Earnings call transcript: Barrick Gold Q2 2025 sees record EPS since 2013

Barrick Gold Corporation reported its highest adjusted earnings per share (EPS) since 2013 during its Q2 2025 earnings call. The company continues to show strong financial performance with upward trends in revenue, net earnings, and adjusted net earnings. Currently trading at $3.03, the stock sits between its 52-week range of $2.32 to $8.46, with a concerning YTD return of -48%. According to InvestingPro data, the company’s Financial Health Score stands at 1.56, indicating potential challenges ahead despite positive operational updates and strategic initiatives.

Key Takeaways

• Q2 2025 adjusted EPS reached $0.47, marking the highest since 2013.
• Revenue, net earnings, and EBITDA are all on an upward trajectory.
• The Fourmile project has potential to significantly increase resources.
• The Lumwana copper expansion is on track, promising substantial output.
• Barrick is committed to a $1 billion share buyback strategy.

Company Performance

Barrick Gold has demonstrated robust performance in Q2 2025, with significant improvements in key financial metrics. The company has shown resilience in an uncertain global market, particularly in the gold and copper sectors. Barrick’s focus on Tier One, long-life assets and strategic growth initiatives positions it strongly against competitors.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Upward trend noted, though specific figures were not disclosed.
• Adjusted earnings per share: $0.47, highest since 2013.
• Net cash from operating activities: €1,330 million, a 35% increase from the last quarter.
• Year-to-date shareholder returns: $753 million through dividends and share buybacks.

Outlook & Guidance

Barrick expects a stronger second half of 2025, driven by projects like the Pueblo Viejo plant expansion and the Lumwana copper expansion. The company is targeting a throughput of 12.8 million tonnes per annum at Pueblo Viejo by 2026 and is exploring strategic investments and potential asset sales.

Executive Commentary

CEO Mark Bristow emphasized Barrick’s unique position in the industry, stating, "Barrick remains a peerless opportunity to invest in a world-class gold and copper business." He also highlighted the company’s long-term strategic focus: "We design life of mines for long-term delivery to fully optimize the ore body."

Risks and Challenges

• The global economic environment remains uncertain, which could impact commodity prices.
• Regulatory changes, particularly in regions like Tanzania, may affect operations.
• Potential delays in project timelines could impact future revenue streams.
• Market saturation in the gold sector could limit growth opportunities.
• Currency fluctuations pose a risk to financial performance.

Q&A

During the Q&A session, analysts focused on the exploration potential at the Fourmile project and the company’s capital allocation strategy. Discussions also covered the arbitration process in Lulu Gonkoto and tax loss positions in Canada, reflecting investor interest in Barrick’s operational and financial strategies moving forward.

Full transcript - Barrick Gold Corp S (ABX) Q2 2025:

Conference Moderator: Welcome to Barrick’s results presentation for the 2025. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the formal presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session for analysts. As a reminder, this event is being recorded and a replay will be available on Barrick’s website later today. I will now turn the call over to Mark Bristow, President and CEO of Barrick.

Please go ahead, sir.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Thank you very much, and a very good morning and good afternoon to everyone. And thank you all for joining us today. It’s a pleasure to be here back in London with the weather. It’s been fantastic. And and to take you through our second quarter results and share the progress we’re making across the business.

Quarter two was a productive quarter for Barrick, one where we built on the positive momentum from quarter one with stronger production, continued delivery from our Tier one assets and solid progress on our growth projects. We continue to perform in a global environment that remains uncertain and at times even uneven, reinforcing the value of a diversified portfolio, disciplined capital allocation, and the ability to operate effectively across a range of settings. Our performance this quarter speaks for itself. The portfolio is delivering, our balance sheet remains strong, and the second half is shaping up to be even better. We’re growing real value through delivery, and while the market hasn’t fully recognized this yet, we see it as a clear opportunity.

Before we begin, I’ll just remind everyone that today’s presentation contains forward looking statements and financial measures that are subject to a number of risks and assumptions. You’ll find the full cautionary in the appendix to this presentation and on our website, which you can read at your leisure. So starting with group highlights, this was another quarter delivered in line with plan as we continue to leverage the high gold price. Production tracked our guidance, and the second half is set to deliver more, in line with the guidance we laid out at the start of the year. Earnings per share more than doubled versus last year, with adjusted earnings per share at $0.47 the highest since 2013.

We finished the quarter in a net cash position, which allowed us to continue buying back shares while strengthening the balance sheet. In line with our performance dividend policy, the Board has approved a total dividend of $0.15 per share, which includes a $05 performance top up. Operationally, we’re pleased with the progress across the portfolio. Nevada Gold Mines and Pablo Viejo delivered solid results. Lemoana started to show its true potential.

The ramp up at Goldrush is gaining momentum. And of course, Fourmile keeps growing, as we’ll discuss later. On the operational front, this was another quarter with all the arrows pointing in the right direction. Production improved across the portfolio with solid contributions from Nevada Gold Mines, Pueblo Viejo, Kibali and Lomana. These assets are delivering as planned, setting us up for a stronger second half.

In copper, we saw a clear year on year and quarter on quarter improvement, production volumes up and unit costs coming down. Attributable gold production increased, and importantly, we continued to see a reduction in all in sustaining costs. As we discussed at the start of the year, controlling all in sustaining costs is a key focus area for us, and we are starting to see that discipline coming through in the numbers. And as we continue to focus our portfolio on long life Tier one assets, we completed the sale of our interest in the Donlin Gold Project for $1,000,000,000 The sale reflects our disciplined approach to capital allocation and further sharpens our growth pipeline. Turning to the group’s financial results.

