Barrick Gold (GOLD) 6-K2021 FY Current report (foreign)

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Leader in Sustainability

Delivering Value

Company is advancing its pipeline of large growth projects, including Donlin Gold, Pascua-Lama and Norte Abierto, while at the same time working on the resumption of operations at Porgera, currently penciled in for July this year.

“All Barrick’s mines have earned their social license to operate, and we work hard to maintain them. Sustainability is at the heart of our business, and it’s not a virtue-signaling exercise. Caring about the people and the environments impacted by our operations is a moral imperative, but it also makes good commercial sense, as Barrick’s partnership philosophy has proved time and again. This year we’ll again be publishing a detailed Sustainability Report which, among other things, objectively rates our performance against all critical ESG metrics. We’re in the 95th percentile of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and in the top 5% for environmental policy and management, mineral waste management, closure and social impact,” he said.

The amount of the performance dividend on a quarterly basis will be based on the amount of net cash on Barrick’s Consolidated Balance Sheet as per the following schedule:

“We believe that the shares are trading in a price range that does not reflect the value of the Company’s mining and financial assets and future business prospects,” said Mark Bristow, President and Chief Executive Officer. “We have the financial strength to undertake this program.”

Under the program, repurchases can be made from time to time through published markets in the United States such as the New York Stock Exchange using a variety of methods, including open market purchases, as well as by any other

performance, prevailing market prices of the common shares, the availability of cash flows, and the consideration of other uses of cash, including capital investment opportunities, returns to shareholders, and debt reduction.

The repurchase program does not obligate the Company to acquire any particular number of common shares, and the repurchase program may be suspended or discontinued at any time at the Company’s discretion.

replacement of depletion. Mineral resources are reported inclusive of reserves and at a gold price of $1,500/oz.¹² Attributable measured and indicated gold resources for 2021 stood at 160 million ounces¹³ at 1.50g/t, with a further 42 million ounces¹³ at 1.3g/t of inferred resources.

The significant increase in attributable mineral resources was led by the Carlin complex in Nevada where a total of 0.91 million ounces¹³ of measured and indicated resources and 3.0 million¹³ ounces of inferred resources were added year-on-year. This was driven by two maiden inferred resource additions, with North Leeville delivering 0.43 million ounces¹³ at 11.5g/t and Ren contributing 0.76 million ounces¹³ at 7.3g/t on an attributable basis. Both projects represent future growth for the Carlin complex and drilling continues on both targets, with mineralization open in all directions. The remaining year-on-year growth in attributable mineral resources at the Carlin complex mainly came from the open-pits at Gold Quarry and South Arturo as well as the underground at Leeville and Rita K. Staying in Nevada, the Turquoise Ridge complex also increased year-over-year attributable measured and indicated resources by 1.5 million ounces¹³ mainly off the back of a revised geological model at Turquoise Ridge Underground.

Copper mineral reserves for 2021 are estimated using a copper price of $2.75 per pound and mineral resources are estimated at $3.50 per pound, both unchanged from 2020.

Attributable proven and probable copper reserves were 12 billion pounds¹³ at an average grade of 0.38% in 2021. Attributable measured and indicated copper resources were 24 billion pounds¹³ at an average grade of 0.35%, and inferred copper resources were 2.1 billion pounds¹³ at an average grade of 0.2% in 2021. Mineral resources are reported inclusive of reserves.

Mineral resource management executive Rodney Quick said, “The geological improvements and remodeling are now starting to make a real impact. The incorporation and integration of mine design optimizations are also driving many of the mineral resource additions. A sound understanding of the geological orebody has been integrated with a better understanding of local variations in the geotechnical and metallurgical disciplines to produce integrated and optimized mine designs.”

