Barrick Gold (B): A Giant Of North American Gold Mining

When it comes to mining metals, some of the investing public’s attention goes to industrial metals, from the massive production volumes of iron and aluminum to the more niche products like tungsten, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, or uranium (follow the links for a detailed investment report on each of these metals).

One metal, however, tends to catch the public and investors’ attention more than any other, despite its relatively lower use in industry: gold.

Gold has been used since time immemorial as a symbol of power, luxury, and wealth. It has also been one of the most common and long-lasting forms of money in history. To this day, gold is still one of the main reserve assets held by national central banks, forming an important part of the global reserve system.

Still, for a while, it looked like the best days of gold were in the past, with the gold standard described as a “barbarous relic” by John Maynard Keynes. With the end of the convertibility of the dollar into gold in the 1970s, it looked indeed like gold would no longer play a role as a prime financial asset.

This has become less and less true in the past few years. A big factor is the rising debt of the US government, leading many to fear it might lead to a currency crisis of some sort. As the cost of interest on the US debt has crossed the trillion mark and has risen to a comparable level to all US military spending, these fears are becoming somewhat justified.

Source: Bureau Of Economic Analysis

In addition, the global geopolitical tensions and the US threat of secondary sanctions on entities facilitating sanctioned trade with adversaries like Russia or Iran, as well as the EU immobilization of Russian assets and use of the windfall profits they generate, have brought to light the need for sovereign assets without counterparty risks. And, as in the past, gold is increasingly seen as useful for this role by central banks all over the world.

Of course, for many investors, Bitcoin as “digital gold” can play a role in avoiding fiat currencies. But actual gold is also likely going to play a big role in the future monetary system, especially at the nation-state level.

The recent high prices of gold are directly benefiting gold miners, especially the larger ones with the scale to provide diversification and many production sites, spreading out any individual risk from a specific country or mine.

We previously covered the world’s largest gold miner: Newmont. But the 3^rd largest gold miner can also be of interest to investors: Barrick Mining.

Barrick Mining Overview

Barrick Mining History

A little surprising for a company that would become one of the world’s largest gold miners, Barrick did not start as a mining company at all. It traces its origins to Barrick Resources Corporation, formed in 1983 from an oil & gas business that included Barrick Petroleum.

After suffering losses in the oil & gas sector, its founder, Peter Munk, redirected the company toward the gold mining sector and went public in 1983 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

In 1983 and 1984, Barrick gained the Renabie mine in Ontario through its formative transactions and bought Camflo Mines. But it was with the acquisition of Goldstrike beginning in late 1986, a gold mine in Eureka County in north-eastern Nevada.

The success of Goldstrike would be the foundation of the company and provide the cash flow and financing ability to keep expanding from there.

In 1985, the company changed its name again to American Barrick Resources to emphasize its focus on American mines, compared to other large mines in South Africa at the time. The company was then listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1987.

The deal that would propel Barrick to become one of the gold mining leaders was the purchase of Lac Minerals in 1994, which owned mining properties in North and South America. Confirming its focus on gold, the company was once again renamed in 1995 to Barrick Gold Corporation, a name it retained until changing to Barrick Mining Corporation (B ) in 2025.

In the 2000s, Barrick kept growing into today’s global leader with the acquisitions of Homestake Mining Company for $2.3B in 2001, a $10.4B acquisition of rival Canadian miner Placer Dome, and the C$7.3B purchase of Equinox Minerals in 2011.

In the early 2010s, the combination of low gold prices and excessive debt from these acquisitions led to some asset sales, with the company keeping the “Tier 1” assets.

In 2019, Barrick merged with Randgold Resources and brought the South African CEO and Randgold’s CEO, Mark Bristow, to the helm of the combined company to revitalize operational efficiency.

Right after, it created the Nevada Gold Mines Joint Venture with its rival Newmont, combining both companies’ infrastructure in Nevada to create the largest gold-producing complex in the world.

Barrick Mining By The Numbers

Barrick today is still a very North America-centric company, with 64% of its gold production coming from this region, with a total production of 3.26 million ounces (Moz) in 2025, or 101 tonnes of gold. Production is expected to be in the 2.90-3.25 Moz range in 2026.

