Barrick Gold Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. This is the event operator. Welcome to BEREC's results presentation for the third quarter of 2023. Following today's presentations, a question and answer session will be conducted. If you have a question and are joining the event by telephone, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. We will also be taking questions from those in the room. As a reminder, this event is being recorded and a replay will be available on BEREC's website later today, November 2nd, 2023. I would now like to turn you over to Mark Bristow, President and CEO of BEREC. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator, and good afternoon and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'd start with the current global metals and minerals environment, which really reminds me of the past 2015 years when the mining industry stalled after a very good run, compounded this time by inflation pressures and a few or no new discoveries and a chaotic global order. Then as now, it is plagued by the obsessive short-termism of governments and investors alike, who demand instant gratification and reach for immediate solutions, dismissing the long-term nature of mining. Whether you're building a sustainable business or a better world, You need carefully considered strategies and practical plans to achieve one's goal. Whether that's the global transition to renewable energy or a business that creates and delivers real value to all its stakeholders, wishful thinking won't get you there. That's why Barrick has a long-term vision of its future and a strategy which, as I'll show you in the course of this presentation, is organically designed to deliver value today and growth tomorrow by building real partnerships with our host countries and other key stakeholders. As every quarter, today I'll be making some forward-looking statements, so please take note of this cautionary statement. which is also available on our website. As you can see from the KPRs, it has been a very busy quarter. Gold and copper production were both up on the previous quarter and have been up quarter one to quarter two, quarter two to quarter three. But we did have some setbacks, notably the slower ramp up of the expansion of Pueblo Viejo, our flagship organic growth project in the Dominican Republic. This is impacting on our ability to achieve our gold production guidance for the year. But as I've often said, mining is a long game and we don't manage Barrick quarter by quarter. even though with the slower ramp up at PV, we still expect that mine to exceed 800,000 ounces for 2024. And our group projection of a 30% growth in gold equivalent production by the end of this decade remains intact. Otherwise, There was a lot of good news during the quarter, particularly the progress we're making with our other growth projects, Lemoana and Recadec, and a strong financial performance. I'll tell you more about these and the other KPIs as we go through the presentation. The operating results for the quarter were, as I've already said, an improvement on the previous quarter with higher gold and copper production at lower costs. We are expecting a further improvement in production in the fourth quarter But as I pointed to, the annual production is now expected to be marginally below the low end of the 4.2 to 4.6 million ounce range. Copper remains on track to achieve its guidance of 420 to 470 million pounds. As you can see here, the financial results were strong, with operating cash flows growing by 35% to more than a billion dollars quarter on quarter, free cash flow up significantly to $359 million, and a 26% increase in adjusted net earnings to 24 cents per share. Barrick's robust balance sheet secures our capacity to continue investing in our growth projects independent of the market, both new and existing, while we continue to reward our shareholders through dividends. While growing our business, we have also been driving a new safety culture, including a new set of standards and initiatives to keep improving this important part of our business. We call this the journey to zero. Sadly, this key priority was impacted by two fatalities during the quarter, which are deeply disappointing for me and the company. We remain highly motivated to achieve these zero goals. And during the past quarter, we've developed and revised fatal risk management program to help ensure that we stay on course with our journey to zero. BEREC has continued the very pleasing trend of increasing the amount of water we reuse. and recycle at our operations and for quarter three recorded an 85% efficiency rate. We also continue to make good progress towards our scope one and two emissions targets and during the quarter the group including our power plants posted a 6% decrease in emissions compared to the same period in 2022. A key milestone in the terms of tailings management was also achieved during the quarter as Barrick conformed to the global industry standard on tailings management and published its disclosure of all very high and extreme consequence facilities on the 4th of August. Our teams have already commenced work to fulfill the requirement of the standard for our remaining facilities by 2025. Consistent with most gold companies, Barrick's scope three emissions, which make up at least 40% of our total emissions, are mostly within category one, which is our suppliers, and category three, fuel and energy transmission. Through our extensive supplier engagement and data collection process over the past three years, we were able to set qualitative and quantitative targets that are achievable and measurable as disclosed in this slide. Turning now to the operational review in North America, already the largest gold miner in the United States, We are committed to expanding our continental footprint beyond our substantial base at Nevada Gold Mines, or NGM for short, into other prospective parts of the United States, as well as Canada, and also, as I'll show you later, we're making significant progress with these endeavors. Nevada Goldmine's performance is led by Turquoise Ridge, where a successful turnaround exercise by its new management team has increased production by 14% against the same period in 2022, helped by the successful commissioning of the third shaft. The mine has one of the highest grade ore bodies in the industry, but at the time of the merger was struggling to live up to its potential. It now once again fully justifies its Tier 1 status. The lessons learned at Turquoise Ridge, mainly about the critical importance of teamwork and planned maintenance, are now being rolled out at the other NGM mines. As we often stress, NGM is rich in growth opportunities and there's a strong exploration drive to replace reserves as well as to find the next big standalone discovery. It's delivering very promising results in the three trends shown here, notably LEVIL in the Carlin trend, Gold Rush in the Cortez trend and the extensions at Turquoise Ridge. Drilling results from across the NGM portfolio have already provided support for its three-year reserve and resource replacement plan. The Barrick-owned four-mile project adjacent to Cortez's Gold Rush but not part of NGM merits special mention. Formile is by some distance the best undeveloped gold asset in its class, and we fully expect it to become a long-life high-value mine. Conceptually, combined with Goldrush, it will be the largest gold mining operation in the Americas. The long wait for the government record of decision on Goldrush has been frustrating, But the notice of availability for the final environmental impact statement for Gold Rush was published by the EPA on October the 27th. So we expect to receive the record of decision before the end of the year as previously guided. This is an overview of our expanding work and land consolidation across North America. As you can see, we have many growth opportunities beyond NGM. And as we work through this in the coming quarters, we'll give you more clarity on exactly where we're building those footprints. Across the US, our teams are hunting for and securing significant early stage opportunities to feed into our project pipeline. In Western Nevada, phase one drilling has been completed at Pearl String, with phase two scheduled to start soon. Further north, at the advanced Donnan project in Alaska, which boasts a very large resource, we are progressing key work streams to continue moving it up the value curve as detailed in the slide. And in Canada, field work was successfully conducted on three properties, building confidence and advancing each project towards testing priority target concepts. We move now to Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region, where we have been expanding our exploration portfolio. The main focus, however, has been, as I've mentioned in the introduction, on the ramp-up of the expanded Pueblo Viejo mine and the updating of the