Barrick Mining Corporation Aktie

Welcome, everyone, to Barrick's First Quarter 2026 Results Presentation.

[Operator Instructions]

As a reminder, this event is being recorded, and a replay will be available on Barrick's website later today. I will now turn the call over to Cleve Rueckert, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We hope you've had an opportunity to review the press release we issued before the markets opened this morning. This presentation deck is also now available to download on our website. Presenting our results today are Mark Hill, Barrick's President and CEO; and Helen Cai, Senior EVP and CFO. Other members of Barrick's management team will be available after our prepared remarks for Q&A.

Before we begin, please note that we will be making forward-looking statements. This slide includes a summary of the significant risks and factors that could affect Barrick's future performance and our ability to deliver on these forward-looking statements. This material is also available on our website. I will now hand it over to Mark.

Thanks, Cleve, and thank you all for joining us. We had a strong Q1 with excellent operating and financial results. Before I go into detail, I want to review the priorities for 2026 that we set at the start of the year. These are our priorities for achieving safe, consistent, reliable delivery across our portfolio. The first is obviously safety. Our safety performance has not been where it needs to be, and we're taking action to improve it.

The second is operational delivery. We are on track to meet our production and cost guidance. The third is growth. We are advancing our key organic opportunities, including PV, Lumwana and Fourmile. And the fourth is the IPO of North American gold assets, which we believe will unlock significant value for our shareholders. In Q1, we made steady progress in all 4 of these areas. It was the second quarter in a row of improved delivery across the board.

Most importantly, we improved safety. We performed well operationally, and we delivered gold production above guidance. Production increased 4% year-over-year. We also came in below guidance on our costs. Strong execution in the quarter allowed us to capture more of the higher gold price and deliver strong financial results. Attributable EBITDA doubled year-over-year at a much higher margin.

Free cash flow increased 320% year-over-year to $1.6 billion, and we ended the quarter with $2.4 billion of net cash. We advanced our growth projects, our 100% owned Fourmile project continue to progress. The Lumwana expansion advanced slightly ahead of schedule, and we are reviewing Reko Diq as previously disclosed.

Finally, we moved forward on the planned North American IPO, which are on track to complete by the end of this year. Our North American assets have their own dedicated leadership team, which has been working together successfully.

Okay, I'd like now to spend some time reviewing our work on safety. We believe our safety performance and operational performance are linked. Businesses perform better overall when they manage risk, have leaders in the field and follow critical controls. Historically, Barrick focused on total recordable injuries. The company led the industry on that one metric, yet it did not adequately address the risks that can lead to serious injuries and fatalities. In Q4 of last year, we shifted our focus to identify and eliminating the risks behind serious and fatal events. In Q1, we saw this change begin to work. There was a meaningful reduction in significant and high severity injuries, 63% of all injuries during the quarter were classified as minor. Our reported loss time injuries also declined. Our leaders all the way up to our executive committee are spending more time in the field. They are focusing more on leading indicators, typically critical control verification.

To be clear, that we are still not where we need to be and had too many near misses during the quarter. We still have work to do, but we are making steady progress to fulfill our commitment to zero harm. It is now embedded in leadership behavior, operating routines and decision-making at every level.

Turning now to our Q1 highlights. So Barrick produced 719,000 ounces of gold in the quarter, above guidance and an increase of 4% from a year ago. There were 3 drivers: a 10% year-on-year increase in production in North America, along with strong performance at both Veladero and Loulo-Gounkoto.

On the copper side, we produced 49,000 tonnes in line with the plan. We manage costs with discipline. Our gold cost per ounce came in better than planned, reflecting solid cost control and efficiencies across both mining and process.

Copper production increased 11% year-over-year. C1 cash costs were lower than our plan. The combination of volume, cost discipline and favorable realized pricing drove substantial increase in earnings and cash flow, which has meant that today we announced a quarterly dividend of $0.175 per share and a $3 billion share buyback. In Q1, we had strong performance across all our regions. North America continued to anchor our world-class portfolio, NGM and PV, both registered year-over-year growth. Together, they accounted for 57% of our attributable EBITDA at a margin of nearly 70%. Our other regions also delivered strong gold production with meaningful attributable EBITDA at margins of 65%.

Copper is performing well and is an important part of the growth driver for Barrick. Our portfolio provides near-term cash flow and longer-term organic growth. So as I mentioned, NGM is on track and performing well. It was a core contributor to our operational and financial performance. The productivity improvements we've highlighted last quarter continued through Q1. Carlin, Cortez and Turquoise Ridge underground mines delivered their highest tonnages since the joint venture has formed. We are now on track to achieve record underground tonnes mined for this year. That is an important leading indicator that speaks to both mine productivity and the reliability of execution underground. Our processing plants performed equally well.

The Carlin roasters achieved their highest Q1 production since 2022. The Sage autoclave achieved its highest quarterly throughput since 2021. And we achieved these increases in both volume and productivity while continuing to improve safety. As I said, they work together. I also want to highlight that we remain in regular and constructive dialogue with Newmont, our NGM JV partner about NGM performance, the timeline of the Ren, [indiscernible] Fourmile and the IPO.

Loulo-Gounkoto also had an excellent quarter. The ramp-up progressed ahead of schedule. Both mining and processing outperformed the restart plan, which speaks to the strength of both the asset and their execution. We are prioritizing the high-grade underground ore that will contribute more in the near term. At the same time, we are preserving future optionality in the open pits. The team reported 0 safety and [indiscernible] environmental incidents during the quarter. Financially, Loulo-Gounkoto made an earlier-than-expected contribution to Barrick's quarterly attributable EBITDA, already a meaningful result at this stage of the ramp-up.

Turning to our organic growth pipeline. Lumwana is our copper growth project in Zambia. Once complete, the mill expansion will increase throughput from 27 million tonnes to 52 million tonnes per year, increasing copper production by 100% from 117,000 tonnes to 240,000 tonnes annually. The project is on track to come in towards the lower end of the 2026 capital guidance and on track for the original budget of $2 billion.

During the quarter, the initial lift of the mill building was completed. Mill shells were delivered and the first shipments of structural steel were on their way to site. We expect to produce our first copper from the expansion by Q1 2028.

Our Fourmile project in Nevada continues to demonstrate its potential to become a Tier 1 gold asset. Drilling activity continued throughout the winter. We plan to expand drilling through 2026 and to complete the BFS studies by 2028. You can see the quality of the intersection grade outside of the existing resource on the slide.

Finally, we are on track to complete the proposed IPO of our North American gold assets by the end of 2026. As I said, the region has a dedicated team and has been working together very well for several months. They can focus completely on North America without the competing priorities that came from running broader multinational portfolio. We believe that focus should translate to further improvements in performance.

We will continue to update the market on the IPO as we make further progress. So I would now like to introduce Helen Cai, our CFO, who will review our financial performance. Helen, over to you.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone. At a high level, this was a quarter in which strong production, disciplined cost performance and the supportive gold price environment combined to deliver outstanding financial results. We saw substantial growth in earnings, significant margin expansion and robust free cash flow generation while also strengthening an already solid balance sheet. What is important is that these results were not driven by price alone. The higher gold price clearly helped, but it amplified improvements already occurring in the business, better operating performance, cost discipline, portfolio optimization and stronger capital efficiency. This is what gives this result, real quality and durability.

Turning to the numbers. Gold production from continuing operations increased 4% year-over-year. Combined with the 66% increase in our realized gold price that drove the very strong financial performance Mark already touched on. Adjusted net earnings rose 173% year-on-year and attributable EBITDA increased 103%. Attributable free cash flow, which is the measure we use as the basis for our dividend policy increased 195% year-over-year to $1.2 billion in the quarter. These very strong results reflect both the operational progress in the business and the leverage our portfolio has to higher commodity prices when we execute well. We closed Q1 with $2.4 billion of net cash on the balance sheet, giving us flexibility to continue investing in our highest return opportunities.

Taken together, I would describe the quarter as one of strong earnings quality with strong cash conversion. Capital allocation is a major priority, particularly in an environment where the business is generating significant free cash flow. We have a clear framework for deploying capital to sustain and grow our business and provide returns to shareholders, all while ensuring our balance sheet remains strong and flexible.

This framework is designed to be sustainable through the cycle. Our first priority is balance sheet strength with $2.4 billion of net cash and an undrawn $3 billion revolving credit facility and no meaningful debt due until 2033, we are already in a favorable position.

Our second priority is earnings accretive growth, which includes sustaining and growth capital. Lumwana and Fourmile are 2 clear examples where we are deploying capital into organic opportunities that we believe will generate superior returns. More broadly, we intend to identify similarly earnings accretive opportunities in the future to strengthen our growth profile while remaining disciplined in how and when we deploy capital. This is not only about growth for its own sake, it is about creating value over time.

Our third priority is returning cash to shareholders. Our new dividend policy implemented last quarter provides for a quarterly base dividend of $0.175 per share, topped up at year-end to target a total payout of 50% of attributable free cash flow. This quarter, following solid execution, strong free cash flow and the value in Barrick stock, the Board also approved a $3 billion share buyback authorization that further amplifies our total return to shareholders.