Besides gold, the company is also producing copper, with 220,000 tonnes produced in 2025, but this is less central to the company’s revenues.

Source: Barrick Mining

In total, the company holds 85 Moz of gold in proven and probable reserves, equivalent to about 26 years of 2025 production. And 150 Moz in measured and indicated resources, which are reported inclusive of reserves and are not all economically mineable reserves.

In Q2 2026, Barrick’s AISC (All-in Sustaining Costs), a metric calculating the broader cost of sustaining production by including operating costs, sustaining capital expenditure and certain other sustaining costs, was $1,866/ounce of gold. AISC is expected to stay in the $1,760–$1,950/ounce range for 2026 as well.

This means that at a price of gold at or above roughly $4,000/ounce throughout 2026, even with strong volatility (it peaked above $5,000/ounce in winter-spring 2026), the company generates remarkably high margins for each ounce of gold extracted from the ground.

Source: Barrick Mining

In 2025, the company generated a record annual operating cash flow of $7.7 billion and free cash flow of $3.9 billion. This helped the company reach an all-time high cash balance of $6.7B and a net cash position of $2B. From this free cash flow, $1.5B was directed to share repurchases and $890M to dividends.

Source: Barrick Mining

Barrick Mining Assets

Nevada Gold Mines & North America

Nevada Gold Mines, the joint venture with Newmont merging both companies’ Nevada mining assets, is by far the largest part of the company. It is owned at 61.5% by Barrick, which also operates it, and is the world’s largest gold-producing mining complex, including several refineries to process the raw ore and purify it into pure gold.

Source: Barrick Mining

The production attributable to Barrick was 1.591 Moz in 2025, or almost half of the company’s total production.

The other mine in North America making the region the center of the company is Pueblo Viejo, in the Dominican Republic, another joint venture between Barrick (60%) and Newmont (40%) that has been producing since 2012. The mine is undergoing a life extension and plant expansion project that should be extending the mine’s life to 2040 and beyond.

Source: Barrick Mining

North American IPO

Barrick is looking to list a minority stake in its North American assets through a separately listed company, and is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS ) on the deal. It targets completion of this idea by the end of 2026, subject to market conditions and approvals.

The company struck a deal with Newmont Corp. to add Fourmile, Mike and Fiberline to Nevada Gold Mines, with Newmont paying Barrick $1.95B as part of an agreement that also secured its support for the planned IPO and resolved all disputes between the companies.

The resulting company would also include the Fourmile Project, a Nevada gold mine project over one of the most significant gold ore discoveries of the century.

The idea behind the IPO of North American assets is to unlock value, as some investors might be reluctant to risk exposure to other jurisdictions, and prefer a purely North American, Nevada-centric gold mining stock instead.

“Finding gold at these grades anywhere is exceptional but to do so at this scale adjacent to multiple existing processing facilities is truly remarkable.”

Mark Bristow – Barrick President and Chief Executive

The mine could produce as much as an average annual gold production of 600-750kozpa (thousands of ounces per year), which would boost the production of the region for Barrick by approximately 30%. By 2029, Barrick plans to have 34km of development in place, with initial test stoping shortly thereafter.

Not only is Fourmile rich in gold, but it would also be very cheap to operate thanks to favorable geology.

“One characteristic of the Fourmile orebody that makes it even more compelling is the geometallurgy. Unlike Goldrush, which is double refractory, indications are that a significant portion of Fourmile’s mineralization will be single refractory. This means that it can be processed more flexibly and at a lower cost across Nevada Gold Mines’ existing facilities.

Mark Bristow – Barrick President and Chief Executive

The restructuring plan would also return a meaningful share of the listing proceeds directly back to Barrick Mining Corporation’s stockholders.

Rest Of The World

While the company has mines in South America and Asia Pacific, the combined total production was just 322,000 ounces of gold in 2025, or a mere 10% of the total.

