Barrick Gold has proposed dropping gold from its name and rebranding to Barrick Mining to reflect its push into copper operations.
In the 2025 Information Circular, Barrick Gold chairman John Thornton said this move is aimed at reflecting its “changing production profile”.
For several years, CEO Mark Bristow has expressed his ambition to expand the company’s copper operations, reported Bloomberg.
Barrick Gold is currently progressing its portfolio of growth projects towards a planned 30% increase in gold equivalent ounces by the end of 2030.
According to Thornton, despite facing a difficult operating environment, Barrick achieved the goals it established for 2024. The company met its production targets for both gold and copper, upheld its record of reserve replacement and significantly expanded its resource base.
The company enhanced its financial performance despite rising costs, achieving a 69% increase in net earnings, said to be its highest in a decade.
Furthermore, it saw a 20% growth in operating cash flow and a doubling of free cash flow in 2024 as against 2023.
“At the same time, we developed our portfolio to achieve sustainable production and profitable growth. We continued to ramp up Pueblo Viejo, started prefeasibility work at Fourmile and restarted the Porgera mining operation. We completed feasibility studies for Reko Diq [in Pakistan], one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper-gold deposits, and the Lumwana Expansion project [in Zambia], which will become one of the world’s largest copper mines,” said Thornton.
Both the projects are expected to contribute to the company’s objective of organically increasing its production volumes, especially in copper.
Despite the increase in metal prices, mining equities, including Barrick’s, have not performed as well as expected, Thornton said, adding: “We viewed our equity as undervalued and consequently repurchased $498m of shares in 2024 and we will continue to pursue share buybacks whenever we believe our shares are trading below their intrinsic value.”
“We have an industry-leading balance sheet, substantial liquidity and a global portfolio of Tier One assets. These qualities, along with our fully funded pipeline of organic growth projects, put us on track to grow the company and increase per-share returns over the long term,” he added.
Meanwhile, the board has appointed new chairs for the company’s key committees, with Isela Costantini leading the Compensation Committee, Loreta Silva heading the Audit & Risk Committee and Brian Greenspun chairing the Environmental, Social, Governance & Nominating Committee.
Last week, mining services company Capital secured a material mining services contract for the Reko Diq gold and copper mining project.