Since 2021, Barrick has returned $7.9 billion to shareholders including $697 million in Q1 2026 and $2.4 billion in 2025. Our capital allocation framework is disciplined, flexible and designed to work throughout the cycle. It supports reinvestment in the business advances growth, protect the balance sheet and create a clear pathway for returning excess cash to shareholders. With that, I will turn the call back over to Mark.

Thank you, Helen. Our 2026 production and cost guidance remain unchanged. For the second quarter, we expect gold production to be in the range of 730,000 to 770,000 ounces, which is above Q1 and consistent with our plan. We also expect higher production in the third and fourth quarters, which is typical for our business. For copper, we expect higher production in the second half of the year than the first half. We will continue to focus on controlling costs, capital intensity and productivity. Based on what we see today, we remain confident in our ability to deliver our full year commitments.

So to conclude, I want to reinforce our 4 priorities, all of which we have made steady progress on in Q1: We improved safety, although we do realize we still have a lot of work to do; we improved operational consistency and cost discipline and delivered on guidance for Q1; we advanced PV, Lumwana and Fourmile on schedule and on budget; we advanced our North American IPO on schedule, and we are on track to execute successfully against all of these 4 priorities by year-end.

So Barrick historically has been criticized for not delivering on its commitments. So I just want to highlight that this is the second quarter that we have delivered on all of our commitments to our shareholders. Our portfolio is performing with increased resilience. Our strategic projects are advancing. Our balance sheet is strong, and we are on track to achieve our 2026 guidance. I'll now hand back to the moderator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]

Our first question comes from Tanya Jakusconek at Scotiabank. We will move on to the next question, Tanya, please re-raise your hand if you would like to. Our next question comes from Daniel Major at UBS.

A few questions. The first one, just on Reko Diq. You've put the guidance for the full year down to the lower end of the range in terms of CapEx. How should we be thinking about the kind of run rate of quarterly CapEx going through the balance of the year, is the first part of the question. Second is, what is the estimated holding cost of the project on an annualized or quarterly basis at care and maintenance? And I guess the third part is, what would you need to see to conclude that this is a project that you feel comfortable committing the remaining CapEx to build the project?

Thanks, Daniel. So on Reko Diq, the budget stays intact. So we will be finishing some of those works that we've already started. So those contracts will continue on whilst we do this 12-month review. So the year's budget will still come in on that range. Look, the run rate when we are doing this review on top is about $20 million a month, and that's probably a bit of a rough number at this stage, but we're still refining that, but you can assume it's around that number.

And good question. What do we need to see? So what we did is when we went into this review, there were some things that we had to address. Right now, we're having issues with the contractors on site, and we've had several force majeure notices. So the first thing is we have to understand the contracting strategy and how we're going to make this successful because obviously, we can't continue on that, and that was due to some security concerns and what's going on in the region as well. So we're working on how we'll rectify that with the Pakistan government. And our Chairman was just there actually yesterday and making progress on those discussions.

And then obviously, the other thing is I just want to rerun the capital and see where we are with that and if there's been any large shifts in the capital and once we get the answer to all that, I can make an important decision, I know we've been criticized for being overly cautious. But I think on a project like this, it's important for all the shareholders, including the ones in Pakistan, that we actually understand where we are so that we can be successful going forward. Does that answer everything you wanted, Daniel?

Yes, I think so. So just to clarify on that. If there's a situation beyond this year that you cannot commit to continuing. It would be about $20 million a month just to hold it on care and maintenance. Is that correct?

Yes. That's approximately what the number would be, yes. After we get through these, like I said, we're winding up.

Yes. Okay. And then my second question, maybe one for Helen. Just on the balance sheet and the distribution policy. So nice to see you've added the buyback in. But a couple of elements to -- I'm assuming your 50% commitment to the dividend is independent of if you do buybacks or not? Or is that 50% cash return commitment? That's the first part.

And then the second part, you've got $2.4 billion of cash on the balance sheet. What is the level at which you would be willing to commit 100% of free cash flow in capital returns? And what is the disadvantage of setting in that cash target?

Thank you, Dan. On your first question, the 50% attributable free cash flow policy was just introduced in 4Q last year, and we maintained that policy. That means at year-end, we will use attributable operating cash flow minus attributable CapEx to derive the attributable free cash flow and then 50% of that will be used for top-up dividend in the fourth quarter. So that will not affect or be impacted by any of the buyback program that we just announced today. Is that clear on that before I move to your second question?

Yes, that's clear.

Okay. So your second question is about setting up a target on the balance sheet. We had a balance sheet-based target before. And we moved to the free cash flow-based policy last quarter. So right now, we are taking just a flexible stance given the strong cash flow and a strong balance sheet. We announced this $3 billion, and we will see the market window whenever appropriate, we will execute on our buyback program. Is that ...

Yes. Maybe just -- I mean, in terms of the $3 billion, should we look at that as something that, all else equal, you would -- is it an option? Or is it kind of something we would expect you to be buying back stock through the year if we're in the same kind of range as we are today.

I think that decision is based on our strong balance sheet and the cash flow generation as well as the value we see in Barrick shares. So we are launching this program to carry it on throughout the year.

For our next question, we will return to Tanya Jakusconek from Scotiabank. All right. For now, we will move forward. Our next question...

Sorry, can I just -- operator, I want to say, Tanya, if you want to flick your questions -- I don't know why we can't hear you, but if you want to flick us the questions on e-mail, and I will answer them at the end.

Our next question comes from Josh Wolfson at RBC.

Just going into some of the operating details. First off, at NGM, Mark, you sort of talked about a bunch of the factors that caused outperformance in the first quarter. I'm wondering what's the ability for the company to extend some of these positive results into second quarter and maybe in the second half of the year and maybe embedded in the second quarter guidance? Is there any additional information on how NGM fits in there?

Okay. Thanks, Josh. Look, on the NGM performance, there is a thing I want to highlight because we're discussing this about guidance. So you remember in Q4 when the team said, look, we're going to try and not pull down all the inventory out of all the circuits at the end of the year. So we didn't do that, which actually did give us a boost in Q1 that we didn't expect or we didn't plan for, I suppose, is the right way to put it. And the increases in performance, some of them were already built in. So I mean, Tim and the team have done a good job of realizing those. But it doesn't change the outlook for the year. And I don't know, Tim, if you want to make any other comments on that, but...

I think you covered it, Mark. It's really that focus on operating discipline and performance to plan. And I do think if you can deliver on that, you do lead to delivering on efficiency improvements as it goes. But as you said, the plan's where it stands for the rest of the year.

Josh, are you happy with that?

Reasonably happy. I may have some follow-up questions with the team.

Let me just say something else. Look, this process where we've given all autonomy back to that region and we've had to focus on it, and we have a separate management team. So I will admit the results have come quicker than I expected to if we -- let us get through Q2 and just see where we're tracking after that.

Looking forward to that. On Loulo, you talked about the underground ramp-up going faster than expected in light of some of the uncertainties in Mali and some of the news on contractor changes. I guess, first, should we expect to see improvements in the asset into the second quarter? And then more broadly, I mean what should our expectations be under this new operating plan for this asset on a steady state basis?

Okay. Well, I'm going to -- I'll just give you a high-level update. So yes, you're right, it ramped up quicker than expected, and it will reach its full potential by the end of the year as we planned. So that remains unchanged. And then once we get to steady state, then you can expect 100%. I think 600,000 plus ounces, whatever it was before we went into the care and maintenance stage. But look, it's progressing well. And I'm just going to hand over to [ Seb ]. I don't know if you've got some other comments for what Josh said.

Yes. Maybe, Josh, on the -- look, on the contractor change, we were aware that [ DGP ] was planning to exit. But it also tied into our strategy to replace it with the local contractor. So we expect to replace that contract by the end of the year and resume that part of the open pit mine plan. As you say, our undergrounds have ramped up nicely. Our other open pits are performing. So there's no impact to the plan, and you will see a step up. And I think just on the options, Loulo still remains a strong contributor to the bottom line. It's a strong contributor to our production profile. And so -- but as we ramp this up, we'll -- of course, we'll continue to assess the -- all the full range of the strategic alternatives on this asset.

[Operator Instructions]

Our next question comes from Bennett Moore with JPMorgan.

Great. Helen, congrats on the new role. I wanted to start with the broader shift in strategy outlined in the recent shareholder letter as it relates to reducing high-risk exposure in those jurisdictions and targeted acquisitions. Could you speak a bit to your framework on both. How do you go about determining which assets might be best suited for divestment and vice versa for acquisitions and for the latter, is there any preference between gold and copper?

Okay. Ben, I think on the de-risking, obviously, we're trying to focus our growth in more stable areas, right, where we have more certainty around the mining regime and the ability to operate without a lot of interference. So without going through the actual list of the countries, I mean, obviously, you can see what's happened in Africa recently, which countries would obviously not be ideal for investment. And then about, I suppose, non-core assets is what you meant by the second part of that question, Bennett?

Yes.

