Barrick Gold (NYSE: GOLD) (TSX: ABX) announced Friday it is advancing its portfolio of growth projects to support a planned 30% growth in gold-equivalent production by the end of the decade.
The company’s chairman John Thornton said that despite a challenging operating environment, Barrick delivered on the goals it set for 2024, meeting its gold and copper production guidance and maintaining its record of reserve replacement while adding substantially to its resource base.
“We improved our financial performance, despite higher costs, with an increase in net earnings of 69% — the highest in a decade — operating cash flow growth of 20%, and a doubling of free cash flow relative to 2023,” Thornton said in a news release.
He also said Barrick has developed its portfolio to achieve sustainable production and profitable growth, and is ramping up Pueblo Viejo in the Dominican Republic, has started prefeasibility work at Fourmile in Nevada, and restarted the Porgera mining operation in Papua New Guinea.
Thornton also said the miner completed feasibility studies for Reko Diq in Pakistan, one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits, and the Lumwana expansion project in Zambia.
“Both projects will support our goal to organically grow our production volumes, particularly in copper, and as such we are proposing to change our name from Barrick Gold Corporation to Barrick Mining Corporation, to reflect the company’s changing production profile,” Thornton said.
Thornton noted that despite rising metal prices, mining equities have underperformed, with Barrick no exception.
“We viewed our equity as undervalued and consequently repurchased $498 million of shares in 2024 and we will continue to pursue share buybacks whenever we believe our shares are trading below their intrinsic value,” he said.