Requedict Feasibility Study. At the time of the merger, the Tier 1 Pueblo Viejo asset was destined to stop mining this year and processing by 2030. constrained as it was by low grades and a lack of tailings capacity. A visionary expansion project has unlocked and optimized 20 million ounces of reserves, extending the mine's life well beyond 2040 at an average annual production rate in excess of 800,000 ounces. A project of this size always comes with risks and challenges. And in the case of PV, it was the failure of the gearboxes for the flotation cells, and more recently, the partial failure of the end of the new conveyor belt to the single-stage sag mill. Long-term engineering solutions have been developed, with the design engineers and original equipment manufacturers and temporary fixers have been employed. including the use of mobile crushers. The equipment failures have restricted the scheduled commissioning and ramp up, but the remedial measures taken by the team are allowing the work and production to continue and certainly the ramp up, albeit at a slower pace. Despite the challenges, As I mentioned at the beginning, we still expect PV to produce more than 800,000 ounces in 2024. In the meantime, the new tailing storage facility, a crucial part of this expansion, has received the environmental permit and the resettlement of the project affected people from the site will start in 2024. At the beginning of the year, you might remember, Valadero was a very stressed operation with a combination of operational and geopolitical challenges. We chose to cut back the mine plan and capital while we consider the mine's future in the context of the risk. In the interim, the mine's new management team has done an excellent job operating in this environment and Velodera is now set to achieve above the top end of its annual production guidance. During the quarter, the mine increased production and reduced costs, and we expect it to be in a positive cash position by the end of the year and to post a positive outlook for 2024. The successful completion of its phase 7A leach pad has encouraged us to start the construction of phase 7B, which is scheduled for completion before the onset of winter in the Andes in mid 2024. Across LATAM, we are looking at new opportunities in the Dominican Republic and Chile. We have recently secured a substantial land package in Ecuador and established a pipeline of permitted drilling targets in Peru. We're also working on extending Valadera's life by adding back some resources that were previously removed from the mine plan. And in Pakistan, The site infrastructure at Rickerdick is now in place and we're making good progress with the update of the feasibility study scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of next year, with Leica Podium having been appointed as our project engineering partner. Seismic surveys of aquifers in the area indicate potential to meet the mine's immediate water supply needs and drilling has commenced to confirm the potential of these aquifers. Construction of the mine is scheduled to start in 2025 with 2028 targeted for first production. When it is fully operational, Ricodec will rank among the world's top 10 largest copper mines. As elsewhere, Barrick is very conscious of its social license to operate. And in line with our pledge to roll out benefits for the local community well before mining started, We have delivered three primary schools, a health center, and a mobile clinic to the surrounding villages. Last quarter, we also launched an international graduate program in Balochistan, with an initial intake of nine outstanding graduates, four of them women. Our intention is to start cultivating a cadre of future experts and leaders for Pakistan's fledgling mining industry. And we also plan to start the training of future employees from the region, targeting the first thousand by early 2025. In Papua New Guinea, it's been a long time and winding road towards the reopening of Porgera. But the end has finally been brought into sight by the granting of a new special mining licence and the execution of the mining development contract and a fiscal stability agreement. We are engaging with the landowners to extend the current compensation agreements to enable restart before the end of the year. Detailed reopening and ramp-up plans are in place and we're taking all the preparatory steps to be ready for that day. It's been well worth our while to persist with Pogra. It's a significant asset with real tier one potential. My introduction to the Africa and Middle East regions part of the presentation has been the same every quarter, and it's no different this quarter. The region has been Barrick's most consistent performer since the merger. It's also a highly prospective exploration destination and a core growth engine for the group. The Lulo Goncato complex in Mali delivered its usual strong performance and fully deserves its place in our Tier 1 portfolio. It has an exemplary record of consistent reserve replacement and ongoing brownfields exploration indicates that it's likely to sustain this. Deep framework drilling is currently testing for repetitions of the high-grade Yalia system. And elsewhere on the site, new high-impact targets have been identified, while a project-wide review has highlighted opportunities along Straak and south of Yalia and at depth at Gungkoto and Baboto. The greening of the complex grid continues with phase two of its solar farm scheduled for completion before the end of this year. Barrick is Africa's largest gold miner and Kabali the continent's largest gold mine. It has recovered well from a slow start to this year and is on track to meet its guidance, as well as to replace depleted reserves again. Kabali is a leader in automation and mining and a poster child for renewable energy. Since operations began, we have built three hydropower stations at Kabali, Together, these stations currently meet more than 70% of the mine's electricity needs. Once its 16 megawatt solar facility with battery storage is commissioned, the mine's electricity needs will be met entirely from renewable energy for six months of the year, reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by over 19,000 tons of CO2 equivalent annually. The two Tanzanian mines' production were lower than in the previous quarter, but this is in line with their plans and they remain on track to meet their guidance for the year. In order to sustain their combined tier one profile for decades to come, North Mara plans to extend its life through an optimised pit plan, while the strategy of brownfields growth continues to deliver at both North Mara and the long life Boilean Hulu. There is still great potential for world-class discoveries around our operations and further afield within the Africa and Middle East region. These are some of the many opportunities from Zambia in the south to Saudi Arabia in the north. With its wealth of resources and our strong partnerships there, Tanzania is a particularly strong candidate for our next million-ounce discovery. In Zambia, the expansion of Lemwana is, along with the Rikidek project, another of our key growth projects. and together they will make Barrick a major league copper producer, complementing our peerless tier one gold portfolio. We've accelerated its feasibility study for completion towards the end of next year, with construction starting in 2025 and 2026 targeted for first production, mirroring Ricodex timetable. Lemoyne's 50 million tonne per annum process plant expansion coupled with the planned super pit will lift copper production to some 240,000 tonnes of copper per year over a minimum of 36 year life of mine. And several additional targets are expected to extend this mine life further. Our other copper mines, Jabal Said in Saudi Arabia and Zaldivar in Chile, both delivered consistent production. Jabal Said, a joint venture between Barrick and Marden, is serving as a springboard for expanding our very successful partnership. New permits around the mine are being brought to account and we're expanding our focus beyond the current Jabal Said catchment area and up to the Arabian Nubian Shield, which we believe is poised to become a major new mining destination. Ladies and gentlemen, value today and growth tomorrow has been the theme of this presentation. And I believe we're equipped to deliver both on the back of our uniquely successful and sustained organic replacement of depleted reserves, coupled with a disciplined long-term growth strategy. As you can see here, since the merger in 2019, we've replaced 125% of our reserves. Looking to the future as demonstrated, we expect reserve replacement and our organic growth projects to increase production by some 30% gold equivalent by the end of the decade. And so thank you for your attention. And I'll hand you over back to the operator to manage questions. And we'll be starting here in London with the first question.

