman and legendary founder Peter Munk and the departure of former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney as a longtime director.

The world’s largest gold miner also announced Jim Gowans, the former chief executive of De Beers Canada, is the new chief operating officer and the nominations of veteran Canadian money manager Ned Goodman and three others to the board in moves it hopes will revive the company’s tarnished image and weak share price.

“This has been a stormy year for Barrick,” said Munk, who welcomed co-chairman John Thornton to his new job as sole chairman.

He said he was going to leave in 2012 and sail around the world with his wife, but too many things “hit the fan” at the beleaguered miner — namely cost overruns building its prized Pascua Lama project, soaring debt and the falling gold price, which have helped carve the company’s share price by more than half.