Pueblo Viejo, Dominican Republic

This mine is located in a biodiversity hotspot which is home to more than 5,600 plant and 200 bird species. In 2018, a small species of diurnal gecko, classed as critically endangered by the Dominican Republic and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), was detected on the site. Pueblo Viejo commissioned extensive fieldwork as well as genetic and morphological studies to confirm this identification and map the gecko’s distribution. These showed that the size of the population and the extent of its habitat were greater than previously understood, and that Sphaerodactylus Samanensis could be removed from the red list. The research data has been shared with the IUCN.

FINA Reserve, Mali

Barrick has partnered with the government, BIOS and African Parks to restore FINA, which has been impacted by poaching, illegal wood cutting, grazing and farming, to its former glory. They are working together to demarcate and secure the park, curb illegal activities through recruiting rangers and starting aerial patrols, rehabilitate the fauna and flora, establish a proper database and install the infrastructure needed for the proper management of the park. Longer term the aim is to develop eco-tourism, with its potential for local job creation, around the rehabilitated park.

Nevada Gold Mines, USA

Across much of the Great Nevada Basin, the Greater Sage Grouse habitat is in decline due to fires, invasive plant species and human impact. To mitigate the impact of mining on the sagebrush ecosystem, Nevada Gold Mines collaborates with a wide range of partners, including the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Nevada Sagebrush Ecosystem Technical Team. To date, this team effort has rehabilitated more than 11,500 hectares of habitat and the partners are now embarking on research to better understand the birds’ breeding habits.

we now have the ability to benchmark our operational performance. OneStream has also been successfully implemented globally and the roll-out of Xeras will be completed in the second quarter of this year.”

Vice-president for group integration Nico Hoffman says a single integrated knowledge platform will give Barrick the ability to convert updated mine plans into financial models and roll them up into a consolidated group view, all in a matter of minutes. It can also quickly compare the financial viability of multiple mine planning scenarios and perform what-if analyses to select the best. Measuring key cost drivers in real time enables us to flag issues which require immediate attention.

“The new platform has cut the processes involved from weeks to hours – monthly operating KPIs and financial results are now available within five days instead of weeks – and has significantly improved not only the availability but also the accuracy of our information. It has also provided a robust foundation for our continuing investment in new projects related to data and analytics, benchmarking and efficiency management,” Shuttleworth added.

Octavia Bath, the mineral resource manager for Barrick North America, says the team is using a rigorous due diligence process to determine the intrinsic value of new opportunities based on their economically extractable reserves and resource upside.

Bristow says Barrick continues to evaluate all promising business opportunities and last year looked closely at a number of projects and operations in Canada, none of which met its investment hurdles. Transactions done by others during this time typically involved substantial premiums which we believe would not deliver value to shareholders.

“We’ve consequently decided to follow our traditional value-creation route through discovery and development. In the short time the team has been in place, we’ve already consolidated an exploration property portfolio of 124,000 hectares and we’re now building on that,” Bristow said.

“I’ve said before that Barrick is under-invested in Canada, our home country, and we mean to correct that. The fact that it is one of the world’s most mining-friendly jurisdictions is also an incentive.”

Covid-19 protocols and the roll-out of vaccines to its workforce, 26.45% of whom have already been partially vaccinated and 20.25% fully vaccinated. Barrick is working closely with the country’s health authorities to supply four PCR machines to hospitals around the mines.

The mines also continued to recruit and upskill local people. Tanzanian nationals now account for 96% of their workforce, with 41% drawn from the surrounding villages. They are also strengthening their partnerships with local suppliers. Since Barrick re-entered Tanzania in 2019, it has spent more than $1.8 billion in taxes, salaries and payments to local businesses. It has also invested $6.7 million in community education, health and infrastructure projects.

Referring to Barrick’s recently published Human Rights Report, Bristow said the environmental and other issues it had inherited from the mines’ previous operators had been or were being settled.

The Company’s significant progress on this front was exemplified by last month’s landmark completion of the restoration of North Mara’s tailings facility pond to within its permitted design capacity, Bristow said. The rehabilitated facility has been complemented by a new high recovery water treatment plant.

permits, infrastructure, salaries and payments to local partners.”