Hi, Dan Major from UBS. A couple of questions. First one, just on the guidance for this year, you've obviously indicated three or so percent below the bottom end of the range on production. Can you give us a steer on the cost trajectory in Q4 at a group level and where you expect to land for the year relative to the top end of the guidance?

Yeah, I think, so the big driver in the growth that has been clipped back has been a Pablo Verga expansion. That's still going to grow significantly in quarter four. And again, all the regions are growing and we expect our forecast for quarter four will be better than quarter five. And with that will come an improved cost profile as well. So that trend continues as we set out to do for the quarter. The impact is in the actual expansion of PV and I'll just explain a bit to you because I think people would like to know. And that is when we commissioned, we commissioned the largest float cells ever built. And the OEM who supplied that, those float cells, we've used certainly my whole career. And they under designed the gearboxes and the shaft. So we've been able to retrofit and engineer a temporary solution. So those float cells are now working, but the supplier has agreed to send us completely new assemblages by the end of this year. And they'll come in one at a time. And so by the end of the year, we'll have that problem properly put to bed. And the engineered solutions might last us two to five years. But normally, float cells will last decades. So we want to get it done properly. And at the same time, a bit like what happened in Lulo a couple of years ago, the end of the very large conveyor belt failed right at the end. And that's the feed to the run of the crushed ore stockpile for the single stage sag mill. We are experienced in this because, as I pointed out, it happened with us before. And so we jumped around and installed a whole lot of mobile crashes to be able to manage that situation. And, again, we have a... a series of conveyors that have arrived on site for our Dolomite process upgrade. And we're gonna use those, we actually, as I speak, installing them. And we'll use those in the short term period, so the next four odd months, while we reconstruct that piece of the conveyor belt. And so we are expecting that production will range between 70% and 75% of planned throughput. And we've now continuing with the ramp up now. And this is a very complex flotation circuit. What we've effectively done, what we did with PV is that it had run into a part of the ore body, which is the rest of the ore body, 20 million ounces. which has got a grade of around 2.4 grams a ton. And we needed to jack up the throughput. And so the way we did it, our process experts, is we installed a very big float circuit in the front end of the plot and increased the whole combination part of that front end. So then what the float does is it concentrates the gold and, more importantly, the sulfur. which allows the, and we put in flash coolers into the autoclaves. And so now we can go back from a 14 million ton front end plant back to a 10 million ton rest of the process, putting in the same amount of gold. We drop the costs materially because there's not a lot of processing in that circuit. And that unlocks the entire 20 million ounces. And PV is a very low cost producer. We produce our own power. It's a natural gas fired power station. And it's a very efficient operation all around. It's very compact. The mining is efficient and so we have a profile, it'll range between 800,000 and a million ounces out to beyond 20 to 2040. And that's really the impact in the short term this year. But the big driver of the increase from this quarter to next quarter is still that project.

Thank you. One more, if I might. Particularly prominent concerns in the industry around expropriation, nationalization elsewhere outside of your portfolio. If we go to Pakistan, obviously there's been a checkered history in this asset. Two questions. What gives you the confidence in the framework agreement that you're coming to now that a Cobra Panama situation is not going to occur down the line. And the second is, in the Rangold days, you always talk to 20% IRR at 1,000. What's your hurdle rate against this backdrop for Rekerdijk?

So Daniel, after 40 years, I think I understand my way around the mining industry. And I would point out that when we did the merger with Rangold, the Barrick portfolio, my recognition was the high nature of the quality of the assets. But every single asset had a problem. Argentina was in trouble. Tanzania, both mines were closed by the government in exactly what you're referencing. Pogra was ultimately cancelled, the permit. Rikadek had been nationalised. There was... Nevada was an inefficient... arrangement of assets because of Barrick and Newmont owning assets intertwined and which should have been managed together, which they are today. And you look back, you know, you go fast forward to today and look back, we've dealt with all those issues. You know, the last challenge, which is also an opportunity, is the Pascualama process. But what we did do is fix Valadera. And so it creates, and it's not about your agreement. It's about your license to operate. You can have, you know, you can pin any agreement in this modern world, whether it's in a developed country or an emerging market country, you can do that. If you don't, and that's what I've said for many years, and you know this, I've said, you know, the most important stakeholder in a mining venture is your host country, not your shareholders. Because if you get it wrong, your shareholders end up with nothing. And so for me, and it's been that for my whole career, very early on, that's how we built Ray and Gold. Focus on your license to operate. Make sure you share the benefits, the economic benefits with the host country and the people in that country. So employ locals, develop local management, and then you'll be able to manage most crises. But if you don't have a social license, any, as we're witnessing for the umpteenth time, and it's not particular to just this last year, If you don't have a social license, you can have any agreement you like. It doesn't save the day. So yeah, I think we're, and it doesn't mean it's all utopia. You've seen the work we've had to put in in Tanzania to get where we are. And today we're a preferred partner. We're the biggest contributor to the economy in the entire nation. And that comes from accusations that we never gave anything. And so Mali, we've been through many challenges in Mali over the years. I think I've been through 16 different governments and three coups. We're still operating. And we have a very strong social license in Mali. Doesn't mean to say we don't have challenges. And I think there's a message to the industry that that is an important component of mining today. And mining today has got a lot of work to really establish its credentials to ensure that it can fulfill what the world needs from mining. Because without mining, we will never have a world that's in good shape for future generations. Thank you.