Okay. So non-core assets, I mean, things like Porgera, we have a minority stake in it at 24%, and we obviously spend a considerable amount of management time on it. So something like that would be considered non-core at this stage. And that's -- from where we are now that we -- where I ended.

All right. And then I appreciate the sensitivity on diesel. Wondering if you could remind us which operations are most exposed, what inventory buffers look like, so we can, I guess, get a better gauge for cadence of potential impacts moving forward.

Okay. I can't remember what we had in the deck, but the sensitivity obviously is $12 per ounce for every $10 move in the oil price. As far as supply -- and we went through this yesterday as well. So as far as supply goes, we are well-covered everywhere. So the supply is not going to be an issue. It's just going to be the knock-on effect on the cost per ounce. So I don't -- we have no risk of running out of diesel. So that's the question.

Our next question comes from Anita Soni of CIBC World Markets.

A couple of questions. So firstly, have you experienced any issues with concentrate shipments coming out of Zambia at this point, like in terms of port restrictions or things like that?

Not that I'm aware of? Seb, can you answer that?

No. Look, all of our concentrate, we smelt locally. So it hasn't been an issue. And I'm not aware of any issues with the product export from there. So no, we haven't had problems.

Moving to PV. The tonnage there, I think I had only like a 15-day shutdown, but that tonnage was fairly low for the quarter. Could you just talk about the tonnage of the throughput rate of PV?

Okay. Let me hand it over to Tim. Tim, can you answer it?

Yes. Thanks, Mark. Anita, I think the important thing of PV is we updated the metallurgical model and we shared that in the updated technical report. Out of that work, and I mentioned the last quarter is we're working with Hatch on how we can further improve this. So in addition to the outages which have happened during the month as well as some power interruptions which the team experienced, there is also a body of work going on with that and with our team around how we can further optimize this recovery going forward. So you're really seeing a combination of the power -- the outage for the shutdown work and this improvement program work together in that number. But as you can see, the recovery has come up from where it sat a year ago. And I think we have some optimistic programs to try and lift ourselves further from where we're at on that recovery front.

Yes. I mean I was encouraged by the recovery rate at 74%. I mean, albeit the numbers have been reduced from what our prior expectations were. But with the throughput, the combination of the throughput and the slightly higher grade, I was assuming that part of that could be -- part of the improved recovery could be attributed to both those factors, right, longer retention time given the lower tonnage. So I guess I'm just like are you expecting throughput next quarter to be up from where you are? I mean you're halfway through the quarter at this point. So can you let us know how it's going at PV?

Yes. So throughput continues to increase over the year. And I mean I think your observation is exactly correct. And it's about understanding that so that we can work out where we need to invest to either de-bottleneck the throughput or lift through recovery at the throughput rate we run through. So I think it's a correct observation, and we continue to push throughput this quarter and into Q3 as well.

And then just a quick question on the -- could you just give us the key drivers of where you're seeing the production improve quarter-over-quarter from Q1 to Q2, so we have an idea of which -- and what's the driver, which assets and what's driving that? Not every asset but just made up, [indiscernible]?

No, no. So we see, obviously, improvements across the board as we go into the third and fourth quarter. And Anita, a lot of that is just due to the fact which I'm going to try and change this way is where we hunt all the maintenance and shutdowns into the first half of the year to try and bolster the fourth quarter, which I'm sure we're not the only ones who do that. But as far as other changes may be down in the weeds a bit. Let me just ask each of the COOs to give you an answer. So can we start with you, Seb, if there's -- obviously Loulo-Gounkoto ramp up. Is there anything else in there they should know?

No. I think you'll see most of the sites, especially Kibali. We're also -- you'll start seeing the production improve. There's been a lot of some maintenance work in this first quarter. So I think but Loulo-Gounkoto, for us really, as you say, is the key one.

Okay. Tim?

The key for us is that we keep continuing the Goldrush underground expansion. So you'll see Cortez was up fourth quarter, and that's really the key driver there as we deliver that body of work.

Okay. And [indiscernible], Porgera has obviously improved?

Exactly. So Porgera experienced a challenging first quarter due to some sort of one-off events and also planned maintenance so we should see an uptick for Q2 and Veladero should be broadly in line. So no big change.

Yes, Veladero and just so we're clear because we did pull ounces forward as you would have seen into Q1. So again, it's just -- we're just drawing down inventory on the pad. So we'll have to pay for that in Q2 at Veladero.

Okay. And then my final question. So there was some -- a press release, I guess, came out April 28 update on the IPO process. I was intrigued by your comment about the -- commentary about bringing -- discussions on bringing Fourmile into the fold, I guess, and I'm not sure if it said earlier than planned or not or maybe I was just reading into that and hoping to that. But could you give some color on what exactly -- how does Fourmile fit in? What are the nature of the discussions with Newmont at this stage?

Sure. So look, the relationship with Newmont has well completely changed. So one of the things we do offer Newmont is to come in and have a look at Fourmile early because eventually, it has to come in the joint venture, and you want and Newmont will be part of that now. The trigger, as you point out, is not now, it's not until I think the feasibility in 2029 where we have to actually reach agreement. But they're seeing no reason to not give them full access to the data, and then we can have a discussion going forward about how we want to measure it. They're still going through that data. So I really haven't got an update as such.

I guess I was wondering, is there any possibility of coming into the fold earlier than the feasibility study? And you mentioned the PFS is doing -- or will be done in 2028. So I'm curious as to whether or not you can come to an agreement to bring it forward?

Anita, if we can reach an agreement, I mean, we would bring it in for sure. I mean, that's not an easy question to answer because, obviously, it's a pretty high level, who is comfortable on which parts of it and we'll have that discussion. Like I said, though, it will be an open discussion. And we'll just see if we can bring it in early, we will and if we can't, we'll leave it as per the current agreement.

I will stop there and hope that Tanya can get on and probably ask a question around the audit that Newmont is doing.

Actually, operator, I have -- Tanya, I've got your actual e-mail. So I'm not sure, do you want to try once more to see if you can actually ask the question. Otherwise, I will read them out.

So Tanya Jakusconek, you are allowed to speak now.

Can you hear me now?

I can hear you now.

All right. Thank you for our trying to make time. And first of all, I do want to say, Mark, congrats on improving the safety at Nevada Gold Mines I'm assuming a majority there. And one of my first questions on Nevada Gold Mines is you've seen that improving productivity. Have you also seen an improvement in the turnover?

So that's a good question. The turnover hasn't changed as far as I'm looking at [ Sebastian ] and Tim. So I think -- look, I think the -- Well, I'm just going to say, I think the morale and the excitement about NGM and where it's going, is definitely evident on the ground. I mean I was there actually with Natasha last week, and we went a bit of line out and everyone seems focused. So I would hope that, that turnover number starts to improve, but no, it hasn't as yet.

Can you remind me, was it 12% or 14%?

Sorry. Tanya, I have trouble there. So I thought it was -- is it 12% or 14%?

14%.

Okay. And just again, at Nevada Gold Mines and I know Anita asked on bringing Newmont earlier for Fourmile once it's concluded and stuff. Is there anything in your discussions with them? I know that you only have a PEA and they like to have a feasibility study because we need to have reserves, I guess, for U.S. GAAP for them to kind of do any calculation, but is there a way that this could be also brought in over a period of time. Is that an option as well?

Actually, Tanya, I'm not sure I think -- sorry -- and look, I don't want to speak on behalf of Newmont, so I need to be a bit careful. But like I said, look, they have all the information now, including all the financial model and if we can bring it in early, I can't see how that is not of advantage just to both of us, but I really can't say much more than that. And I certainly can't speak to what they're thinking at this stage.

Okay. And if I could ask on just Mali, obviously, a lot of country issues that are going there, and I keep getting asked on the impact to you and your operations supplies and other. Can you just give us an update on anything -- any impacts that are happening to you because on country issues versus the own in any given amount of time?

Sorry, Tanya. You're talking just specifically, Mali, yes?

Yes, specifically Mali.

Okay. Look, I'll start off and then I'm going to hand over to Tim. So obviously, we've had a good run, as you've seen, so we've been unimpeded in getting this thing up and running, which was a pleasant surprise and the roadblocks -- or the difficulties that Seb's facing, actually I'll hand over to Seb and let him speak for himself if there's anything he wants to highlight.

Look, Tanya we haven't had any impact on our operations. Our supply chain is coming through Senegal so it doesn't really impact us the roadblocks that's into Bamako. We've got at least 5 months of supplies on our key inventory holdings and most of our contractors are local. So really -- and diesel is also not be an issue. We've secured about 3 months of stock with a strong pipeline. So we're operating as normal at the moment, and there's been no impact.

And then, Mark, if I could just ask my final question, just on the IPO of the North American assets. Can you just review with us the timeline of all of the documentation. First of all, all the documentations that are required, sort of the timeline that you need them all filed and scalable for the public so that you need to make your year-end deadline. So if we don't have it by X date, then do we flip into 2027. So I'm just trying to understand, documents, that we need, I think, order direct peer financials, et cetera, and when do we get this in the market.