The combination of improved operating performance and a stronger gold price has delivered the best quarterly adjusted earnings per share in over a decade. We can see a significant improvement in revenue, net earnings and adjusted net earnings, with all three tracking upwards compared to quarter one and the same quarter last year. Our attributable EBITDA growth reflects stronger margins and net cash provided by operating activities came in at €1,330,000,000 up 35% from last quarter if we exclude interest and income taxes. Free cash flow improved, supported by the gold price and disciplined capital allocation. And as I mentioned, earnings per share increased to $0.47 aligning with the operational and market tailwinds we’ve discussed.

The trend here is clear. Barrick is on a positive trajectory with even more to come. This slide really highlights the product of our clear and consistent capital return framework. It reflects the disciplined approach we take to allocating capital, ensuring we deliver long term profitability across our portfolio while building value through the growth of our Tier one assets and new projects. In the first half of the year, we’ve already returned $753,000,000 to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share buybacks.

That is even before the performance dividend we declared, which will be paid out in quarter three in line with our capital return framework. And importantly, this is just the first half of the year. All indicators point to an even stronger second half as we continue to deliver on our plans. As we all remind each other every day, in Barrick, health and safety remains a core priority. In this quarter, we saw further improvements across both leading and lagging indicators.

Year to date, we’ve achieved a fifty percent decrease in lost time injuries and a thirty seven percent decrease in total injuries compared to the same period last year. These gains reflect both stronger frontline engagement and the effectiveness of our critical control verification program, which remains the central to how we manage risk and embed a culture of safety across all our sites. Let’s now turn to operations, and starting with North America. This was the first quarter where Nevada Gold Mines led the group’s performance, driven not only by production, but by progress on key growth projects. As we’ve said before, the complex is transitioning to a predominantly underground operation.

To support development, we initially brought in contractors, but now we’re shifting back to self perform as the capacity of our in house teams improve. At Goldrush, the ramp up continues in line with plan as we move towards nameplate capacity. At the same time, we’re super excited by their potential at Fourmile, Barrick’s 100% owned asset, which is effectively an extension of the Goldrush ore body except better. I’ll speak more about that a little later. At Nevada Gold Mines, we saw increased gold production this quarter, reinforcing the financial strength of the portfolio and helping drive a reduction in all in sustaining costs.

That trend is expected to continue with further cost improvements anticipated by the end of the year. Production gains were driven largely by higher volumes at Carlin, and a reduction in sustaining capital contributed to a lower overall all in sustaining costs. With all major planned maintenance shutdowns now behind us, we’re well positioned to deliver an even stronger second half. Turning now to Fourmile. This asset is rapidly competing to be the largest and highest grade gold discovery in the industry this century.

Since we last showed you this picture, the ore body potential has grown significantly, and the grade is also increasing. Let me pause here to reflect for a moment. As you’ll recall, our resource has calculated at the 2024, and is shown in this table, is represented by the red outline of this graphic. It’s also that red arrow if somebody’s struggling to see the outline. The black dotted outline in what we is what we expect to convert this year, and where all indications point to us doubling the current resource or more.

Even more exciting is what’s shown by the green outline on the slide, where we are continuing to define significant high grade ore body extensions. Fourmile is no doubt emerging as a generational asset. And it’s worth putting this in context, and I think Simon did it at our Investor Day. If you look at Goldstrike underground, which was, as some of the older folk in this audience will remember, was the maker of the barrack then, it Goldstrike Underground today has produced some 13,000,000 ounces at a grade of around 10 grams a ton. Our current exploration drilling, which is adding to the previous drilling, and some of it is shown here on the yellow dots and the black dots, the ones with the grades attached to them, is really highlighting the potential.

And it’s a long time since we’ve seen these numbers of intersections at these grades with these thicknesses. And what you have is an extension of Goldstrike and then I mean, correction, Goldrush. And this is now accessing host rock that is brittle. And we’ve now got these large brettier bodies that are delivering the grade. It’s also important that these large bodies are competent.

So when you intersect them for those geologists or mining engineers in the audience, when you drill through them, the core is continuous. And that’s not normal in Carlin style ore bodies, where you have many breaks in the core when you drill through the ore body. So it really does and when you just look at it on a like for like, whether you use Goldstrike or Goldrush, the unit underground mining costs are going to be substantially lower. The other part of this is the geometallurgy. And we’re now well down the road in making intersections across that purple patch that you see on the screen, because there’s indications that some significant amount of this ore body could well be not double refractory, but single refractory ore.

And that’s really the focus. The rest of this year is going to be really to frame the potential of this ore body. We’ve resisted the temptation of trying to bank it, ready to get our head around the size of the ore body and the grade. And then we will start thinking about the next step. And the next natural step is to look to access it from underground.

And we have an opportunity with minimum permitting to be able to do that from the Old Hill site. And with that, we believe we will save 500 to $600,000,000 in drilling as if we were compared to if we had to try and drill it out from surface, which are long, complicated holes. So I think what I want to leave you with, and I’m definitely going to be talking about this every quarter going forward, is the significance of this resource and the difference that really should be considered here is that this is a world class, tens of millions of ounces, and it’s right in the middle of infrastructure, the Nevada infrastructure. It’s not something that you have to go and establish in some complicated place in other parts of the world. So I’ll leave you with that.

