How would you assess Barrick’s performance in 2022?

We are continuing to build our balance sheet, our dividend policy is delivering sustainable returns and we have shored up our life-of-mine plans to ensure that our 10-year production profile remains intact. Our successful exploration programs are feeding high-quality prospects into an already bulging pipeline and we expect to grow our reserves net of depletion again this year.

Nevada Gold Mines is Barrick’s value foundation. As far as the original objectives of the joint venture are concerned, I can safely say: mission accomplished! We have created a whole that is truly greater than the sum of its parts. From this sound base, NGM can now exploit the wealth of opportunities in its ambit, and we have recruited a future-facing management team – including a new North American regional chief operating officer and a new NGM executive managing director – to lead the company into its new growth phase. What are the primary drivers of Barrick’s future growth, and what balance are you hoping to achieve between copper and gold?

Barrick’s core strategy is one of long-term value creation. We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet and to develop our wealth of organic growth projects. Sustainability is the cornerstone of our business, as it has been for the past 20 years. We have adopted a holistic and integrated approach to this critical issue and are not only prioritizing the environment portion of ESG metrics. This is more attuned to the ethical and developmental needs of many of our host countries and is already delivering results.

Key gold projects that will help drive Barrick’s future growth include Goldrush underground at Cortez in Nevada and the Pueblo Viejo expansion in the Dominican Republic. Both projects are expected to secure the Tier One status of these assets for decades to come. On the copper side, key growth projects include Reko Diq in Pakistan and the Lumwana superpit in Zambia.

Barrick was the first gold company to clearly articulate a strategy to grow in copper, which we see as a strategic commodity of the future that is critical to decarbonize our world. We see our copper portfolio as a source of differentiation to our gold industry peers, providing shareholders with meaningful exposure to a key commodity of the future. In terms of balance, we do not set specific targets but instead look at all opportunities against our stated investment filters. Can you outline Barrick’s growth strategy in Canada and Ontario specifically? What steps is Barrick taking to explore in the Uchi Belt?

I’ve said before that Barrick is under-invested in Canada and we mean to correct that. The perception that Canada is a mature gold producer is being challenged by new discoveries of deposits with different model styles hosted in unconventional rocks. We have established a high-powered exploration team, with specializations ranging from geophysics through geochemistry to structural geology, dedicated to discovering new potential Tier One and Tier Two opportunities in prospective Canadian belts and to ensure that each opportunity is viewed holistically. In the short time the team has been in place, we’ve already consolidated an exploration property portfolio of 124,000 hectares in the underexplored Uchi Belt of northern Ontario and we’re now building on that. The Uchi Belt is host to the world-class Red Lake deposit which, in addition to recent new discoveries in unconventional host rocks, has supported our views that this district remains highly prospective. Does Hemlo still fit into Barrick’s future growth strategy?

Operations at Hemlo are being modernized and refocused to secure the gold mine’s continued viability. Several programs have been introduced to improve its performance and the mine has moved to an underground contract mining model. The objective is to upgrade Hemlo to a Tier Two asset and extend its Life of Mine well into the future.

Barrick is a Canadian company, and we are building a foundation of greenfield projects driven by an energetic team of local experts and skilled explorers. We have significant deferred tax assets in Canada, making new discoveries and/or assets even more attractive from a free cash flow and net asset value perspective.