Okay. Tanya, look, obviously, I know the high-level time line, but let me hand over to George, and he can probably give you a bit more granular detail.

Sorry. So just in terms of answering your question, so we need to file with the SEC we filed with TSX. So those -- I know it's frustrating, but advisers told me that I can't say much. But effectively, what we're looking at is we'll be public sometime late in the summer, which then allows us to access the market in the fall, which is why we're confident that we can do this by year-end this year. So just to be clear, we've been working since the Board gave us the approval at the last Board meeting, we've been working on these documents, like I said, the financials, et cetera, those have all been done, and we're in the process of filing all of that. And like I said, it will be done by late summer, you'll have all the information, we'll be able to answer all the questions.

And am I correct that you need for your financials, you need to file technical reports from the Nevada Gold Mines, Fourmile, Pueblo Viejo? Is that the correct assumption?

That's correct. So the team has done -- like the perimeter is obviously NGM, PV plus Fourmile and that's what the financials will reflect.

Our next question comes from Martin Pradier at Veritas.

Can you explain how the equity pickup in Kibali was $204 million include Q1? And this is similar to the equity pickup in the whole year 2025.

I'm not sure I understand that question. Seb, can you answer that?

Sorry, just repeat it. I didn't get that.

Yes. The equity pickup in first Q 2026 for Kibali was $204 million, which is similar to the equity pickup that you had in the full 2025. So what happened? I mean, it's much higher than the same quarter last year. What happened there? Is there any extraordinary thing?

I mean there's nothing extraordinary. So I think what I would suggest is to send us an e-mail so that we can understand exactly what you're pointing to.

Sorry, Bruce, do you want to comment?

He's not online. Okay.

All right. Sorry, Martin. Can we come back to you on that.

Yes, sure.

Hang on. Sorry.

Yes. So this is mainly the reversal of the super profit tax. That is our current answer to you. If there's anything more we will follow up with you offline.

The reversal of what?

Super profit tax.

And how big that was?

I don't know, Martin. Look, can we follow up offline. I think and we'll get you.

Okay. Maybe it's too detailed. That's fine.

It's not too detailed, I just don't know the answer.

Our next question comes from Steven Green with TD Securities.

Just a quick follow-up. I guess this one is for Helen, regarding the NCIB. Are there any restrictions in buying back shares once the IPO process is underway?

Yes, there will be like a period according to all the regulations. Our buyback will be executed only when it is a regulatory possible.

Our next question comes from Brian MacArthur at Raymond James.

Seems we have the same problem. Again, Brian, you're welcome to e-mail the question, and we will answer it.

All right. But I'm just having a hard time here, too. Just following up on one of your earlier questions about non-core assets. You mentioned Porgera, but is there anything on the copper side historically with some discussion that over time, Zalvidar might be potentially divested. Can you comment on that at all, please?

Yes. So there's no -- Brian, there's no process or anything going on at the moment to divest or sell the mine.

That concludes our Q&A session for today. Back to Cleve for any closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on our second quarter results call in August. As always, please get in touch with us if you have any further follow-up questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Barrick 2026 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. As a reminder, this meeting is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the meeting over to John Thornton, Barrick's Chairman. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I would like to introduce the Board of Directors who are here with us this morning: Helen Cai, Brian Greenspun, Brett Harvey, Mark Hill, Anne Kabagambe, Rob Samek, Loreto Silva and Pekka Vauramo. I would also like to welcome the members of the Barrick management team who are here with us this morning.

There is an old story about a child who walks to a distant shore to find a special seashell to bring back to his teacher. When the teacher remarks on the beauty of the shell and marvels at the great distance the child had walked to find it, the child replies, "Long walk part of gift." Many people focus only on our sectors equivalent of the seashell, the minerals. Understandably so, we depend so much on them, we divide human history into its ages. Gold has not only held cultural significance for millennia, we use it in circuit boards, smartphones, satellites, spacecraft, medical treatment and for storing and transferring value.

Copper is essential to wiring, heating, power grids, medicine, agriculture, AI data centers batteries, chargers, solar panels, wind turbines, heat pumps, smart grids and much, much more. But just as the long walk is as important as the shell, Barrick is more than just minerals. We create thousands of jobs, 97% of which are in our host countries. We pay billions of dollars in taxes and royalties every year. We build schools, clinics, roads, water treatment facilities and renewable energy plants. Many of these long outlast our mining operations, enriching the communities with which we partner.

Despite these contributions and despite having the best assets and pipeline in the industry, we disappointed you and ourselves on safety and performance. No more. We have restored Barrick's discipline and ambition. We improved safety and performance across our portfolio. We produced record free cash flow. We more than doubled net earnings. We returned record capital to shareholders. We streamlined and strengthened our executive team. We focused our regions. We sold our non-core assets and achieved a substantial net cash position. We resolved Mali. We doubled Fourmile's resource. We rebuilt our guidance from the ground up, and we are meeting it. These steps are just the beginning.

We are working to deliver durable, diversified and responsible value, attracting the duration capital that is the fastest-growing capital source globally. Our first priority is consistent execution, safe reliable delivery on ounces, costs and growth, unlocking more value year after year. From there, our strategy marries two ideas: Focused teams backed by scale. Teams dedicated to focused groups of assets know the terrain and communities. They are responsible and accountable. They are nimble, fast and effective. These smaller teams are then strengthened by our scale, balance sheet, geopolitical insight and global platform. They can also benefit from the investments we intend to make in technology, particularly artificial intelligence, which has the potential to transform every element of mining from operations to exploration to evaluating acquisitions. Only a company of Barrick's size can make such investments at a global scale. While our partnership culture and obsession with talent will allow us to attract the best people in a constrained market.

The IPO of our North American gold assets is an example of bringing these two principles together. The team can focus exclusively on the assets. No need to respond to matters across a large global portfolio, while Barrick can contribute its distinctive benefits. The market can value the assets directly and since Barrick will retain a substantial majority interest, all of our investors can benefit. Over time, more of our assets will have dedicated teams with more operational autonomy, combining the benefits of being both global and local, large and small. We also expect to make disciplined investments in our best assets, target prudent acquisitions and reduce risk, and we will continue to make a priority of returning capital to shareholders. What we'll not change are the fundamentals. Barrick will always be an iconic Canadian company with a dual listing, a global reach and a long-term approach.

We will focus on gold and copper. We will prioritize operational and human excellence. We will remain a company of partners and fellow owners. These last words are not rhetorical. We know that we are only as good as the people with whom we surround ourselves. Our engagement with our fellow owners, our host communities and our stakeholders is very real. We also know that many others depend on the care with which our work is done. You can see that reflected in everything from our operational imperatives to our compensation incentives and long-term community commitments. Finally, our executives, our Board and I maintain a significant financial and personal risk in Barrick -- stake in Barrick. We believe in the importance indeed, the magic of ownership. Therefore, both personally and as your Chairman, I thank you on behalf of the Board for your continued trust and support.

I will now ask Mark Hill to act as Chairman of the meeting for the formal business. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone. So with your consent, I will ask Joe Heckendorn, Barrick's Corporate Secretary, to act as a secretary of the meeting and representatives of the TSX Trust Company to act as scrutineers.

We are pleased to host a virtual meeting format for this year's meeting, so shareholders can attend virtually by live webcast regardless of their geographical location. There are three matters to deal with as part of the formal business of the meeting: The election of directors, the appointment of an auditor and an advisory resolution on executive compensation. As described in detail in the information circular for today's meeting, registered shareholders who held shares on March 9, 2026, the record date for this meeting and duly appointed proxy holders are entitled to vote at this meeting using electronic ballot.

Our information circular and other proxy materials contain full details about how to register yourself or a proxy holder to participate at today's meeting. If you are not a registered shareholder or a duly appointed proxy holder, you are attending this meeting as a guest.

Shareholders who've already voted by proxy do not need to complete an electronic ballot unless you wish to change your vote. The virtual platform will be open for voting on all three resolutions at the same time. This will allow you to choose to vote on each resolution immediately or wait until each resolution is presented to cast your vote. Shareholders and proxy holders participating through the virtual platform may submit a question at any time by clicking the message icon displayed on your screen, composing a question and selecting the send icon. Following the formal business of the meeting, we'll be happy to respond to questions submitted through the virtual platform.

Okay. As the scrutineers have confirmed that a quorum of shareholders is present, I declare that the meeting to be properly constituted and the virtual platform open for voting on all resolutions.

The annual report, the consolidated financial statements and the auditor's report have been mailed to shareholders who have requested them, and we would be pleased to deal with any relevant questions during the general question period.

We will now proceed with the election of the directors. The Board has determined that the number of directors to be elected in this meeting is 9. The Board's nominees are Helen Cai, Brian Greenspun, Brett Harvey, Mark Hill, Anne Kabagambe, Rob Samek, Loretta Silva, John Thornton and Pekka Vauramo.

I move that each of the Board's nominees be elected. Please record your vote for the directors through the virtual platform now.