And again, when you look at the intersections, multiple meters, tens, 20, 30, 50 meters at one and two ounces per ton rather than grams per ton. It’s very significant. Let’s move on to Latin America and Asia Pacific, which delivered another all around solid performance this quarter. And it’s worth noting that this was a very challenging region when we started out back in 2019. At Pueblo Viejo, we made further progress on the plant expansion, supporting improved throughput and production quarter on quarter.

Valadero continued to trend well, and at Zeldivar, we secured a new mining permit for that operation that now extends the operation’s life through to the at least 02/1951. We also continue to advance the permitting process at our El Alto exploration project. And as you’ll see shortly, Reykjedik remains firmly on track, a world class project with exceptional long term potential. At Pueblo Viejo, we delivered, as I said, a solid improvement in gold production this quarter on increased plant throughput while also driving unit costs lower. The plant modifications completed last quarter are working well, we expect continued momentum as throughput ramps up further in the second half.

You would remember that we went down not on the whole process, but on parts of the process for a period of thirty five days in Q1, really focusing on debottlenecking the throughput within the operation. Construction of the new tailings storage facility is advancing with access roads currently underway and engineering design optimization going forward. The focus this year has been on debottlenecking the plant and improving throughput, as I’ve already mentioned. And that progress is clearly reflected in the production trend that you see here. The little correction in the third bar on the top is the quarter where we were shut down for a while.

That’s why the throughput is down on that light blue bar. Throughput continues to rise with steady growth expected through the second half. As a reminder, Q1 was impacted by a planned shutdown, but the overall trend is firmly upward. We’re targeting throughput of 12,800,000 tonnes per annum by 2026. Importantly, we continue to optimize the life of mine.

And while the ramp up has been gradual, we are managing the blend more aggressively by adding older higher grade stockpiles during this phase, which is being built into the plan. And we’ll be updating as we go and as we progress our test work on the old stockpiles. We have a significant reserve base in stockpiles at Pueblo Viejo. As mentioned earlier, the resettlement action plan at PV is progressing well. A key milestone this quarter was the signing of a formal agreement with the affected communities, which was resolved all out which has resolved all outstanding issues through a commission process mediated by the country’s public defender and the Catholic Church.

With that in place, families are now moving into the New Horizons housing estate each week, and we’re seeing steady progress on this important social commitment. And it’s worth noting a lot of these folk were living within the, effectively, the jungle in singular houses of which they didn’t own. And this housing estate comes with a pre school, primary school, middle school and ultimately a technical high school. And you can walk to school from your home. And that’s and it’s got sewage, running water.

It’s a modern state, as you can see. So and everyone gets a title deed. And that’s a very important part of developing a value base for people in emerging markets. Move now to Riccodec, where we’ve made further progress in advancing this world class project. Fluor has now been formally onboarded as the EPCM engineering partner, and the design of the tailings storage facility has now been completed.

Early works are underway, and the project remains on track. RicoDec continues to represent a significant long term value opportunity for Barrick, a truly world class asset with meaningful upside. We’ve also made good progress on the project financing. And with the bulk of the due diligence complete and documentation well advanced, we continue to work to complete the financing this year. Six years ago, as I mentioned in Latin America and Asia Pacific, the opportunities were limited.

Today, it’s a region with significant exploration footprint and meaningful value upside. Over this period, we’ve rebuilt our exploration team and have established a portfolio of tangible near and medium term opportunities. We’ve had encouraging results in Argentina with prospects that could extend the life of mine at Veladero. In Pakistan, drilling extending our new discovery at Burkhard Pasir is ongoing, and we’ve already got a new discovery in that mining license. And just a point, this new discovery, we’ve had some drill intersections that are some of the best drill intersections ever drilled in the complex porphyry or the porphyry complex of Rikodec.

And we’re talking hundreds of meters of intersections at continuous 0.8% copper. We’ve also advancing new targets through drilling in The Dominican Republic and in Peru, and further strengthening our future growth pipeline in the region. Turning now to Africa and The Middle East. This quarter focused on further unlocking the value potential across the region as one of our main cash generators of the group. We saw a solid performance across the portfolio with encouraging improvements at Kibali, which I’ll speak to in more detail shortly.

In Mali, we continue to manage the situation in a measured and constructive manner. We are continuing with arbitration and we are committed to finding a path forward for the benefit of all stakeholders. For those of you tracking updates closely, I encourage you to visit the microsite we recently added to our website. As I said, Kibali delivered another strong quarter with higher production and improved unit costs across the board, supported in part by a reduction in sustaining capital. We also commissioned the solar power plant and battery energy storage system, further strengthening Kobali’s position as one of the most automated and also one of the greenest gold mines in the world.

Tanzania delivered another on track quarter with North Mara continuing its steady performance. At Bully and Hulu, work continues on the expansion project with a focus on a second access and production area to support future growth. Gold sales during the quarter trailed production slightly in Tanzania as we adapt to the new legislation requiring 20% of the production to be reserved for in country trading with an associated royalty reduction benefit. And now Zambia and Lomana. We are very excited about our progress at the Lomana Super Pit expansion.

The operation continued its steady upward trajectory with year on year and quarter on quarter increases in production and a positive reduction across all key metrics. The expansion project itself is well on track. We’ve refined the development plan and Lomana has self funded the project through operating cash flows so far this year, and we expect it to do that for the rest of the year at current spot prices. Once complete, the expanded operation is expected to deliver 240,000 tons of copper per year, supported by a 52,000,000 ton per annum processing plant and a mine life of more than thirty years. And it’s worth just looking at the right hand side of the results there.