Alan Spence, BNP Paribas Accent. Thanks for the presentation. I've got two questions. I'll take them one at a time. The first one's on Carlin, the big drop in the open pit grade. That was the orphan gold star stopping, taking more from the stockpiles. How do we think about that through 24 and the grade progression?

Well, that's closed now. And so it's about, I mean, the big challenge in Kylan is, and Goldstrike, what I've done with Goldstrike is we've put it, it's always been a filler in our production and management try to make it a core business and it's not. And so we've got a, we've put that in a separate category and we'll manage that going forward. Leeville has done extremely well. The new remnant mining is a tough, enterprise, as you know. So there are parts of our remnant mining, the old sections of Carlin that still have a lot of new mining blocks. We've been able to get ahead of the faces and drill out a future for them, but Goldstrike is not one of them. And then the... The open pits, we are transitioning from those open pits, but the core focus for us too is expanding into the north through Leeville. And there's a lot of gold in Leeville, and we are drilling brownfield extensions right along that Carlin trend today.

Thank you. And then on the portfolio, just one operating asset in Canada, I know you've talked about wanting to have more there. I'm just interested in since the transaction when you're taking over, why hasn't more been done there? Has it been the case that the opportunities you've looked at wouldn't compete on geology or valuation or is it something else?

We've, there's been a lot of M&A in Canada, as you know, and a lot of, and we've participated in just about every one and we've walked away from it. And what we have done is built a very significant portfolio now, and we just referenced in the presentation the three key projects that we're taking now to drilling, and they're all in the right place. And our geological team there is as good as any of the teams we've got. And I guess everyone in Canada particularly have this view that we deserve to do M&A or should do M&A. And M&A is a part of a business that as the market, we were talking about it the other day and Kevin made a very good point Assets at some place in the market will always offer value. But in other stages of the market, they offer serious risk. And we saw that in 2011, when the entire mining industry blew its brains out. You know, every one of them, you know, even Glencore is selling assets to survive. And the reason I'm here with the Rangold team along with the Barrick team is because Barrick and the other big gold assets did the same. And for us, we're business. It's all about business. We're not about being big for the sake of being big. We believe in relevance. And there will be times when we have an opportunity to create value through acquisition. And we started out the merger with three very aggressive acquisitions, all at market, all at market. And there will be another time when we get another opportunity to do exactly the same. In the meantime, we just didn't rely, you know, it's not a strategy to rely on M&A. And right now that's the mining industry because it's X growth. And Barrick is a standout. We have, despite the fact that we didn't do those M&A transactions, we can show you 30% growth. It hasn't cost us any money. It's just cost us effort. And the gold portfolio has got a steady growth out to 27, 28, as we showed you in our investor day, this recent one on 12th of September. And the copper profile is significant. And more importantly, We've got five years of actually planned replacement of gold. So we've got our brownfields exploration drilling way ahead of the face to be able to show that we will convert inventory to resources, resources to reserves over that five years. And of course, as the years roll forward, we do more of that. And then we've got the new projects coming in. Lamarna is gonna dump a whole lot of copper reserves, the Lamarna expansion. into our portfolio and record deck you know even more and on top of that about 15 million ounces of gold in our reserves so those not only are we replacing the reserves we mine in our current tier one assets and i would point out our tier one assets are by definition rather than made up and um And that growth that we're talking about is new growth. And it's both gold and copper because record deck is that classic asset you want as a gold miner. It's got copper in it and it's got a lot of gold in it as well. Thank you.

Mark, lovely to have you back in London. Just on this chart with your growth from 22 to 29, can you just remind us the cost of that and how the capital spending comes over the next few years? And I see we're growing our debt levels from the low of a couple of years ago. What do you think peak debt might be in order for us to achieve this goal?

So Justin, as you know, we come here every year by design to give this presentation in the LSE. If it wasn't for the Stock Exchange requiring us to do a full IPO to continue our listing in London, we'd be listed here. So just apropos nothing. On the capital side, so let's start with Lemoyne. It's about $1.6 to $1.9 billion. We're still in with the feasibility study, but we'll be around there. And that's... And that's, we should at market, at consensus prices, it's about $800 million, Simon, that we would fund from Barrick. And so that's, you know, it's an easy project for us to do whatever you, you know, the copper prices up or down, we'll put a bit more in or a bit less. But again, and if I take you back to Rand Gold, and we can talk about this a bit, our gold assets are well stacked up and we've got long life assets now drilled out. So in the scenario that you find us today, remember when we built our gold mines out in Rand Gold in the early 2000s, Gold price was not very high, but as we built it, the gold price kept rising and we just delivered value for our owners. And so there's one good place to build copper mines and that's when the copper price is low. And particularly right now, because I don't think any of us believe that the copper price is gonna stay at this level, but we've got the gold strength. to support that development. And also all our, and then Ricadec, it's about $5.5 billion for the first phase and three and a half for the second phase. But that still needs refining because we are doing the work on it. And we've got some big opportunities to reduce that first phase $5.5 billion. And that's on 100%, sorry. And then we also, as we've disclosed, working to project finance half of the first phase. So for Barrick, it's very affordable. If you look at whatever gold price you use, and we have used a $3.75, $3 per pound copper price initially. And because of the gearing in the project finance, Ricodec comfortably exceeds the 15% IRR. And so again, that's a project that's easily managed. We have gold rushes, a billion dollar investment, It's a high-grade mine. It's easy, again, easy to fund. That's on a 100% basis. And the other big capital project is... is PV, and that was a $2 billion project with a billion dollars into that. So those are the projects as they stand. I'll ask Graham to indicate to you the profile, our capital profile. But you talk about debt. We don't really go into stacks of debt. You know, because I would just point out, everyone in the industry listened to people like you, not you, because you didn't do it, but most fund managers asking for more and more dividends in an industry where it's capital intensive if you're growing it. And you noticed we didn't do that. Although we distributed significant amounts of cash back to our shareholders, it was based on our P&L. and our available cash, not going into debt to pay dividends. So today, we've paid down the debt to almost zero leverage. We've spent $7.5 billion plus into our business and we've dividended out around $6 billion, you know, with all cash returns. That's significant value we've created. And now we've got these projects where they all pass our filter of... 15%. We look at return on capital invested of around 10% and IRR of around 50, depending on the project. But Rickerdick is exceptional because we believe we can gear it, that it gives us that sort of return. So you want to finish the question?