The next item of business is the appointment of an auditor. The Board recommends PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP to be appointed auditor of the Barrick -- of Barrick to hold the office until the close of the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until its successor is appointed, and that the directors be authorized to set the auditor's remuneration.

I move that the Board's recommendation be approved, so please record your vote through the virtual platform now.

We will now consider the third and last item of business set out in the notice of the meeting. Please note that I'll close a virtual platform for voting after this item, so please ensure that you record your vote on all resolutions.

The third matter to be voted on is the advisory resolution on executive compensation. The Board of Directors has adopted a non-binding advisory vote relating to executive compensation. The Board recommends that the advisory resolution regarding the company's approach to executive compensation as set forth in the information circular be approved.

I move that the Board's recommendation be approved. Please record your vote through the voting virtual platform now.

For those of you who have not voted on all of the resolutions, please do so now as I will shortly close the virtual voting platform.

[Voting]

Okay. I will declare the voting platform closed, and the formal part of this meeting is now concluded. We'll report the voting results once the scrutineers have tallied the votes.

So we would now be happy to respond to any questions relating to the business of the meeting. As a reminder, shareholders and proxy holders participating in the meeting through the virtual platform may now submit a question by clicking on the message icon displayed on your screen, composing a question and selecting the send icon. We would like to give as many of you as possible the opportunity to participate. So please be reminded that all questions should be concise. And if we can begin with the first question.

Our first question comes from Catherine Coumans. It's actually a set of questions relating to the Veladero mine. Her first question on the topic is, was there an unauthorized release of effluent from the Veladero mine in October, November 2025.

Thank you, Catherine. Thanks for the question. So the answer to that is, no, there wasn't.

Her second on this topic is will Barrick release the results of weekly water testing conducted throughout 2025, especially in November?

Actually, I'm going to hand that to Grant, our Head of Sustainability to respond to that.

Thanks, Mark. These results are provided to the government of Argentina as per our permit requirements. And in addition, we do participatory monitoring on a regular basis with our communities and the results I shared with them too.

Okay. Thanks, Grant. And finally, on this topic, will Barrick release the full analysis of the dead fish carried out by SGS, the laboratory contracted by the mine.

Grant, do you want to respond to that as well, please?

The results of that analysis showed that this was a natural event and was not caused by any discharge from any industry in Argentina.

Our next question comes from Lateef Johar Baloch, and it concern -- and the nature of the question is, how does Barrick intend to justify its position in Reko Diq, particularly with respect to the Baloch people?

Okay. Well, obviously, I've been involved with Reko Diq since the very start. I was the first person on the ground. When we restarted Reko Diq, I mean, we -- on my first visit there, we engaged with the local communities in Humai and the area. So we have involved the Baloch people throughout this whole process, and we have strong support from that community and Nok Kundi as well. So that would be my response.

And we have another question from Catherine Coumans and the nature of it is, how does Barrick respond to the alleged shootings of local Kurya by police contracted in North Mara.

Okay. Well, I can't really comment on what the local police do, obviously don't control the local police. That is up to the government of Tanzania. And I really haven't got much else to add to that.

That concludes our questions.

Thank you. So now we can just run through the voting results. The scrutineers have confirmed that each of the director nominees named in the information circular has been elected with at least 81% of votes in favor. The appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as the auditor has been approved with 91% of the votes in favor. And the advisory resolution on the company's executive compensation approach has been approved with 81% of the votes in favor.

So detailed final voting results for all the items of the business today. Today's meeting will be filed on SEDAR+.

So ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the meeting, and thank you for attending the annual meeting.

This concludes today's meeting. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.

Welcome, everyone, to Barrick's Fourth Quarter 2025 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this event is being recorded, and a replay will be available on Barrick's website later today.

I will now turn the call over to Cleve Rueckert, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mariana, and good morning, everyone. We hope you've had an opportunity to review the press release we issued before the markets opened this morning. This presentation deck is also now available to download on our website. Presenting our results today are Mark Hill, Barrick's President and CEO; and Graham Shuttleworth, Senior EVP and CFO. Other members of Barrick's management team will be available after our prepared remarks for Q&A.

Before we begin, please note that we will be making forward-looking statements. This slide includes a summary of the significant risks and factors that could affect Barrick's future performance and our ability to deliver on these forward-looking statements. This material is also available on our website.

I will now hand it over to Mark.

Okay. Thanks, Cleve, and thanks, everyone, for joining us for this call this morning. We finished the year in very good condition. We delivered on our 2025 operating plan, and this resulted in multiple financial records. We also completed the operational review we discussed last quarter and have taken a number of actions, which I will touch on later. We achieved a resolution to the dispute in Mali, securing the release of our detained colleagues and resuming control of the asset. Record free cash flow allowed us to repurchase $1.5 billion of our shares as well as increasing our dividends.

Turning to our performance in Q4, we built on last quarter's momentum and posted strong financial results. As I said, we logged several company records included adjusted earnings per share, cash flow and importantly, shareholder returns. Production increased from last quarter to the highest level of the year, which resulted in an 82% increase in EBITDA versus last year. We increased our base dividend by another 40% and adopted a new dividend policy. Cash flow for the quarter was up 96% from last year, and we locked a year of record annual cash returns to our shareholders. Fourmile continues to grow, and we're excited about advancing this 100% owned gold asset.

Finally, consistent with the announcement we made in December and following rigorous analysis, the Board has decided to move forward with preparations for an initial public offering of Barrick's North American gold business assets aimed at maximizing the shareholder value. We are targeting to complete the IPO by late 2026 and we'll keep you updated on progress throughout the year.

Turning to Safety and Health, our operational and financial achievements were overshadowed unfortunately last year with 4 fatalities. Last quarter, I made that commitment to making sure safety was our top priority, and this continues to be the company's #1 focus for 2026. Clearly, there's more to be done because Q4 wasn't where we needed it to be. But our highest priority is that all our people go home safe and healthy at the end of each day, and I'll continue to work with myself and the ExCo team to achieve and maintain that goal going forward.

Now moving on to the operational highlights. Operationally, our business performed well in Q4. And importantly, we delivered on our guidance to steadily left production throughout the year. Gold production was 5% higher than Q3, driven by a 25% increase at Carlin and quarter-on-quarter increases across the NGM site. Our processing facilities ran well and PV's throughput rose to another record high. Full year gold production of 3.26 million ounces was in line with our guidance. Copper production increased 13% from Q3, driven by higher throughput at Luwmana.

Also, as I said before, we completed the operational review we discussed in the last quarter. There's some important outcomes of that. We've now restructured our business units, putting PV in North America region, which places all our key autoclave processing facilities on the common leadership so that we can share best practices. Tim Cribb previously overseeing Reko Diq has moved take over North America. Operational ownership, particularly in Nevada, is back in the hand of the operator. The mine plans have been reviewed from the bottom up and we're entering 2026 with high confidence in our guidance.

I'll touch on this work a bit later, but now let me turn it over to Graham to discuss the financial highlights.

Thank you, Mark. As most of you will know, this is my last earnings call, and I must say it is a real pleasure to finish on such a high note. Quarter 4 was a record quarter across almost every financial metric. The combination of our sequential increase in production and record high gold prices added to our strong financial foundation and sets us up with a lot of flexibility going forward to continue delivering significant cash returns to shareholders. Shown here on the right, revenues increased 45% from quarter 3, driven by increased production and sales and a 21% increase in our realized gold price. Net earnings nearly doubled from the prior quarter, and we reported record quarterly cash flow, free cash flow, earnings per share and a record cash balance.

For the year, we reported $7.7 billion of cash flow from operations and $3.9 billion of free cash flow, up 71% and 194% from a year ago and another company record. When you consider our gold sales volume declined 13% in 2025, with one of our key assets not operating for most of the year, those results are even more impressive and we're excited about the year ahead. Attributable CapEx ended 2025 below the low end of our guidance, as our engineering partners came on board and we refined our spending schedules, particularly at our biggest projects at Reko Diq and Luwmana. The graphs on the right-hand side of this slide highlight Barrick's financial value position. Our attributable EBITDA increased 53% versus the prior quarter on higher margins as the 21% increase in the gold price dropped to the bottom line. Importantly, we steadily increased our attributable EBITDA margin through the year, tracking the gold price higher and demonstrating the operating leverage our business provides to the gold price.

All of this enabled the highest annual shareholder returns in Barrick's history with more to come. We ended the year with a net cash position of $2 billion. Building on the capital allocation framework we highlighted last quarter, Barrick's balance sheet is in a phenomenally good shape, and our future capital investment programs are well funded. Suffice to say, Barrick is generating significant excess cash flow in the present environment. As I mentioned earlier, we generated $7.7 billion in operating cash flow of which we reinvested $3 billion back into the business and bought back $1.5 billion of our stock, reducing our share count by 3%. You will recall that with our Q3 results, we increased the base dividend by 25% to $0.125 per quarter. But on the back of the strong annual results, the Board has authorized a further 40% increase to $0.175 per quarter.