And if you look at last year, quarter two twenty twenty four production, copper produced 25,000 tons, and then quarter one, ’25, twenty seven quarter, ’2, ’25, ’44, and a commensurate drop in the unit cost per pound of copper and all in unit all in sustaining cost. It’s very material, and that’s where our focus is. Know, Lemana is a mine that, since Barrick acquired it, never made a profit until 2020. And and it was all in discipline and unit cost, and today, we are gonna expand that. And we need the all in sustaining cost to be under $3.

And then you really that proves our feasibility model extremely well. As you know, there are

: not

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: many copper mines that are capable of delivering plus I mean, $3 a pound all in sustaining costs. And again, Africa and The Middle East remains well positioned to replace its reserve depletion again this year, a hallmark of the region over the many years that it’s been operating. And this quarter, we continued to advance near mine exploration with standout progress along the ARK Corridor at Kibali with drilling extending mineralized loads and confirming significant exploration upside. And that ARK sits right next to the main KCD ore body, which is the real basis of Kibali’s value. Greenfield programs are also progressing across the region in Tanzania, The DRC and across the Central African Copper Belt, which plans both Southern DRC and Zambia.

In addition, we continue to advance our early stage exploration in Saudi Arabia, further reinforcing the depths of our pipeline across this region. This slide really speaks to the strength and resilience of our portfolio. While we continue to work towards a solution for Lulo Gonkoto, it is important to note that even without it, the underlying value of our portfolio still significantly exceeds our market value. Barrick remains a peerless opportunity to invest in a world class gold and copper business, and few, if any, companies in the sector can match the depth or quality of the growth you see here. We grew production in quarter two, and the second half, as I have repeatedly said, is set to deliver both higher volumes and lower costs in line with our full year guidance.

At the same time, we’re replacing the gold and copper we mine and growing 30% organically by 2029. This is a portfolio we are building to deliver over the long term with Tier one assets, world class people and a disciplined capital allocation strategy backing it all. It is our opinion that Barrick remains one of the most compelling investment cases in the gold and copper space today. This is an enterprise with world class assets, a clear growth strategy and the balance sheet to fund that growth without diluting our shareholder equity. We’re consistently delivering on our promises, growing production, replacing our reserves, and returning more capital to shareholders.

This is a company built on the foundations of long life assets, strong partnerships, financial discipline, exploration excellence, and a sustainable operating model, the pillars that underpin everything we do. In a world searching for real assets, strong partners, and responsible growth, Barrick stands apart. Few can match what we offer, and fewer still can do it without debt or dilution. Thank you very much for your attention, and we’d be happy to take questions. Perfect.

Dan Major, Analyst, UBS: Dan Major from UBS. Nice to see you in London, guys. Yeah. Few questions for me. So the first one on Lulu and Kotto.

Appreciate the best solution would be a restart, etcetera. But can you give us any time lines around the key milestones to look forward to in or look for in the arbitration process? You know, what we should be looking for in the event that a resolution can’t be reached?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So I think the the the we’re not at that stage where we don’t believe that we can find a resolution. The and I’ve always said, Dan, that we’ve you know, when you’re engaging and talking, there’s always an opportunity. Of course, there’s been some activity in Mali which complicates the process. But as far as the exit process goes, the tribunal has been appointed. The Malian authorities have nominated their member to the tribunal as have we, and we have an independent president.

So it’s constituted we’ve already presented our first application for some interim relief measures, really focused on cautioning everyone not to damage the assets, you know, while we try and seek a solution. And that process will build on. At the same time, we continue to engage also through other sort of treaty programs between Canada and Mali. And we have representation in country through our legal counsel, which is in country, really experienced team, as well as some of our executives that are still in the country. And we also have third party mediation ongoing.

So there’s a lot of effort going in, and we still, as I say, communicate. So it would be unwise and you’ve seen some efforts to try and take this discussion dispute into the public domain. We’re mindful that that’s not the case. We have built a site on our website which really updates people on the facts, and we’ll continue to build on that so that somebody wants to see how it’s progressing and wants the facts, we can do it. But we we’re I mean, in all my years in this game, it’s not a good practice to try and negotiate in the public domain.

Dan Major, Analyst, UBS: Okay. Thanks. And then the next question on divestments. Looks like you’re kind of moving forward with Hemlo, Tongon. Zaldivar had the water permit extended, so we got visibility on the life of mine of this asset.

Now what’s the the fit in the portfolio? And then I guess the same question for Porgera. Is that a core asset as it stands today?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Well, Well, I think we’ve got enough to get done in the short term. So let us finish that. We’ll come back to the others, Dan. I think the I reminded somebody today when in 2019 when we closed the merger with Barrick and Randgold, Hemlo was on for sale then. We invested quite a lot into Hemlo to reestablish it as an operation, a

Simon: viable

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: operation. And as we’ve seen, there’s a real appetite for these types of mines. And again, our view is that there’s a time where we have to test our portfolio against our disciplined approach to Tier one long life assets that can get us through all the cycles in the commodity space. And it’s good practice. I mean, we, as you know, are one of the few miners that have able to we’ve added 110,000,000 ounces of gold equivalent ounces to reserves in Barrick in the last six years.