Yeah. So, Justin, I mean, as Mark has alluded to, We've got these two big capital projects that are on the horizon, and both of those are scheduled to really start ramping up in 2025. So the sort of peak years from a capital point of view are 2025 and 2026. So this year, we'll spend around $2.5 billion on an attributable basis for our capital. Next year, we'll see a little bit more just as we start to spend some money on those sort of in advance of those feasibility studies being completed at the end of 2024. Then 2025, those are our peak years. sorry, 25 and 26 are the sort of peak years. And then 2027, it starts to come back down again as those projects roll off. So the key point that Mark's making, though, is even if we use commodity price assumptions below the current spot prices, so if you use consensus prices, which have a declining profile, we don't build debt through this period. The cash flow from our business funds all of that capital, so we don't have any debt build up on that basis.

So whichever way you cut it, Justin, you need to buy some more stock. Anybody else? Very good. Let's move to those on the call.

Thank you. We will now begin the telephone question and answer session. To join the question queue via the phone, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. The first question comes from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Great, operator. Thank you very much. Hello, Mark. It's very nice to hear from you. I would like to ask about Donlan. So in your project growth discussion in the MD&A, you mentioned exploring further partnership opportunities to unlock value. And I just wanted to check, is that to suggest that Barrick is seeking a sale of a portion of its interest in Donlon?

I'm not following you. I don't think we say that with reference to Donlon. So, you know, I've shown you this slide. I don't know if you can see it. But if you go back to the North American exploration slide, what we're busy doing, so let me explain to you, When we closed the transaction, Donlon had a global resource. It didn't really have an ability to model where the gold deportment was. And so we've... advanced our understanding of the ore body over the last couple of years and we've also really gone into some details in the different phases the different geological domains of the ore body and got to understand their variograms. And so we're now in a position where we are absolutely comfortable about the modeling and the ability to optimize mining, mine plans. And we've got a little bit more drilling to drill out some of the gaps. But, and so the first bullet there is the continuation of our geology work to, and we wanna build in some measured resource. At the moment, we got most of the resource covered in a indicated category. And this will be able to now, and we've done our preliminary mine plans and modeling and pitch scheduling, but with this, we can really go and start optimizing it, and that's the next step. And at the same time, while we did that, we were able to collect more and more samples to continue with metallurgical tech test work and processing trade-offs. And we've got to build a lab scale testing facility to be able to simulate some of our metallurgical flow sheets. And then the next one is one of the big things that have changed in the last few years is the cost profile and the capital cost particularly. And so we we need to refresh all the capital estimates for that design. So once we get a real handle on that and when it's not far away, we'll be able to do that. And then the important other aspect is because power, power cost, power generation, power strategy has all changed. And so there's work to be done there to make sure that we have that part of the project, which is a critical part of this project, well understood. And we've still got some permitting to complete, particularly around the tailings storage facility. And then you start getting to the stage where you can actually understand at what gold price this project will be viable as an investment. And for us, we're a very focused gold mining company that has an obsession about sustainability and a big 32 to 36 million ounce resource is important in our portfolio and certainly in my career i've watched all bodies go from unprofitable to significantly profitable over time if you just go back to 99 you know gold price was 260 today it's 2000. And if you look at the average grade of the industry, it's been declining materially as people can use higher gold prices to make money. And that's the way we look at it. I can honestly say there hasn't been a day we've considered putting it out in the market for sale.

Okay. Thank you. And then just on exploration, there was a discussion again of NorthEvil, so it's great to see the exploration success there to date. And I was just wondering, is there expected to be an additional maiden resource as of year-end 2023 for that Fallon-Miramar gap? And then is there any expectation for any significant update on NorthEvil resource in any way for this year-end update? Thanks very much.

Yeah, I think we'll be updating our reserves and resources at the end of this year, as we always do. And with that, we'll definitely point to some of these emerging projects. They're extensions, but they're material extensions. And so we'll make a decision. I mean, we'll share that with you when we get there. And our objective has always been to replace the answers that we're mining, But at the same time, we have guided that. Nevada is on a three-year rolling average that we look to replace the reserves. And so we build, because a lot of the ore bodies are deep, we build the inventory, and that's what we've been doing. You roll forward the resources, and then there will be a period where you've got enough of a pipeline to keep on an annual basis replacing the reserves. So we're getting there as far as North America goes. But you're going to see a big resource or inventory and resource growth going forward.

Fantastic. Thank you very much, Mark.

The next question comes from Martin Pradier with Baritas Investment Research. Please go ahead.

Thank you. My question is on Pueblo Viejo. I saw the recovery rate decline from 89% in Q2 to 70% in Q3. I'm wondering what I should expect for Q4, and if this is all related with the cells that you were talking. And the production in Pueblo Viejo was 79,000 ounces. If it will be materially higher in Q4, or we have to wait until Q1 for that?