In addition, the Board has determined that it will target to pay out 50% of attributable free cash flow, incorporating a further discretionary component to reach the target. On this basis, the Board has authorized a Q4 dividend payable in March of $0.42 per share, which is a 140% increase on the quarter 3 dividend. This new policy will replace the previous performance dividend policy. And at the same time, given the focus of cash returns to shareholders through increased dividends, the Board has determined not to renew the annual share buyback program.

I will now turn the call back over to Mark.

Okay. Thanks, Graham. So turning back to our operation and looking first at North America where we had strong performance. Gold production increased 11% from last quarter, driven by a 25% quarter-on-quarter increase at Carlin. Phoenix production hit its guidance range for the year, while Cortez and Turquoise Ridge achieved the top end of their ranges. Importantly, we did not high-grade the operation at the end of the year. We'd rather maintain focus on consistent, disciplined delivery and compliance to our plan. As a result, we are seeing a smoother transition from December into January. This has helped to achieve one of the best starts the year since the NGM joint venture was established. The Carlin roaster had its highest January throughput in the last 5 years. In fact, the new management team and the focus on operational discipline, the processing team at Carlin has delivered its best 60 days since the formation of the joint venture.

The underground mines at Carlin, Turquoise Ridge and Goldrush have also had their best January since the joint venture formation in terms of tonnes mined and develop. This performance is exactly what we wanted to achieve from the operational review we highlighted last quarter. The teams have rebuilt their plans from the bottom-up based on achievable metrics. The mines implemented this disciplined approach to their operation, enabling delivery of these solid results in Q4 and now in January. It is also clear that we've experienced challenges attracting and retaining talent at NGM. As a result of that, we have looked at many employment conditions as part of the operational review. We will be adjusting the remuneration framework to help attract and retain the best people. And importantly, will be simplifying the bonus structure at the operational level to focus clearly on safety, our #1 focus for the year and then production costs and growth.

We also restructured the executive team, both at the group level and in North America. We've added a Chief Technical Officer, Megan Tibbals and an evaluation team. So this brings stronger operational experience into our senior leadership. PV had a better year with plant throughput up 12% and gold production up 8% from 2024. That said, the recoveries are not where we expected them to be. As we said last year, the main issue is the performance of the weathered stockpile. There is metallurgical inconsistency across those 90 million tonnes of stockpiles, and we are not getting the same results in the plant that we saw in the lab for the initial feasibility study. We undertook extensive test work in 2025, and this will be reflected in the updated 43-101 report, which is due out next month.

So although the life mine recovery rate is lower, we have been able to extend the life of 2048, maintaining the total overall ounce produced. Work on the new TSF is progressing well and the housing project is well advanced with more than 600 homes constructed and over 300 families now resettled. So just briefly on Fourmile, which continues to demonstrate potential as a world-class gold asset in Nevada. 2025 was a major derisking year. We successfully delivered on our commitment to double Fourmile's resell at a higher grade. And as you can see from this updated model, there's a lot more to come. The next step will be working on the Bulyanhulu declines which will enable efficient resource convert from underground.

So moving down to South America and Asia Pacific region, which included Veladero and Porgera. This region also performed well against its plan in the quarter and the year. Veladero exceeded the top end of its 2025 guidance and be its cost guidance by over $100 an hour. Work is continuing at Veladero to expand the resource. In the same vein, Porgera achieved the top end of its guidance range while keeping costs within guidance, demonstrating strong operational flexibility. So on Africa, Middle East region, they achieved their production guidance and point out for the seventh consecutive year. And as I've said, we successfully resolved the dispute in Mali securing the release of our incarcerated colleague. At Kibali, the ARK discovery delivered significant progress in 2025, adding 3.5 million ounces to resources, including 1 million converted to reserve. Further drilling in 2026 is expected to continue to grow this high potential discovery.

North Mara reported a strong finish to 2025 with production in the top half of its 2025 guidance range and Bulyanhulu overcame grade dilution and dewatering challenges in Q4, ending the year within guide. So we regained operational control at Loulo-Gounkoto at the end of the year, and we are ramping up the most accretive areas of the mine. We expect production to steadily increase throughout the year.

And lastly, copper. So Luwmana finished the year on a high with production up 11% over Q3, thanks to higher throughput, ending the year with a record high annual production. C1 cash costs were up in the quarter due to the higher maintenance and interim power cost. And the super pit expansion is tracking slightly ahead of schedule with good progress during the quarter on the mill building, which is on the project's critical path.

Okay. So let's move over to guidance for 2026. So we expect our gold production to be in the range of 2.9 million to 3.25 million ounces. Our 2025 gold production, as I said, was 3.26 million ounces. But to give you a like-for-like comparison, that's about 3 million ounces if we remove Tongon and Hemlo, which was sold at the end of the year. We expect Loulo-Gounkoto's ramp-up to be the main contributor to production increase in 2026, along with slightly higher production from PV. Carlin in Turquoise Ridge production is expected to be marginally lower due to the open pit sequencing and the grade in the mine plan.

Across the year, we're expecting gold production to be split about 45% in the first half and 55% in the second. Higher production in quarters 3 and 4 will come from the ramp-up of Loulo-Gounkoto and Goldrush and the timing of the shutdown at NGM. For copper, we're guiding 190,000 to 220,000 tonnes, which compares to the annual production of 220,000 tonnes in 2025. Production is expected to be highest in quarters 2 and 3 and lowest in Q1, mainly driven by grade of a miner. And looking a bit further ahead, we continue to expect production uplift in 2027 and again in 2028.

Turning now to reserves and resources. For our 2025 gold price assumptions we used $1,500 per ounce for reserves and $2,000 per ounce for resources, both modestly higher than last year. And for copper reserves, we used $3.25 per pound and -- sorry, for reserves and $4.50 per pound for resources. So today, Barrick, we hold one of the largest reserve and resource bases in the industry. And as of year-end, Barrick's attributable proven and probable gold reserves totaled 85 million ounce. On the resource side, attributable measured and indicated gold resources totaled 150 million ounces with a further 43 million ounces of inferred resource. While there were declines as a result of divestitures, we continue to see strong organic growth across the assets in Nevada and at PV.

Turning briefly to copper. Our pivotal improvement in probable reserves remain stable at 18 million tonnes. Copper resources increased with measured and indicated resources of 24 million tonnes and an additional 4 million-plus tonnes in the inferred category. Overall, our reserve and resource base continues to support long mine lives and a strong production outlook.

So just to wrap up, in 2025, we demonstrated disciplined execution, delivering on our operating plan, strengthening our balance sheet and advancing our growth pipeline and returning record cash to shareholders. Looking ahead, we entered 2026 with momentum flexibility and a clear plan for it.

So just before we move to the questions, I just want to acknowledge Graham and thanking for his leadership and significant contribution he has made to Barrick over the past 7 years. Under Graham's stewardship, we strengthened our balance sheet, reinforce capital discipline and delivered record financial performance and shareholder return. So on behalf of everyone at Barrick, I want to thank him for his commitment and wish him well in the future.

Also as announced Helen Cai will be joining us as CFO on March 1, and I look forward to working with Helen as we continue to execute our growth strategy and drive long-term value for our shareholders.

So thank you, everyone, for your continued interest and support. And I will just remind you, I have just about the whole ExCo team sitting around the table with me, so we should be able to manage any questions you have. So I'll hand it back to the moderator.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Daniel Major at UBS Securities.

And just Graham, good luck in the future. My first question just around the IPO potential and really, I guess, it's a question on a strategic level why you believe a partial IPO of NGM and PV would unlock more value than a full separation of those assets from the remainder of the group. I mean if we look at previous examples in the sector, conglomerate discounts exist due to complexity of organizations, and this won't dramatically reduce the complexity of Barrick.

Okay. Thanks, Dan. I'm going to hand it over to Graham.

Thanks, Dan. Dan, I think, as you can imagine, the Board and the team have gone through a lot of different permutations. And you'll recall, we spoke about this last year as well when we first mentioned the opportunities that we were examining. And they've done a lot of analysis and looked at different outcomes, different permutations. And at the end of the day, they feel that this is the best opportunity that's going to drive value uplift for shareholders. We believe that the current portfolio of assets in North America is substantially undervalued within Barrick. And by doing the North American IPO, we'll be able to shine a light on that valuation and that light will then translate into a re-rate for all Barrick shareholders. So that's the focus. That's the intention. And at the end of the day, that was the view from the Board that, that was going to drive the most value of all of those options.

Okay. And then maybe a follow-up question on what would be the intended proceeds from the IPO.

Again, we're in the middle of that process at the moment. There's still a lot of work that's going to have to be done between now and when we go live. And as we indicated, that's likely to be in the fourth quarter. All of that will be determined as part of the preparation work for the IPO.

Okay. And then just maybe another follow-up on this similar topic. Have you had a discussion with Newmont around the clauses in the JV agreement of pertaining to changes of ownership of the Nevada JV.

Thanks, Dan. Yes. As you can imagine, we're very well aware of all of the legal contracts and documents that we have and we would always honor and respect those contracts and documents. We are comfortable with the progress that we're making, and we'll continue to progress down this road.

Okay. Great. Actually, if I could just get 1 more in Graham, what's the latest on the Reko Diq financing?