And so we invest in our future. We’ve brought some significant new reserves in the form of RICODEC, and we’ve converted big reserves in PV and likewise in Lemoana. And so it makes sense to rationalize your portfolio from time to time. We did that immediately out the blocks in 2019, as you recall, and it’s now quite a few years on. We’ve got a growth ahead of us.

It makes good sense to clean up the portfolio. And it’s a good time to do it when there are buyers out there in the market.

Dan Major, Analyst, UBS: Okay. And then just one more if I could on Fourmile. Looks like some kind of really exciting results going forward. Does this change the way that you’re thinking about the scope of the operation going forward or the timeline given the growing scale? Yeah.

How do you see that?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So there’s lots of water tools still to flow under the bridge in four mile. We are we have shortened the time frame, so we would like to have a sort of scoping position for the project by the end of this year. We’ll then decide what’s the next step. Is it prefeasibility or feasibility? Exactly how we take it to the next step.

And and for for me, just looking at Fourmile and you look at Nevada Gold Mines, if you take Fourmile and put it into the middle of Nevada Gold Mines, which is where it should be, you you you replace some of the feed in the in the roasters, which is our constraint, at three to four times the grade. And and so you can up the profile, you add life, and you drop the costs. So it’s a very valuable asset within that complex. And and the you know, I think the the the harder you know, we we have worked very hard at our partnership with New Mountain in Nevada Gold Mines, and we will continue to do so. And at the same time, I think we’ve shown that we can permit mines in The United States.

We permitted Goldrush and Robertson recently. That was before Trump administration. Of course, current administration has made it a lot easier or focusing the permitting process to make sure that it doesn’t get hijacked by litigation, but that it is focused and no one’s trying to change the regulations. Regulations are proper and aligned with our global view. And so and I would just add, too, we are very active in the brownfields and greenfields extensions to the Nevada portfolio.

That’s the Nevada Gold Mines portfolio, the joint venture portfolio. As we are further afield within Nevada as Barrick itself. So we see this opportunity. We’ve seen it all the time. We’ve been investing in building that knowledge and making sure that we can permit drill platforms, which we’re pretty good at now.

And so over the rest of this year, you’ll see some more opportunities we’ll point to some more opportunities to expand our portfolio within The United States.

Mauricio Carulli, Chief Investment Manager, Quilter: Mauricio Carulli from Quilter Chief Investment Management. I haven’t followed the company for a while, so I have two questions out of ignorance. Best to on Lulu, the on the balance sheet, the book value of the assets has been partially impaired, completely impaired. What is the situation there?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So let me pass it on to Graham. It’s a it’s an accounting procedure given the current situation, and he’s the best man to explain that.

Mauricio Carulli, Chief Investment Manager, Quilter: Thank you.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Is it on? Yep. It’s it’s on. Yeah.

Graham, CFO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So, yes, so as Mark says, from an accounting point of view, once the government appointed the administrator to take control of Lulu Gonkoto, That meant that we no longer had control of that asset, and therefore, from an accounting point of view, when you no longer control asset, you can’t consolidate it. And so we did two things. We deconsolidated the asset and effectively wrote off the assets and liabilities on the balance sheet. And then we subsequently did an evaluation of our investment because we still owned 80% of that asset. We can still expect to get the benefits from our investment in that asset.

And so we did evaluation of that asset using a number of different metrics, including risk adjusted cash flows that we expect to get from the asset over a period of time. And the difference between those two was approximately $1,000,000,000 before tax, about $600,000,000 after tax, which is what was put through the P and L. I would just point out at this junction that we also sold the Donneller asset during the quarter, and we recognized a gain on that, which was around $750,000,000 after tax about $600,000,000 So in effect, we had a loss and a gain, which more or less offset each other, which is why when you look at the adjusted earnings and the net earnings, they’re approximately the same.

Mauricio Carulli, Chief Investment Manager, Quilter: Okay. Thank you very much. Much clearer now. And the second question is just to have a bit more color on the project that you have in in Saudi Arabia, Jabal Saeed, if I pronounce it correctly. Both in terms of ownership structure and in terms of development expectations, etcetera, etcetera.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So it’s a small high grade copper mine underground. It’s got a ten year life still. We’ve been very successful in adding life and increasing production. It’s a very low cost producer. It’s it’s paid back all its loans and debt, and it’s a big contributor in in in towards this partnership.

It’s owned fifty fifty between Baden and and Barrick. And that’s been a you know, we effectively, we’re the only foreign operators because we are the operator of the mine. We are partners, equal partners with Mauden, but we operate the mine. And what it’s proven is that you can operate in Saudi. And again, we have expanded our partnership with Ma’aden in the exploration fund, around Jabal Saeed, and and more recently, we’re looking to beyond that partnership because that’s the real partnership.

You know, we’ve built a lot of partnerships in my career in complex jurisdictions. And as you know, Saudi is the state mining company effectively. And it has great depth and really focused in on bulk mining. That’s its major value. But it has these portfolio of exploration rights across the Arabian Shield.

And we see that as a highly prospective minerals belt, particularly prospective for both gold and copper. And so we’re working with Maarten to expand our partnership across that region.

Dan Major, Analyst, UBS: Mark, it’s Justin Baring at JBM. Just a quick question on Lumwana and the electricity situation in Zambia. Is there any update on the availability and some of the power plans there? Thanks.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Yeah. And nice to see you, Justin. So we’ve put a lot of work into the fees when we’re doing the feasibility on the expansion of the power. We we did a big survey of the whole Zambian power grid. And what we two things in that we’ve managed the power.