More significant is the 840,000 ounces from Africa and the Middle East, notably from gold operations in Tanzania (Bulyanhulu), Congo (Kibali), and Mali (Loulo-gounkoto). The company also operates copper mines in Saudi Arabia (Jabal Sayid) and Zambia (Lumwana), while Pakistan’s Reko Diq is a copper-gold development project.

This segment of the company portfolio can be a lot more geopolitically exposed.

For example, the activity in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan could be potentially threatened by the US-Iran war.

Another risk is political instability and resource nationalism.

For example, the Loulo-Gounkoto complex in Mali was, for a period, placed under a court-appointed provisional administration at the government’s request, and Barrick agreed to pay $430M in a settlement to get back control of the mine and to put aside outstanding claims and tax disputes. As a result, Mali also granted a 10-year extension for the Loulo project.

In some way, these issues illustrate why the company is looking to have its own separately listed company managing the North American assets, avoiding this part of the company being distracted by issues in objectively smaller parts of the company.

Barrick Mining Investment Case

Barrick Mining Pros

The argument for investing in Barrick Mining is that it is one of the world’s largest gold miners, with a very good cost structure, right in the middle of a bull market for gold, commodities, and other forms of hard money.

So investing in Barrick is a bet on gold as a commodity, and on the company’s experience in producing millions of ounces of gold every year.

In its four decades of operation as a gold miner, the company has managed to keep growing through strategic acquisitions and to gather a portfolio of some of the best gold deposits in the world, especially in Tier 1 jurisdictions like Canada and the USA.

With the dispute with Newmont and the Malian government solved, Barrick could enjoy a period of stability and production growth, with massive new projects like Fourmile able to move the needle significantly, even for a company the size of Barrick.

The tight cost structure has kept costs low despite rising fuel prices, making the company highly profitable, while also protecting shareholders from an ever-possible crash in gold price. It would take a decline stronger than 50% from current gold prices for gold to approach Barrick’s current AISC range, a situation that most gold miners could only dream of, providing some margin of safety in a famously volatile and cyclical industry.

Barrick Mining Cons

While Barrick could be a good bet on gold, it has not been the best-performing top 3 gold company for stock investors. This is because Barrick’s stock price has, in the past few years, failed to capitalize on gold price rises as much as its direct competitors Newmont and Agnico-Eagle.

One reason was uncertainty over its plan for the North American IPO, which could have been blocked by a dispute with Newmont, at least until the agreement reached in August 2026 solved this problem.

A wave of resource nationalism sweeping across Africa could also potentially endanger up to 1/4^th of the company’s production. If the Malian mine situation were to occur again in other African countries, this could potentially cost the company several billion dollars in settlements to keep operations running and the mining licence secured.

Even if this would represent “just” a year of cash flow, this could still negatively impact the company’s stock and reputation.

So the negatives about a potential investment in Barrick are that the company is likely too big for massive upside if gold price explodes (contrary to riskier smaller miners), but also has so far failed to capitalize on the flux of investors looking for a “safe” mega-gold miner.

And so investors looking for such a profile might want to wait for the North American assets to be listed and directly invest in this company instead.

Barrick Mining Investing Overview

Barrick Mining is a company that has grown through large mergers and acquisitions, and a knack for finding world-class, multi-decade gold deposits at a reasonable price. This ability is still seemingly intact when considering the development of assets like Fourmile in Nevada.

This ability to still provide growth combines with a remarkable performance in keeping costs under control, providing not just large profits at current prices, but also safety against eventual gold price decline.

It is possible that listing a minority stake in the North American assets will help realize their full value, and prove a windfall for Barrick’s shareholders.

At the same time, the risks from assets outside North America should not be underestimated, as the governments of many poor countries are looking to benefit directly from rising commodity prices, and might “forcefully” renegotiate past deals with international mining companies.

So overall, despite its size, investors in Barrick should expect steady cash flows, but also some level of volatility in 2026-2027, with the situation of international conflicts, a potentially lucrative IPO, and fluctuations in the value of gold and other forms of hard money all contributing to making profit and price forecasts difficult.

Latest Barrick Mining (B) Stock News and Developments