Thanks, Dan. Yes. I mean, as you saw in the press release, the Board and the management are a little concerned about the security situation on the ground in Balochistan. There's been some escalation in security events there. And as you know, our primary focus on everything we do is the safety and security of our people. And so they've asked us to do a review that situation. And so clearly, as part of that review, we've indicated to the lending consortium that we need to complete that before we can close the financing. So we'll work through that, and then we will take it forward after that.

Our next question comes from Fahad Tariq at Jefferies.

Mark, right at the outset, you mentioned that in Nevada, you've done a comprehensive mine plan review from the bottom up. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about how that's changed and has been reflected in the updated guidance and maybe particularly on Carlin.

Okay, sure. I'll give a bit of an introduction, and then I'll hand it actually over to Tim, the new COO. So look, we went back to the teams, and there had been some top-down numbers generated over the last 12 months. And so we just asked the teams to go back and run the mine plans using current productivities that we are actually achieving and then building in obviously upside for productivity improvements only if there was an actual plan and any target to get up to those productivity. So it wasn't just a let's increase things by 10%. Unless there's an actual plan for that continuous improvement than it was taken out. So it's why I said at the end, too, that we have a much higher confidence and certainly in January off to a good start of achieving our guidance. But I'll hand over to Tim, if you want to add anything to that.

Yes. Thanks, Mark. I think as Mark said, it's about that certainty in delivery of the plan. So you will see some reductions in some of the mines like you have probably noticed in Carlin. So we do see some of them having a lower production, but we're much more confident in the delivery of that production. And I think as Mark said and as he highlighted in the outset that performance at the Carlin roaster, having a record throughput in the last 60 days since the joint venture was formed. That highlights when you can move to a planned maintenance structure, and we can cut out the interruptions and the reactive maintenance. Overall, we expect to get better results. So I think that's at the core of why we reset these plans and built them on actual past performance.

Okay. Great. And then just on Reko Diq because you were asked about it in the previous question. Is it fair to assume that all options are on the table up to and including divesting the asset?

I think it's too early to say that. I mean we had the Board meeting yesterday, and they basically asked us to go back and review the project across all areas. So we're in the first stages of that and looking at what we're going to look at and what options we're going to look at. Do you want to add anything to that, Graham.

Our next question comes from Lawson Winder at Bank of America.

If I could ask 1 follow-up on Barrick North America. Is the intention for the Barrick North America to be domiciled in the United States.

Again, there's a lot of work going on, on that project. And as it's determined, we'll keep you updated.

On capital return, the new dividend policy is very clear and makes a lot of sense. How might share repurchases factor into capital return going forward?

At the moment, Lawson, the Board is very clear that they want to focus on dividends. I will say in my experience of engaging with shareholders. This is an area where everybody has a strong opinion. And I know you're never going to please everyone, because some people favor dividends and some favor buybacks. But for now, the Board is very focused on dividends and hence, the reason why they have not renewed the buyback approval.

Okay. Very clear. On Veladero, how would you describe that asset in terms of the importance of the overall portfolio? And would you go so far as to describe it as noncore? And have you explored the salability of that asset? And then if so, could Pascua-Lama potentially be packaged as some sort of sale with Veladero.

So Lawson, we haven't Veladero is not noncore. And in fact, it's one of our top performing assets in the last 12 months. So we haven't looked at divesting it, if that's what you're asking.

Our next question comes from Anita Soni of CIBC World Markets.

So first question, Mark, just moving to PV. I just wanted to understand what the guidance is based on in terms of grades, recoveries given that your -- as you mentioned, the grade the recovery rates are fairly low. I did see you have still some of the blending of stockpiles. Is the plan to take out the stockpiles or continue to forge on with the stockpiles blended in and try to fix the recovery rates with those stockpiles?

Okay. Well, let me start off the answer and then again, I'll hand it over to Tim. But -- it's obviously, the 90% was in the feasibility study. We're not going to achieve that. We're targeting 84%, but to get to the 84%, we're going to have to the blending and a few other things, right? So we're currently sitting, I think, Tim, around 75%, 76%. And so we'll then ramp up over the next years as we get more confidence in how we blend the stockpiles into the fresh material and what we -- when we can actually get up to that 84%. And there's also some projects we have to do as well. But Tim, do you want to expand on that?

Yes. Thanks, Mark. I think the key is to define the projects. We have hatch working with us at the site on the key projects that we can look to delivered the improvement from 76% up to 84%. Those stockpiles do make a key portion of the feed over the coming 3 to 5 years. So it is important that we do optimize that and get the maximum recovery we can from that. The technical report, which is coming out at the end of February, that will obviously have a lot more detail on this. But for the long assumption, we have basically updated the full recovery model to incorporate this latest test work. So we've ran that through the life of the mine.

Sorry, just to reiterate that the updated 43-101, which will obviously have all of this information will be available at the end of February.

Right. And I guess the question that I had as a follow-up for that part of it is do you expect to retain all of the ounces that you've reported in the reserve resource statement at year-end in that 43-101 or will that potentially take some of the ounces out?

No, no, we expect to maintain, Tim correct?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay. And then my second question was just with respect to the IPO. I know you're saying you'll have an update at year-end on that -- sorry, it will be completed by year-end. But could you give us an idea of what portion of the -- of Nevada Gold Mines and Fourmile North American assets? What portion of those assets do you intend to IPO? I have heard ranges between 10% to 15% and north of 30%, but I'm not sure what you guys are doing?

I think it's fair to say to be on the lower end of that and be a minority part of those assets.

So 10% more along the lines of 10% to 15%?

Sure, yes.

Our next question comes from Bennett Moore at JPMorgan.

I wanted to come to Mali. And since gaining control back there, what is the dialogue been with the government? And what are the state of the assets? And is there any incremental investment required there?

Okay. Ben. Let me hand it over to Seth, if he can give us an update.

Bennett, we -- the relationship is really at a reset and the engagement so far has been really positive. We took control of the asset on the 16th of December. It was actually in much better shape than we expected. So we started all feeding lower-grade stockpiles and at this point, we've now started up all 3 of the underground mines, and we are ramping up the open pit, which we expect to be doing that in the second half of this year. And so the focus is really on getting that ramp up in a safe manner and so that we can achieve our historical run rates by the end of this year. And so you would have seen in our in our guidance that for Loulo-Gounkoto, this year, we are guiding between 260,000, and 290,000 ounces attributable.

And now with the employees no longer detained and they were seemingly behind. Just wanted to get your latest thoughts on a potential asset sale there. Have you seen any interest or dialogue from other parties?

Now I think at this point, the focus is really on ramping up that mine and restoring the relationship and everyone's really committed to do that.

Our next question comes from Carey MacRury at Canaccord Genuity.

Yes. Just coming back to the IPO. Just wondering about the timing. I mean production in Nevada has come down pretty much consistently every year. It looks like it will be lower again this year. So just wondering why now and not when Nevada looks a bit more stabilized.

Okay. So look, Kerry, this is Mark. I'll spend a lot of time in Nevada over the last 4 months, as you can imagine. So I think Nevada is stabilized. And I think what we've demonstrated in a very short time, far quicker than I thought that we have given control back to the general manager. We have a very strong team in Nevada like we've had for 20 years. And you've seen the performance in Q4 and January is even stronger. Again, as I said, I think the best January we've had in 5 years. So I am completely comfortable they're going to deliver this year every quarter, which you're going to see before we go to this IPO. And I think we're now in a position where we won't disappoint and that production over time will actually grow. And again, Tim, anyone else, feel free to chime in if you got anything else.

Okay. And maybe just on the 2027 outlook, if you can just sort of walk through sort of the big -- what's moving from 2026 to 2027?

Is that -- sorry, Carey, is that for the group or at NGM.

No, on the group level.

Yes. So the biggest move is really our continued to increase at Loulo-Gounkoto and a small increase at Nevada and then an increase in PV. So those are the 3 key areas.

Our next question comes from Josh Wolfson at RBC Capital Markets.

I noticed the new guidance methodology doesn't include costs or CapEx indications for the next couple of years. The historical guidance of the company did indicate that there was a cost reduction over time. How should we think about costs going forward after 2026?

Graham, do you want to address that?

Yes. I mean, Josh, obviously, we didn't give you guidance. So I'm not about to give you guidance now. But I think broadly, I would say flat would probably be a better way of thinking about it.

And then another question on the IPO. I'm wondering how is the company thinking about the management of NewCo and what sort of governance rights will Barrick have with the stake given it still will be controlling. And then sort of along those lines, how is the company ensuring that both Barrick shareholders will be aligned with the NewCo shareholders?

Well, Josh, I think it's too early to say. I mean we're starting a 9-month process. And as I said, we'll keep you updated as we move along. But I haven't got the answers to those questions at the moment..

Our next question comes from Martin Pradier at Veritas.

My question is, if you can unpack a little bit the big cost increase from this year from the outlook compared to 2025. What are the big drivers, if you can provide some color for gold and for copper, please?