One, in the short term with the low water levels within the Zambezi River, what we did is work with the the state power utility to wheel power through the grid from neighboring countries. And we were able to do that at relatively in a relatively cost effective way, a lower cost than running diesel engines. And the other thing that we discovered was that there was a significant loss of power in the grid because of poorly sick poor poor synchronization of the feeds into the feeding into the grid from various different sources. And in a partnership between First Quantum Go First Quantum and and Barrick, we set about to address that and unlock and we our estimate is around 500 megawatts of power. And we’ve invested in technology to resynchronize that power and being able to unlock some of that lost power.

And we have a partnership with First Quantum. They’re investing in what we call statcoms, which are these synchronizers effectively. And we are putting we are funding some additional redundancy power lines to create loops in the feed. And and that is the and and and it’s a and and it’s in, again, in partnership with the ZESCO. And we believe that and we have the permitting now for the power that’s required for our expansion, and so has First Quantum.

And and we believe that together, we will be able to support the expanded demand for the the power expansions and their expansions. And then at the same time, there are a number of power projects in within the Zambian grid that are that need investment, but certainly can deliver low cost power. And and that power region is you know, people are talking now about exporting power from Zambia through to DRC. That’s like the strangest thing I’ve ever heard because, you know, DRC is the is the roof the the real power sink in Central Africa. And then the the Tanzanians are constructing and have recently finished a big hydro facility within Tanzania, and it’s it’s really large.

It has it will have, when it’s fully developed, significant capacity. And there’s now serious negotiations on linking that infrastructure into that region. And more and more, that that region, that SADAC region, is looking at, you know, integrating their their power infrastructure across the the various countries. And so there’s a there’s quite a lot of opportunity to improve the the the security of of power supply and also make it more cost effective. So, you know, we’re very involved in it.

We’re comfortable that we’ll be able to manage with with the plans in place, the expansion for for Lomana. Okay. Shall we go who’s in charge there, Claudia?

Conference Moderator: For the q and a section of today’s session, we will be utilizing the raise hand feature. If you would like to ask a question, click on the raise hand button at the bottom of the screen. Once prompted, please unmute yourself and begin with your question. The first question will come from Matthew Murphy with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Please ask your question.

: Hi, Mark and team. Just a couple of questions on sort of the sequential outlook for the back half of the year. One would be Peblo Viejo, particularly the focus on improving recoveries. Do you still target 85% recovery in Q4? Or how are you thinking about that?

And the other would be the Nevada Gold Mines cost trajectory.

: How do you

: feel about the path to lower gold unit cost back half of the year?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So if you do the math, Matthew, there is an improvement in production across the group and particularly at Nevada gold mines. And right now, if you adjust for the increase in gold price, we’re guiding that we’ll get there certainly on a group basis out to the back end of the year. On PV, the big focus on PV is throughput. One of the things that with the delays in the expansion and particularly the tailings facility, it’s got a substantial stockpile that we blend with the fresh ore. And some of that stockpile is high grade, but it’s deteriorating.

And so back in 2019, we did a comprehensive evaluation of those stockpiles into the 2020. We’ve started another campaign. And the view is that we need to look at that mix and also taking the older stock piles, which by the way are higher grade. And what it does too in this gold price environment is it improves the cash flow because these stockpiles, of course, as you’ll appreciate, are paid for. So we’ll update you as we go on that.

There’s always been a debate around the recoveries and the profile. And in the course of time, we’ll keep you posted on what that looks like. Graham, do you want to add?

Graham, CFO, Barrick Gold Corporation: I would just add, Matt, that in terms of guidance for the second half of the year, obviously, we did guide 46, 54 for the first half, second half. But then we’ve also guided that each quarter is sequentially better. So you can do the math yourself, but if it’s fifty four and twenty seven is the midpoint, maybe it’s 26%, 28% or something like that, just to give you some sort of broad parameters in terms of what you can expect step ups?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: And I think, Matt, just to finish off, as you know, we had I touched on it earlier in my presentation, we had a lot of downtime. Gold Quarry or first of all, Gold Strike Roaster, Gold Quarry Roaster, the autoclaves. We had the Wanda replacement, M Motor replacement in Kibali, we were down not 100%, but intermittently down for thirty five days in PV. So a lot of we got a lot of that big some of it retrofitting, others planned maintenance behind us. So we’ve got a reasonably good run out to the end of the year, which supports Graham’s outline of how we expect to perform.

: Okay, thank you.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So no magic in the numbers.

Conference Moderator: Our next question will come from Anita Soni with CIBC. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC: Hi. Good afternoon, Mark and team. Just a little bit of follow-up on PV, just what Matt asked. So substantially higher grades. Could you just let us know what the stockpile stands at in terms of millions of tons or how how many tons you would be looking to go through in as you resequence?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So it’s a lot. Simon, are you on the call? You’re not. Anita, let us but it’s like, you know, when you I would guess it’s around 10,000,000 ounces in stockpiles. It’s 20,000,000 out to the end of the life, so it’s substantial.

I can give you the I can get the numbers. They are disclosed, so in our filings.

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC: And and an update on the an update on the tailings, can you just give us an idea I mean, you’re pushing the throughput. That was, I mean, pretty pretty high and pretty good throughput at at PV. When we think about the tailings facility, how much room do you have ahead of you? And what how should we be thinking about the second phase and when do you need that?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So we’ve got out until 2,030 capacity and some flexibility to extend the life of the current tailings facility is included in that. And so right now, we’re I mean, it’s not quite on the critical path, but it’s we’re very focused on making sure that we schedule the construction of the tailings facility to be able to receive the tailings out towards the back end of this decade.