During the fourth quarter Kibali paid a dividend of $170 million to shareholders of Barrick, AngloGold Ashanti and government parastatal, SOKIMO, bringing the total distribution for the year to $200 million. Bristow said Barrick and the Congolese authorities were working together on a program to release cash for the repayment of offshore loans.

During the quarter Kibali launched the Garamba Alliance, a biodiversity partnership with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) designed to preserve this World Heritage park through anti-poaching actions and other conservation initiatives. This partnership is also designed to secure a sustainable economic future for the local community surrounding the park.

Looking ahead, Bristow said underground drilling at the KCD orebody was defining a new high-grade lode above the base of the shaft infrastructure. This was an exciting discovery which could add an entirely new orebody to the existing KCD series of orebodies.

over the past three years has led to a net increase in reserves of 0.3 million ounces^13,15 and in measured and indicated resources of 1.7 million ounces^13,15,17 after depletion of ~1.3 million ounces through mining.

As a result, two new drives are currently advancing to the north to support underground conversion drilling while surface drilling continues to expand the North Leeville resource. The two drives are expected to reach the southern margin of North Leeville later this year.

“Most importantly, new geological models have opened significant high-grade potential in multiple directions at both North Leeville and in the Greater Leeville area. The presence of fertile high-angle structural conduits intersecting a pre-mineral intrusive stock is a mirror image of the Deep Post and Deep Star orebodies, two of the richest ever discoveries on the Carlin Trend,” says district exploration geologist Kendle Fraley.

Barrick president and chief executive Mark Bristow says the creation of the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture was driven by the opportunity to unlock value through the combination of the two companies’ assets in the state.

“The Carlin Trend is one of the world’s geological marvels, comparable to the Witwatersrand in its heyday. The strategies and skills we’ve been able to bring to bear on this unique endowment are ensuring that it’s the gift that will keep on giving,” he says.

Announcing the appointment, president and chief executive Mark Bristow said Ms Keener had a 21-year record of improving results in each of her roles at Alcoa.

“She has a deep commitment to business outcomes and is highly focused on delivery. Ms Keener is able to find opportunities for improvement and then to implement them with great determination. She will be a very valuable addition to our executive team,” he said.

NEVADA GOLD MINES AND EMPLOYEES CONTRIBUTE OVER $780,000 TO 580 NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS IN PAST YEAR

Nevada Gold Mines’ (NGM) Workplace Giving program, the Heritage Fund, contributed over $780,000 to 580 non-profit organizations in its inaugural year. The program was launched in December 2020 with an initial $25 gift from the company to all employees to kick off their giving. NGM also matches all donations made by employees to qualified non-profits at 120%. The mission of the Heritage Fund is to support local communities.

“The Heritage Fund is just one of the many ways we are working to support Nevada,” says Greg Walker, NGM executive managing director. “It’s a convenient avenue for our 1,900 registered employees to give to non-profits they are passionate about while also addressing the important needs of our communities. The causes often assist critical health and human services, important educational and environmental initiatives, community development, and even wildlife and habitat improvement.”

HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT

To coincide with the United Nations’ Human Rights Day in December 2021, Barrick published its report on Human Rights, outlining the Company’s updated policies and standards and their implementation since the merger with Randgold Resources.

In the report, president and chief executive Mark Bristow said that recognizing and respecting human rights was a core value for Barrick, and its Human Rights Policy was one of the first the group updated following the merger. It is codified in Barrick’s standalone Human Rights Policy and informed by the expectations of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPs) and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises.

“Our policy, simply put, is to respect the human rights of all individuals impacted by our operations, including employees, contractors and external stakeholders. The policy is guided by our philosophy of building mutually beneficial relationships with our local communities,” Bristow said.

The report also provides an insight into Barrick’s key human rights focuses such as non-discrimination in the workplace, health and safety, working conditions, resettlement, security, water and the rights of indigenous people.