The recovery is purely a result of the ramp up. And that's, you know, as you feed these new processes or flow sheets, we've got to get everything balanced. And we did that and we've been using a lower quality stockpile all on the commissioning side as you can imagine our intention is not to try and put as much gold as we can onto the tailings dam we've got to try and make it land in the gold room so um so we've used a lower quality uh less sulfur rich and lower grade all to commission the the mine and that impacts on recovery Slowly we will ramp that up and we're busy with that right now, the ramp up. It was delayed because of those flotation cell challenges. And as we do that and we settle the process down, so we will shift back to better oil and we'll return back to the design recovery rate. Notwithstanding that, we expect to have an improved quarter four relative to quarter three in production-wise. And we should start seeing the recoveries improve. And then quarter three will be the same. We expect to be fully back at full operations during quarter one next year. and towards the backend of quarter one next year. But not withstanding that, as I pointed out, the design profile for Pueblo Viejo is above 800,000 ounces. And certainly from what we see today, we will get to above 800,000 ounces in 2024. So a softer start, but a strong finish for the year.

Okay, thank you.

The next question comes from Tanya Yakuskinek with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you so much for taking my questions and good afternoon, everyone. Maybe just on Pueblo Viejo, I'm just looking at your Investor Day presentation of November 2022 when you gave the production profile for Pueblo Viejo and 2024, Mark, was supposed to be a million ounce year for this asset. So I'm just trying to understand from you, as we've had these delays and push outs and so forth, should I be thinking of moving that one million ounce production profile down to, you know, am I looking in the 900,000 ounce range and taking that differential and pushing it into 2025 where we had a dip back down to about 900,000 ounces. So I'm just trying to understand overall what 2024 looks like relative to what you provided for us in the investor day.

So, Tonya, you must have a very sharp ruler. I do. I have a ruler just for presentation. So that's correct. The situation here is at this stage, what we can say with certainty is we'll break the 800,000 ounces. The answers we don't make in next year will roll forward into the other years. So that's correct. But what we wanted to point out that despite the slower ramp up, our job is to get this mine complete and running. We'll still beat the design, the long-term design production. And could it be significantly above 800,000 ounces? Yes. Would it be a million? No. So it's somewhere between the two. That's the way. And we'll tidy that up, Tanya, with you when we speak to you in early February when we give the full guidance at that time. But we just felt that this is one that you need to be aware of.

Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that when you provide guidance for next year in february i don't have this million now the production profile that yeah that's why we've given you that guidance yeah i appreciate that thank you and should i be thinking because of the um you know uh revisions to the production profile for 2023 on on you know lower production and higher costs and then sort of this push out of pueblo viejo should i be thinking that um you know, the capital returns should just mainly focus on dividends for the remaining part of this year and into next year versus share buybacks, even though your stock is relatively cheap. Should I be thinking that way?

No, I don't think you should be thinking anything like that. You know, right now we've got a dividend policy, and that is... As soon as we get net cash in the balance sheet at the end of the quarter, we'll pay an extra dividend and it's very clear our guidance. And Tanya, we've been very loyal to that strategy, unlike any of our peers. At the same time, we can change that because if we buy back stock, then it'll push the net cash position below zero and we won't pay the dividend. So we can do both. We can do one or the other. We can do both. But we need to keep a strong balance sheet because right now, As I pointed out, we are independent of the market. And I've been there before in these stages, and it's not in our interest to stress our balance sheet when, as you heard from Graeme, we've got some significant capital ahead of us, and that capital delivers real returns. And so that's our focus. As we have always been our whole career, you know, we worry about... creating value from mining world-class ore bodies and not trying to buy our stock by paying more and more dividends on the back of increasing debt.

Okay, so priority of dividend over share buyback is what I've taken from this.

No, it's not. It's either or.

Either or.

Yeah.

And then my final question, if I could, I just wanted to come back to the health and safety. I'm just trying to understand, Mark, what's going on with health and safety with these fatalities. We talked a little bit about it on another conference call last year. We had quite a number of fatalities and then another two. Can you just review with us, is it that procedures aren't being followed? Your procedures need to be updated? What exactly is occurring? I'm just trying to wrap my head around all of, you know, what I'm seeing.

So the one fatality still hasn't really been classified, the one in the United States. So that still needs a bit of work before we can talk in too much detail. But the fundamental aspect of this is operational excellence, Tanya. You know, And when you get, and it's the requirement to get people to concentrate and to be properly qualified to do the job and be aware of what they need to do before they embark on any work. And when you go through these stages, you've got to spend a lot of more time in making sure that we are training our people correctly and that they are able to deal with the challenges of work underground and work in a heavy industrial environment or heavy industry environment. And like all accidents, there's some neglect in it, either not really doing a proper risk analysis before starting the work, or that you overlook procedures and standards. And the question, and it's easy for us to blame that, but it's, you know, there's more to it than this when you manage health and safety. And just like, you know, you see our environmental strategy starting to work, it takes time in a big organisation to really make sure that every person who comes in the gate and every person who walks into a specific environment within that heavy industry, industry is qualified to be there and is capable of working safely. And that's our big focus right now.

Okay, so you've tightened your procedures, I'm assuming, in terms of once you... Tightened our procedures.

We've introduced training schools, proper training mines in Nevada because, you know, a lot of... In America, you don't have this philosophy of... of a technical qualification, so we're doing it ourselves. We've partnered with the technical training institutions, both in northern and southern Nevada. And in Africa, we've revisited that induction and making sure that our technicians, like electricians, are current, are kept current through our training programs.

okay we'll talk about this more when i see you in person i'll leave it here and let someone else have questions thank you the next question comes from mike parkin with national bank please go ahead hi guys thanks for taking my question just a little bit of uh looking for some additional color in 2024 for pv uh with their respect to downturns will there be Kind of major downturns to get the conveyor fixed and up and running, get the new gearboxes and driveshafts replaced with the more robust units on the leach tanks. And would that all kind of happen in Q1? I would imagine it's likely a bit of a back half-weighted year for the asset. Just any kind of additional color you could provide would be fantastic.