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC: All right. And then just moving to Turquoise Ridge. Yes. I was about to say Turquoise Hill. Turquoise Ridge.

Just can you remind me, you are blowing through stockpiles Right? I mean, you’re mining much higher grades than than you’re putting through the process plant. When do you think you’ll be reverting more to to trying to get to the like, a higher blend, I guess, of the underground material versus stockpiles?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So it’s important. Right now, with some of the high grade, it’s high carbon material, so you need to blend it to be able to manage the recoveries. And that’s the life of mine plan, is managing that blend. So again, the throughput, as you saw in this quarter, there’s still some headroom on the throughput. The recoveries are in good shape.

And we’re Turquoise Ridge is a, you know, significant asset. There is other opportunities on the in the open pits, and and and so is Simon on? Simon? Yeah.

: Yeah. I’m here. Can you hear me now?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: There was a question

Simon: about me off mute.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: About the stockpile tonnage and grades at at PV?

: Yeah. So we got we got 97,000,000 tons at 2.45 grams a ton. So so and portions of that stockpile run as high as 2.7 grams. So

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC: Okay.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Okay. There we are. That’s the answer. And and if you look at the at Turquoise Ridge,

: Then sorry. One second, though. I need to get those numbers set.

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC: It’s okay. I’ll ask my last question and then

: see I come back to you.

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC: Yeah. Just lastly, on on sorry. I’m halfway through my modeling here. Actually, about two thirds of the way through the modeling. But in terms of the oh, PORGRAPH.

It was PORGRAPH. I know small contribution, but it seems like you have a significant ramp up there in the getting back to the prior run rates before you had all those issues with the had the issue with the landslide. But what are we looking for in the back half of the year and what does 2026 look like?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So we’ve really re optimized Porgera. If you look at the dividends that we’ve paid out and the percentage dividend that comes to the two investors, Zinjin and ourselves, it’s substantial. And so and we’re busy recouping that the investment we made during care and maintenance. So there’s a stronger cash flow component of every dollar we make back to the investors. And it’s important that we get that back.

At the same time, we’re still one of the most significant contributors to the treasury in Papua New Guinea, as you would I don’t know if you follow that, but you would have seen the Prime Minister actually issued a press release recently praising Porgera for its contribution to the treasury. Graham, you want add?

Graham, CFO, Barrick Gold Corporation: I was just going to say, it’s in terms of production, Anita, outlook is slightly more than the first half, but not materially more. And just in terms of your earlier question on Turquoise Ridge, it’s 26,000,000 tonnes at 2.26 grams a tonne of stockpile.

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC: Okay. Thank you very much.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: And I think the other thing that Anita that and it’s worth all the analysts reaching out to our team, is that Barrick’s policy, we do not design life of mines to maximize NPV. We design life of mines for long term delivery to fully optimize the ore body. And that’s always the way we’ve done it and it’s the way we will continue to do it. And so when you’re building models, need to be aware of our philosophy, which is quite different to others in the in this industry. And you don’t get that big production growth in front and then a cliff developing in the back end of your life of mine.

Conference Moderator: Thank you. Our next question will come from Joff Wolfson with RBC. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Simon: Thanks very much. Going back to the slide on Formal, Slide 10, you know, just looking at some of these outlines, you know, the existing resource looks to be, you know, significantly less than half of what the footprint is. That’s that’s sort of in the, in the green there. And then the grade also looks, I mean, maybe 50% or maybe a little bit higher than that. But but, you know, that substantially lower grade is the existing resource versus the what’s sort of been delineated.

So, some pretty big, at least in my view, some pretty big, you know, updates at this asset. I guess, first of all, I mean, is is that the right way of thinking of things? And then second part of this is there was an initial, PEA that was issued, I think, in late last year, that talked about over half a million ounces and, you know, per production rates per year and and and a throughput rate associated with that. And the second part is sort of, you know, should we still think that those, economic criteria are still applicable if if this resource ultimately turns out to be what looks like on this page?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Josh, I don’t know where to start. I mean, how much more do you want? This so we

Simon: are

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: busy with this evaluation. We’re at, as you can point, the numbers that we shared with you at the end of last year are sitting in that table that’s embedded. Every day, we’re getting new results. They’ve got to be verified. They are as you can imagine, these are long boreholes that take a long time to drill.

The preliminary numbers were based on the drilling up to that stage. As you can see in the black dots are the boreholes we finished. The yellow dots are ones that are still going to be drilled. But there’s some significant numbers that still have to come out of this ore body that and our correction, the yellow ones are the ones we’re drilling in 2025. Some of them are drilled, that’s the yellow I mean, the white arrows.

And the others that have got no grades on still have to be drilled or have been drilled and we haven’t got the results back. So it’s I think this is a modeled interpretation based on the early stage drilling that we’ve done. The continuity is proving to be a lot better than we thought. These are big bread chairs. And when we could take you out there at the later on in the after Denver, if you’re coming, you can come and have a look at it yourself.

But it’s significant.

: Got it.

Simon: Thanks. I will, I’ll see you there. I guess, this the second question I have is, you know, thinking about the valuation of the of the of the stock and also, I guess, in the context of the upside here at Fourmile, how are you thinking about capital allocation? You know, when I look at this quarter’s results, buyback, levels were were healthy. You know, they increased from last quarter.

