After a thorough review of its strategy and business plan, Barrick’s Veladero gold mine has extended its production stage for at least 10 years, according to President and CEO Mark Bristow said. “Our goal is to extend Veladero’s mine life beyond 2030 and upgrade it to a Tier 1 asset,” he said. He also highlighted the addition of 1,400 new direct and indirect jobs since 2019.
Bristow informed the local media, government authorities, business leaders and local community leaders about the progress of the mine located in the province of San Juan, Argentina, through a video conference from Barrick’s offices in Chile, due to the travel restrictions imposed to avoid the spread of the COVID-19.
“Our review included a reinterpretation of the mine’s geology and an ongoing infill drilling campaign,” he said. “We established exploration and resource management teams to identify satellite bodies with the potential to generate increased resources and reserves.”
Barrick defines a “teir one” mine as one that produces more than 500,000 ounces of gold per year and has a life span of at least 10 years.
Bristow also said the next step in Veladero’s transformation would be to connect the mine to cleaner, cheaper power from the Chilean power network grid in Chile. Once commissioned in the second half of this year, this could halve the mine’s carbon footprint and potentially reduce its cutoff grade, creating an opportunity to further increase mineable reserves.
Projects related to the revitalization of Veladero, such as the expansion of the leaching pads, have created new employment opportunities, with the number of direct employees and contractors increasing by 1,400 to almost 5,000 since January 2019, and the number of local suppliers increasing almost three times. In line with Barrick’s local employment policy, 99% of Barrick’s workforce are Argentines, he emphasized.
Since 2005, Veladero has contributed some $9.5 billion to the Argentine economy through taxes, royalties, wages and payments to local suppliers. The mine constituted a new community fund that, according to production, will generate more than $88 million for the development of local infrastructure over the next decade.
