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JANUARY 23—FEBRUARY 5, 2023 / VOL. 109 ISSUE 2 / GLOBAL MINING NEWS • SINCE 1915 / $5.25 / WWW.NORTHERNMINER.COM
Barrick looks to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan for growth | ‘Copper is as strategic as gold is precious,’ says CEO Mark Bristow
FUTURE MINERALS FORUM
Mining’s top ten ‘S’ trends in ESG for 2023 ANALYSIS
| Social performance and disclosure to come under scrutiny
BY RACHEL DEKKER AND ELIZABETH FREELE
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Barrick Gold CEO Mark Bristow at the Future Minerals Forum. COLIN MCCLELLAND BY COLIN MCCLELLAND IN RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA
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anaging risk while war wages in Europe, inflation stings and recession looms is a long-term task best tackled by improving education and living standards in developing nations, Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX; NYSE: GOLD) chief Mark Bristow says. “Historically the mining industry has often invested not to make money for its in-country stakeholders and that game is over,” Bristow said in an exclusive interview with The Northern Miner on Jan. 11 at the Future Minerals Forum in Saudi Arabia. “The critical thing we’ve got to understand as miners is we’re actually managing a national asset — that’s the mine — so stakeholders should benefit.” Barrick, the world’s largest gold producer after Newmont (TSX: NGT; NYSE: NEM), is promoting a focus on the people around its 16 operations across 13 countries as it develops the US$7-billion Reko Diq project in Pakistan. A push for critical minerals in clean energy may help the environment, but mining can also help transform societies, the Barrick leader says.
The region is not without risk. Separatists in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province have killed Chinese nationals working in the mining industry there and threatened Barrick. Bristow, speaking on the sidelines of the three-day Future Minerals Forum said Barrick would press ahead in Pakistan, noting the provincial government is a 25% partner in the project. He cited the company’s, and his experience leading South Africa’s Randgold (before Barrick bought it in 2018) as helping parts of the developing world. He compared the situation to how mining investment continues in Mexico despite widespread violence by criminal gangs. “We’re not investing in those (separatist) people, we’re investing in the people of Balochistan,” Bristow said. “We will really unlock that endowment that the Balochistan people always point to but are frustrated that it’s never been able to participate in.” Barrick also announced an expansion of its holdings in Saudi Arabia on Jan. 11, as did Ivanhoe Electric (TSX: IE; NYSE-AM: IE). Barrick signed new 50:50 joint-venture agreements with state-owned
Ma’aden for the Jabal Sayid South and Umm Ad Damar exploration licences. The licences are near the Jabal Sayid copper mine Barrick already owns with Ma’aden and operates. While the Future Minerals Conference, attended by some 12,000 people in mining highlights the need to develop the battery metals projects helping the transition to cleaner power sources, Bristow said that push goes hand in hand with mining’s ability to lift developing nations out of poverty by sponsoring better schools. The surge of jobless youth in the developing nations of Africa and Asia needs the industry’s help in building infrastructure where the underemployed can learn skills. “Everyone’s focused on emissions and carbon reduction, but what about the poor people in this world,” he said. “We have a responsibility and with that we also come with uplifting people, improving education.” The CEO said Barrick is concentrating on developing Reko Diq, expanding the Pueblo Viejo gold mine, a 60:40 joint venture See BARRICK / 2
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o say 2022 was tumultuous is an understatement. War, inflation, climate disasters, market volatility: the past year was anything but business as usual. ESG, which had seemed firmly embedded in business, began to experience a backlash, facing criticism as a “woke capitalist” distraction. Yet, a recent Harvard study indicates 81% of institutional investors in the U.S. and 83.6% in Europe plan to increase their ESG allocations over the next two years. And while climate change continued to dominate, biodiversity and other topics entered global sustainability discourse, revealing widespread recognition that the challenges we face today
Workers leave mining more than other sectors, forecasted mining worker shortages are in the hundreds of thousands globally, and mining engineering degree enrolment is in decline in Canada, the U.S., and Australia. Mining companies will urgently need to understand and improve their DEI performance and worker experience to secure continued access to relevant talent in 2023.
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are deeply interconnected economic, political, social, and environmental issues requiring holistic, collective action. With so much upheaval, it can be difficult to spot the trends and anticipate what lies ahead for mining companies and their ESG journeys. With standards and regulations ensuring social topics become more firmly embedded in expected ESG practice this year, expect “S” to feature more prominently. What might that look like? Here are our top 10 “S” trends mining companies should take note of and take action on in 2023. 1 Global crises driving local risk Last year saw a confluence of global challenges that had decidedly local impacts. Global energy prices, political unrest, extreme weather and climate disasters, food shortages, inflation, supply chain disruptions, diminished ecosystem services, and lingering pandemic impacts affected the See TRENDS / 5 PM40069240