There was also a big, disposition that helped the cash position, but, you know, some of that went to the dividend. You know, that that inflow from the asset sale might not be repeated in the future, but it might be. So bottom line, I guess, is how would you be allocating cash here going forward, and how important is the buyback?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So I think we’re on track to we are committed to that $1,000,000,000 buyback strategy where the year to date at $411,000,000 And so that’s the way we will manage it. As per our capital allocation, we’re quite disciplined in the way we manage our capital allocation. Graham and I have been like that certainly ever since we’ve worked together. And do you want to add something, Graham?

Graham, CFO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Yes. I’d just say, Josh, the combination of the performance dividend and the buybacks give us that ability to take advantage of the situation as we see it. And so right now we do have the $1,000,000,000 which is earmarked. And to the extent that we line up with excess capital, we’ve got options. We can obviously increase the buyback if we’ve consumed it all.

We obviously are always looking at opportunities and we can continue to pay a performance dividend. So it’s about taking advantage of our options and keeping our flexibility. But certainly buybacks is something that we will increasingly focus on given the fact that the shares are very undervalued.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: And Josh, I’d just add that if you look at Lemana, when we guided the overall capital for Lemana, we were going to contribute this year. We’re at a stage now where we unless the copper price really weakens, we’ll cover all the capital this year for Lumana. And that brings that headline $2,000,000,000 down materially going forward. And what we’re pointing to is that if you take Barrick’s five year plan, it’s easily fundable from internal resources. And on the sale of noncore assets, some of that will go to, as Graham says, you can manage that process within our capital allocation guidelines.

And some of it will go to share buybacks because it makes sense because you’re taking out production. Some of it will give back to shareholders because it’s an extraordinary benefit. And I’ve always said, in business, when you do something you hadn’t planned to do, you should share it with your owners. And that’s what we do. And on the capital side, I think we’re very comfortable in being able to fund our future.

And I would just point out something the market hasn’t got its head around is once we get to a point of being able to prove the financing of Rick O’Dick, it takes away that market obsession with the gearing that people keep writing about. And so we’ve got some fairly significant catalysts over the next almost every quarter going out until the start of 2028.

Conference Moderator: Our next question will come from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank. Tanya, your line is open. Please ask your question. I believe that Tanya is having some audio issues. We can move on to the next question.

John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

John Tumazos, Analyst, John Tumazos Very Independent Research: Thank you very much. Could you update us on your Canadian tax loss position, whether they expire at a particular point in time, American wins due sometime, and how that interacts in the decision to sell Hemlo or maybe buy something to replace it?

Graham, CFO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Hi, John. It’s Graham. We have around $2,000,000,000 of sort of ordinary losses and another $2,000,000,000 of capital losses. They as a rule they expire in around twenty years, but some of them don’t expire at all. So we have quite a lot of headroom and runway on those tax losses.

And certainly in the context of the disposal of Hemlo, they would certainly be useful in protecting the proceeds of that sale substantially.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: Our last question will come from Martin Praetor with Veritas Investment Research. Your line is open. Please ask your question.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation0: Yes. Thank you. My question is on Tanzania. What is the price at which you have to sell that 20%?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: So spot price. It’s a, you know, it’s a market related price. We are and that’s the reason we we hung back this quarter just to get everything right. So we wanna you know, we’ve made proposals of getting the gold back from the Rand refinery in a refined form or selling it into Tanzania to other buyers. But our condition is it needs to go through the central bank.

And with it is the agreement. We’ve got to agree on how we do the check assays and the follow-up any disagreements, how we’re going to do that. The positive side of that is we get a 3% benefit because we don’t pay duties on that export because it’s internal. So there is a significant, at these gold prices, benefit for us. So as you know, we’ve got a solid engagement with the government of Tanzania, and that’s what we’re focusing just to make sure that everyone is in agreement with how it works and we’ve got proper binding agreements.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation0: And just one last question. If you could share how advanced are you in the conversations about Tongon? Because I’ve I’ve read in the news that there there were some offers and, you know, could we see something at the end of this quarter?

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: You know, the one thing I can say without fear of contradiction, don’t listen to the scuttlebug of the some of these reporters. As you know, the the these processes run us very controlled progress led by our investment banking partners, and we do not disclose where we are until the process is closed. We definitely engage with our host countries in the process, but it would be unprofessional to leak or disclose the progress or even the participants in this in such a process.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation0: Thank you.

Conference Moderator: This concludes the Q and A. I will now turn the call back to Mark Bristow for closing remarks.

Mark Bristow, President and CEO, Barrick Gold Corporation: Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As I said, not a particularly enthusiastic day for gold today given the the rumors of charges on gold bars that came out at the end of last week. But as a business, a solid performance on the back of the start that in quarter one, very clear destination insight on delivering overall for the year. And again, I think this is a great example of the way we allocate capital, the tremendous value that we’ve embedded in this organization. And really, it’s when you grow NAV, it’s always a challenge to daylight it, much easier to do M and A.

But that growth, that organic growth is where you really do create value in the mining industry, and we’re extremely well positioned to be able to deliver on that. So thank you again for those who came and particularly in this nice London weather. And for the rest, we’ll see you hopefully at Denver and then after that, those who are joining us on the trip, it will be good to catch up. So with that, thank you very much again, and speak to you soon.

Conference Moderator: This concludes today’s event. Should you have any questions, please contact Barrick’s Investor Relations department. Thank you for joining us.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.