Barrick says Ontario Superior Court dismisses 2022 Tanzanian security case
A group of 21 Tanzanian nationals had alleged that Barrick was complicit in extrajudicial killings by police guarding its North Mara mine.
Barrick Gold, the world’s top miner of the metal, said on Tuesday it is writing down its investment in its Pascua-Lama project in South America to the tune of $429 million in the fourth quarter.
The Toronto-based company is reclassifying the gold reserves at the project straddling the border between Chile and Argentina following a January decision by Chile’s environmental authority (SMA) ordering the definitive closure of surface operations at the stalled project.
Barrick said in a statement Pascua-Lama’s proven and probable gold reserves of roughly 14 million ounces, which are based on an open pit mine plan, will now be classified as measured and indicated resources:
A shift to an underground operation would address a number of community concerns by significantly reducing the overall environmental impacts of the project, as compared to an open pit operation. In addition, an underground operation would be less susceptible to weather-related production impacts during the winter season.
Barrick also said it had formed a working group with China’s Shandong Gold to study a potential partnership at Pascua-Lama, building on its existing joint venture at the nearby Veladero mine.
The gold and silver project has been on hold since 2013, when a court ordered the company to halt construction over environmental concerns. Later that year, Barrick shelved the project after costs ballooned to more than $8 billion and the price of gold went into steep decline.
The originally envisaged mine would have ranked near the top of gold mines by output with 800,000 to 850,000 ounces of gold and 35 million ounces of silver per year in the first full five years of its 25-year life.
Shares in Barrick are worth $15.7 billion in New York after losing 29% of their value over the past year.
4 Comments
Don Ready
What a rough, risky, high capital game.
Carlos A. Espinoza
This is the final result of many aspects of the project that were poorly managed. First of all, weather conditions were not totally suitable for an open pit mining and the UG option should have been evaluated since the beginning (this is part of the project team you gather to develop the project, there will always be what is called an agency problem) Then, not fullfilling the promises the company agreed upon environmental mitigations.aspects. The company promised that the economic impact of the project was going to be for a specific city and then changed to other city with a better infrastructure , in order to reduce employee’s salary expectations.and reduce spending for schools and travels expenses. This to mention some aspects. A lesson learned of this project is that you have to fullfill the expectation agreed in your EIS.
JLopehandia
Just so you know, we have a Supreme Court decision proving my family owns this mine. So all illegal contracts will be terminated shortly.
JLopehandia
It’s a legal act of war for anyone to burrow tunnels that penetrate the Chilean border from Argentina, even when using a dead Pascua Llama Protocol.