Barrick Gold Corporation is continuing to invest in its future through the development of capital projects that will expand and enhance an operating platform which already holds some of the industry’s best assets, says president and chief executive Mark Bristow.

Writing in the company’s 2021 annual report, published today, Bristow says that, while building on this value foundation, Barrick was also expanding its presence into new prospective areas in its hunt for high-quality assets.

“A specialist Asia-Pacific team, set up to look at opportunities in that region, has acquired exploration permits in Japan and are hunting for additional opportunities in that region. We are also investigating projects across the Nubian and Arabian Shields in North Africa and the Middle East. We have put a particularly strong focus on exploration in Latin America, where our teams are testing a portfolio of targets on the El Indio belt along the border between Argentina and Chile. We have also added ground in Peru and started fieldwork on new projects in Guyana and Suriname.”

“We are working on a well-defined strategy to grow our business in Canada where I believe we are under-invested. A significant exploration portfolio has been secured in the country’s Uchi Belt and the team is also looking at other opportunities in the country.”

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Bristow says Barrick has mapped out and is advancing on a clear road to achievable greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and its long-standing commitment to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles informs all its business decisions.

“The Social component of ESG tends to be overshadowed by its Environmental counterpart, but for Barrick it is the socio-economic state of our less-developed host countries that is critically important, and much of our sustainability strategy is directed at ensuring that our host communities are not negatively impacted by the world’s transition to a green economy.”

“Our drive to employ the next generation of mining talent remained steady, with 56% of our workforce now under the age of 40 and 19% under 30. Throughout the period we also continued to increase our gender diversity, and last year 17% of new hires globally were women. Barrick believes in empowering our people to thrive in a decentralized structure with lean regional teams designed for agility and focused on creating value for all our stakeholders,” says Bristow.