The CEO of Barrick eyes larger engagement in Africa
Mark Bristow is calling on his competitors to also shift focus on the continent.
Barrick's CEO Mark Bristow reiterated his call for more consolidation in the African gold market. The average lifespan of mines in the entire gold mining sector has fallen from 20 years to more than 10 years. Speaking at the Joburg Indaba mining conference, Bristow said "the prospect of a serious reserve crisis looms". This could be due to the fact that production across the industry has only increased 1.6% per year over the past two decades. Barrick CEO then said the deal signed this week between Northern Star Resources and Saracen Mineral Holdings was a "great example" of industry consolidation that should be celebrated. Bristow again signaled Barrick's appetite for the acquisition of Freeport-McMoran's Grasberg mine in Indonesia. It is the largest gold mine in the world and the second largest copper mine. He continued: "There aren't many of them and so we are obviously interested in adding all Tier 1 assets to our portfolio." Barrick will publish its results for Q3 2020 on Thursday, November 5th, 2020. The company will again host its virtual presentation of the results that day at 11:00 a.m. EST with an interactive webinar combined with a conference call. It will be interesting to see how the higher average Gold Price affects the company's profits. Recently the Barrick share price hit a ceiling of $ 41.09 per share. This decline largely coincided with the consolidation of the gold price. Perhaps the profit call could provide enough for the bulls to retest the highs. The next big support appears to be strong support at C $ 30.45, should the price actually fall this area could be a sticking point.