So we can manage the downtimes in our current profile and all the leach tanks and the retrofits or the fitting of the new assemblages will happen before the end of the year. And then by that stage we should be properly ramped up as far as process, flow sheet, that sort of thing. And then we've got a lower throughput in the... first quarter because we've engineered an interim solution which gets us 70% to 75% of the way to our full design throughput. And that's independent of the current conveyor infrastructure. So to fix that and erect the new extension will not be impacted by and certainly won't impact the operation. And then we'll switch over to the newly installed conveyor once it's all done and dismantle the temporary conveyor system that we've put in its place. So that's why we're confident that we'll crack the 800,000 ounces next year. And if we get it done earlier and we can, you know, we get the ramp up more efficient earlier, it all helps, you know, to the point that Tanya was talking about. So we get more, not less, above the 800,000 ounce forecast.

A follow-up on that is just the work on the needed new tailings dam. Is that continuing to track well to plan from the May site tour, or is there any delays in terms of getting final sign-off on permits to get that work underway, or is the relocation of some of the villagers, I believe, had to be moved out of the way? Is that all tracking to plan?

Yeah, it's all tracking to plan, and it's fully permitted. So the work we've got to finish for the actual design is we've got a couple more holes to finish on the main wall just to make sure that the, because this is, you know, the Lagal Dam, which we're using now is one of the, most engineered tailings facilities in the world. And it survived seismic events. And so this is a very highly engineered dam. Foundations are critical in the way we engineer it. So we're busy with that work. But the dam itself is permitted. And we're far down the road on our consultation program with the And as I pointed out in my presentation, we'll start moving people. And these are people, some of them are effectively squatters on state land or on other people's own land, but they have a right under the Dominican Republic law to that land because they've been living there for so long. And what we're doing is building new village infrastructure, so proper communal village living and with the infrastructure and all the services as well. So, you know, it's been relatively easy to find solutions and get the commitment to relocate. And we're busy with that. And as you know, we've done some of the biggest relocations in the world in Rangold, and they've all been successful.

Great. Thanks very much for that, Tyler.

Thank you.

As a reminder, to join the question queue via the phone, please press star, then 1, The next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Mark and team, and thanks for taking my question. The first question is with regards to costs. I can see they came down this quarter and are trending more towards the guide that you put out at the beginning of the year. Can you talk about some of the areas where you've seen cost relief and any implications that has to the CapEx number going into next year?

So, Anita, nice to hear from you. I mean, we're forecasting another decline in costs, along with a further increase in production in quarter four. The world is very dynamic, as you know. And, you know, oil and gas are one of the key drivers of our costs in many of our operations. Yeah, I think that's a good trend. I would prefer if you let us guide you on the costs for next year when we give you the full guidance. But that's really the trend at the moment. And you're right, we are getting back towards the guided costs. We're not quite gonna make it there because one of the drivers of the cost too, as Graham has said before, is the higher gold price on the royalties. So $100 is $5 on the cost, Graham. So $100 is $5 above our, and remember we planned at 650.

1650 sorry yeah yeah um second question uh so my second question is um with respect to the you know the softer quarter sorry softer years that you're going to see at uh at carlin and cortez this year so would it be safe to assume that you know next year i think you were guiding to nevada gold mines um being a little bit weaker in 2024 originally but You know, with these kinds of delays in the production in 2023, could you see some of that pushed out into 2024? And maybe it's not as soft as you had previously guided.

No, I think, you know, our guidance for 2024 that we last spoke about and, you know, again, we were saying, you know, one of the things, just like I did in Argentina, we need to give this team a bit of a breather. You know, it's really right at the edge all the time and it's just not getting on top of things. And so that's the discussion you and Tanya and I and a couple of other analysts had when we were down together. And, you know, we're mindful of that and we gave that indication of where things are going to land. And I think right now that's where I'd like it to stay until, but we'll tidy it up next year when we talk to you in February.

Okay, that's it for me and my questions.

Thank you, Anita.

The next question comes from Jackie with CMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Thanks very much.

Thanks for taking my question. I appreciate your time. My first question, I'm sure you've been asked this a lot, but maybe it'd be helpful to ask you on the call. You've said before that you'd be looking at copper assets. I know you've addressed this sort of indirectly today, but if you could just maybe be a bit more direct. When you were talking about buying Freeport, you said you would do it if you saw it at a distressed discount. And that moment's obviously passed. You've also been linked in the media to potentially looking at buying First Quantum in the past. I mean, I think everybody would agree that it looks like the stock price is a bit of a distressed discount at the moment. Does that change your view on acquiring First Quantum at this point?

So, Anita, right now, things are very fluid, as you can imagine. It must be a tough time. time for First Quantum. The press is not my investment banker and so I think it would just be ill-advised for me to comment on that question. I think First Quantum needs to focus on its challenges and none of us like to see that sort of event in our industry.

absolutely thanks thanks mark um and uh it's jackie by the way um uh sorry if i could ask on that's okay it was it was a tough question so i i understand the mistake um maybe on on record um you've you know there's been there's been a lot of talk uh again in the media about potential partners at Recodec. And I think I actually asked you guys this last quarter, but since then there's been more talk about whether it's the Saudis or Egyptian individuals. Can you just reiterate how you expect the project to look from your side? You looking to retain your 50% stake in Recodec, or would you entertain partners coming in in terms of sharing the Barrick equities?

So Jackie, what I can tell you is that Gibb was asked this question by a reporter off left field. Never spoken to him about it, and he's got about little or no chance, probably no chance of ever getting equity in Ricker Dick. And I think he knows that, so.

That's very clear.

