Latest News

Barrick CEO claims he doesn't know where Mali keeps miners' confiscated gold

Mark Bristow, CEO of Barrick Mining, said that the Canadian company spends $15 million per month to run its Mali mine. He also stated that he doesn't know where the Mali government keeps the gold they confiscated from Barrick. Bristow, in an interview with the authorities of the West African country, said that the government had reneged on an agreement at least three times and referred to the imprisonment of Barrick workers in the nation as a violation of human rights.

Bristow stated, "You have four senior executives from Western companies incarcerated. This can only be described as a human rights violation."

He claimed that the executives in jail had worked harder for Mali then the people currently leading the negotiations for the government. He said, "We don’t know where the Gold is. It is allegedly in safe custody but we don’t know this." Barrick and Mali’s government have been in dispute over the Loulo-Gounkoto Complex, Barrick’s largest mine in Mali, for more than six month. Authorities confiscated approximately 3 metric tons of gold, in addition to arresting four Barrick employees in January, following allegations that Barrick had not met its tax obligations. This led the miner, Barrick, to close the mine. According to the current gold rate, the value is approximately $318 million.

Barrick announced a profit for the first quarter on Wednesday, beating analysts' expectations. The surge in gold prices helped offset lower production. Gold prices soared to over $3,100 an ounce in 2025's first quarter, driven by a surge in demand for safe havens amid rising tariff uncertainty that could fuel inflation or reduce global economic growth.

Bullion is up around 29% this year after climbing more than 27% last year. The Toronto-based company expects total gold production in 2025 to be between 3,15 million and 3,50 million ounces. Loulo-Gounkoto is excluded from the outlook. Barrick stated that it would update its guidance to include Loulo Gounkoto once we had more certainty about the timing of the restart. Barrick, which has been streamlining operations since merging with Africa-focused Randgold Resources in 2010, said that it was moving forward with its plans to divest the Tongon mine in Ivory Coast, and its Hemlo operation in Canada.

The average realized gold price of the company for the first three months rose from $2,075 to $2,898. Total gold production dropped to 758,000 from 940,000.

Barrick's total costs, which reflect the industry's overall expenses, increased by 20.4% in the first quarter to $1,775 an ounce.

The company said that the per-ounce price is expected to decrease over the remainder of the year due to higher production.

According to data compiled and analyzed by LSEG, on an adjusted basis the company, formerly known as Barrick Gold earned 35 cents a share during the third quarter. This compares with the average analyst expectation of 28 cents a share. Reporting by Arunima Kumna in Bengaluru; Divyarajagopal and Daina Beth Solon in Toronto; and Shounak Dasgupta, and Paul Simao for editing.

(source: Reuters)