And that's no reflection on Agib. He's a great friend of mine, but we're not selling equity. It's not an equity sale this. The conversation around Saudi and Pakistan and their equity is, as you know, Saudi was a big player in supporting the IMF rescue of Pakistan. It's a long-term friend, partner and supporter of Pakistan. And those conversations are being held in some form, and we're there to support. And we are, as you know, strong partners of Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia, and we are very committed partners to Pakistan and Pakistan. And we're there to help wherever we can, but we're definitely not meddling in any conversation. And the one thing that is clear is our 50% is not for sale. So I think that will probably help. If you ask me again next quarter, I'll give you the same answer, I promise.

I'll ask you to respond to the next media rumor. I appreciate it. Thank you very much for your color. Thank you.

The next question comes from John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Please go ahead.

Mark, congratulations on everything. I hope I don't offend you. But I did a little spreadsheet comparing 56 companies and some of them weren't gold companies.

Yeah.

And those 56 companies in the last three years bought back $73 billion worth of their stock. Every steel Every forest products and every fertilizer company I looked at bought back stock. The gold companies are different, Mark, so I don't compare you to gold companies. There actually are five companies that bought back over a billion dollars so far this year. And the biggest one was Valet that spent $14.25 billion on buybacks the last three years so far. Last year, Barrick bought back stock. This year, you're not. How do buybacks compare to expanding La Moana, extending Pueblo Viejo, Rico Deke? Just walk us through how you make those choices.

So, John, that's a good question, and thank you for the compliment. Well, I think it was a compliment.

companies and not gold companies.

Thank you. So again, as I pointed out earlier, one of the things, if you go back through my career and most of my career has been with Graham and we have a very clear outlook on how we manage a balance sheet, is that you need to have a capital allocation strategy and a policy, and we've got one. We worked to one right out the blocks in 2019, and then we built one and shared it with you 18 months ago. And today it stands that we pay a base dividend of 10 cents a quarter any time because our long-term business strategy delivers that base dividend no matter what the gold prices or what the most foreseeable gold price or minimum gold prices. And then once we get a net positive cash position, we add to that 10 cents. Now, the way we can manage that is and we want that because we're in a growth phase. And I've proven before, and I am determined to prove it again, if you keep investing into profitable assets, ultimately you make more money than you need to reinvest in your future. And that's what happened in Rangold after 10 years, and we had 13 years of growing dividends, no matter what the gold price was. And so the way we can manage that, a buyback relative to dividend is when we see the trajectory going above net cash, we have a choice, buy back the stock or let it go past that point. And then at the end of the quarter, if we've got net cash, it triggers our dividend policy. So that as management, we can manage that. And we never put the balance sheet at risk. And I've always said the one thing you need to know in mining is that when the market goes against you, you have no friends. And when you ask for money at that time, you get slaughtered. All the stock buying will never help you. So I've always worked to be independent of the market, and shareholders like that. They might not like that in hot times. We've just been through a very hot time. But look how suddenly the base metal companies have started having to cut back on expenditure, reduced staff, deferred capital, lots of things, because everyone thought that commodity prices continue to go up and up and never come down, and that's not the case. For us, that's the way we manage share buybacks. And at the time, as you know, we had a lot of cash flow. We were able to choose. We had to balance our returns to our shareholders. We've done that. But we also saw a significant weakness in our stock price and, more importantly, a relative weakness. relative to the rest of the gold industry, which itself is weak. And so we felt that taking some of that extra cash coming off our P&L and buying shares is the right thing to do. I've always felt as a mining industry, and Barrick is in a particular place, it's got a lot of outstanding shares. It's hard to make a dent on them, but we will continue to do that. When we have an opportunity and we got free cash, we'll buy the stock back. If it goes too low, we'll buy it back as well. But I believe we passed that real tough part in rebuilding Barrick. We've set a solid foundation. We've built a strong team. We know where we're going. We're not going to regret any of the decisions we've made because they've been well made. And we can afford our growth and there are not many mining companies that can show 30% organic growth ahead of them. And I think we're well positioned to benefit from the long-term bullish output put on copper. And right now, I can't see much downside risk on gold just because of... the chaotic global environment we find ourselves in, whether it's the global economy or just the geopolitical risk and everything else that goes with it.

So basically, the growth for Ricodeek is more valuable than buying back shares, in your opinion?

Yeah, in the short term. Because if you get caught in the market without money, in a for a big project like record deck then you you hurt the overall long-term reserves and so that it's it's the choice of capital allocation and we we are not going to issue new stock we are not going to put our shareholders at risk at all in the next five years we can see it it's banked And ultimately, our share price will go up naturally because we're going to show people we've got the discipline. People are still thinking we're going to do some crazy M&A transaction. That's not the case. We've demonstrated that should the opportunity arise to create value through acquisitions, we'll take it, even if we have to be aggressive. But right now we're in good shape and we don't have any regrets if you look back five years.

Mark, I know this wasn't on your watch, but from 94 to 98, the stock was much higher than today. And even through the dog years when the Swiss were selling out their gold reserves, you know, in 98, 99. And I know all the gold stocks are cheap today. The market gives no credit for all your successes in Tanzania, PNG, Pakistan, et cetera. So I guess we're just going to be patient and wait for the earnings to come in and for the market to recognize all the good things you're doing.

Yeah, I think, John, I don't have to lecture you on this. It takes one bad decision. to damage a reputation. It takes years to rebuild it. And, you know, we literally had to rebuild the Barrick portfolio. I mean, piece by piece, as I pointed out earlier in the presentation. So, and you know, the nineties you're talking about, remember, I modeled Rangold on the nineties Barrick, and that was a different company to what transpired in, 2010, 11, 12, and 13, where effectively the company wrote down $20 billion of investments. And they were all US dollar investments. On top of that, there was the equity issues. So it was in a very stressed situation at the time of our merger.

Congratulations on all the good work you've done, Mark. Thank you.

Coming from you, John, I'll take that as a real compliment. Thank you.

There are currently no more questions from the conference call.

Well, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, both on the call and here in London. It's great to be back in London. Nice to reinforce the fact that the weather hasn't changed one bit. And I look forward to continuing to catch up with you virtually until we meet again in person in a year's time. Thank you very much.