Thanks, Martin. Really, there's sort of 3 buckets, 2 of which are the most significant. The first one is the gold price assumption.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from John Tumazos at Very Independent Research.

Barrick sold 31 million ounces of gold resources for $2.55 billion or $82 an ounce. Will you sell any more gold? Is it because you don't have enough managers for all of your properties? Or would you reverse course and buy gold to offset the gold you sold?

John, I think it's not a question of just selling gold for the sake of selling gold. It's really about focusing on a strategy. Our strategy has always been to focus on our Tier 1 high-quality assets. And the dispositions that we've made have been in respect of those assets that didn't fit that strategic filter. So we have definitely continued to invest in gold going forward in line with our strategy. We definitely believe in gold and the focus of this company going forward is very much around gold. But it's within the constraints of the strategy.

[Operator Instructions] This concludes our Q&A session. Back to Cleve for any closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on our first quarter results call in May. Please get in touch with us if you have any further follow-up questions. Thanks again.

Thanks, everyone.

Welcome, everyone, to Barrick's Third Quarter 2025 Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder this event is being recorded and a replay will be available on Barrick's website later today.

I will now turn the call over to Cleveland Rueckert, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Mariana, and good morning, everyone. We hope you've had an opportunity to review the press release we issued before the markets opened this morning. This presentation deck is also now available to download on our website.

Presenting our results today are Mark Hill, Interim CEO and Group COO; and Graham Shuttleworth, Senior EVP and CFO. Other members of Barrick's management team will be available after our prepared remarks for Q&A.

Before we begin, please note that we will be making forward-looking statements. This slide includes a summary of the significant risks and factors that could affect Barrick's future performance and our ability to deliver on these forward-looking statements. This material is also available on our website.

I will now hand it over to Mark.

Okay. Thanks, Cleve. And I appreciate everyone joining us this morning. So as Cleve pointed out, I'm the interim CEO and Group COO, and since taking on these roles, I've met with the teams and visited most of our key sites to review performance and assess what we can do differently at Barrick, putting a stronger emphasis on safety and operational performance. The quality of our assets is undeniable. So we're undertaking a review of our operations from the bottom up to ensure we have the right teams and processes in place to safely, most importantly, and consistently deliver value going forward. We're about halfway through that review, and we'll provide more details at our full year results in February.

So since assuming this interim CEO responsibility, it's become increasingly clear to me that the most significant opportunity is at our gold assets in North America, particularly through improved performance at NGM, coupled with our gold discovery at Fourmile.

So turning to our performance in Q3. We posted strong operational and financial results, and we logged several company records included adjusted earnings per share and cash flow. So production increased from last quarter and cost drop, which combined with a higher gold price drove a significant increase in our free cash flow. We increased our base dividend by 25%. Dividends and buybacks combined in the quarter were a record quarterly cash return to shareholders. Asset sales support an expanded USD 1.5 billion buyback program. And on top of all this, our updated PEA confirms that Fourmile is arguably this century's most significant gold discovery.

So despite this very strong quarter for business, it was unfortunately overshadowed by 3 fatalities: one at Goldrush, one at Bulyanhulu and one at Kibali. That was a result of an incident that we reported in Q2 this year. So firstly, I would like to extend our sincere condolences to the families and the loved ones of our 3 colleagues. And secondly, I want to highlight to everyone that we are conducting full investigation into these instruments so that we can put systems in place to guarantee everyone goes home safely every day, which is my commitment. Obviously, safety needs to be the #1 focus at Barrick. We are reviewing our safety culture and structures to ensure we embed the right principles at all levels of the organization to achieve our goal of zero harm.

So looking at the business performance in the quarter. Gold production increased 4% over Q2, primarily driven by higher grades at Kibali, higher throughput at Cortez and Turquoise Ridge and a record high throughput at Pueblo Viejo. We expect continued quarterly growth in Q4 in line with our 2025 plan for a steady production increase throughout the year. Higher production volume helped drive our gold cost metrics per ounce lower across the board, despite the pressure on our cash costs from royalties associated with the higher gold prices. Higher volumes on lower costs translated into a 25% quarter-on-quarter increase in our attributable gold EBITDA demonstrating significant operating leverage from a 5% increase in the gold price.

Copper was -- Copper production was slightly down from Q2 on the back of a September shutdown in Lumwana, which was in line with our preventative maintenance programs. We expect both gold and copper to deliver with their respective production guidance range for the year and on cost guidance after adjusting for the royalty impact from the higher gold prices.

Now I'm going to hand it over to Graham to discuss our financial highlights. Thanks, Graham.

Thanks, Mark, and good morning to everyone. Barrick's third quarter financial performance was exceptionally strong setting company records for operating cash flow, free cash flow and adjusted net earnings. We continue to fund our growth projects with disciplined budgets resulting in cash flow more than tripling from quarter 2. We again ended the quarter in a net cash position, supporting an additional performance dividend, an increase in our base quarterly dividend and a significant increase in our share repurchases.

Looking at how our performance has trended this year, the combination of a higher gold price, production volume growth and lower unit costs per ounce delivered higher margins and a 20% quarter-over-quarter increase in Barrick's attributable EBITDA. This translated to a 274% increase in free cash flow enabling us to repurchase $598 million of our stock, and we increased our base dividend by 25%. I'll discuss capital allocation more in a moment.

As Mark highlighted, quarter 3 was a company record for cash returns to shareholders. We ended the quarter in a net cash position. And at today's gold price, we expect quarter 4 will be even better. This is all before the Hemlo and Tongon asset sales, which we expect to close before the end of the year.

Looking at our capital allocation framework, so far in 2025, we've generated $5 billion in operating cash flow. We've reinvested more than $2 billion back into the business. We paid $596 million in dividends, and we exhausted our $1 billion repurchase Authorization. Barrick has 3 capital allocation priorities above and beyond our long-term operating plan. First, we maintain a strong balance sheet keeping us in control of our destiny through commodity price cycles. We target zero to modest net debt. Second, we invest in accretive growth with a disciplined focus on cash generation and sustained value creation. And third, we return excess cash to shareholders, balancing dividends and buybacks depending on our share price and valuation.

Given the confidence in our business, we are increasing our base quarterly dividend by 25% to $12.5 per share. For the quarter, the Board has approved a $17.5 per share quarterly dividend, consisting of the higher base dividend and including a further $0.05 per share performance dividend. Additionally, given strength in operating cash flow and the cash from noncore asset sales expected in the fourth quarter, the Board has authorized a $500 million increase to our existing share repurchase program which we expect to execute on further in quarter 4.

Let me now turn the call back over to Mark for more detail on our regional performance in the quarter.

Okay. Thanks, Graham. So starting with North America, Barrick's value foundation, gold production increased 4% from Q2 driven by improved performance at Cortez and Turquoise Ridge. Cortez saw a significant increase in leach pad production in line with the mine plan. Turquoise Ridge production was driven by increased throughput at the Sage autoclave following the maintenance we undertook in the first half of the year. At Carlin, roaster throughput was negatively impacted by some unplanned downtime at the end of the quarter. Importantly, all NGM sites reported lower unit cost per ounce and North America's attributable EBITDA increased 19% from Q2.

So NGM is our most important asset and is a foundation of Barrick, contributing more than half of our attributable reduction. It is on track to achieve full year production guidance and is central to delivering value to our shareholders. So as most of you will know, we believe Fourmile is one of the most significant gold discoveries this century. We currently have 16 drill rigs on the site, and we're on track to double the existing resource this year. We've also increased Fourmile's exploration budget by a little over $10 million for the remainder of 2025.

This slide highlights the opportunity. The zone circled in red is our existing resource. The black dotted area is what we expect to convert to resources this year. And the region in green and beyond is all the upside. So looking ahead, we expect to have 20 drill rigs on the project next year, and we plan to commence the Bullion Hill decline development towards the end of 2026. This will allow us to proceed with the feasibility study.

On the back of the recent drill results, we updated our Fourmile PEA in September and highlights a rare combination of grade, scale and exploration upside. So advancing this project is obviously a key priority for the North America region and team, but also for Barrick as a whole.

So turning to Latin America and Asia Pacific region. Gold production was in line compared with Q2 as planned. Veladero is performing well against its targets with a typical winter seasonal decline, offsetting the record quarterly throughput at Pueblo Viejo. PV performed well in Q3 with processing throughput up 7% quarter-on-quarter, achieving record high throughput in Q3 with the highest quarterly production since 2022. Our focus is now squarely on in driving improved recoveries going forward. So all assets in the region are on track to meet their guidance for the year, including PV's.

Moving to Africa, Middle East, gold production showed the largest quarter-on-quarter increase of all the regions, rising 8% from Q2. On the back of a 15% increase at Kibali, higher open pit mining volumes and grades, uplifted Kibali's processing grade as that operation heads into its expected strong Q4 delivery. Production at North Mara is up 3% from Q2 as both the underground and open pit exceeded expectations, and Bulyanhulu was flat. Regional costs were down across the board, resulting in an impressive 65% quarter-on-quarter increase in attributable EBITDA.

So turning to copper. Production declined slightly from Q2 due to a plant shutdown in line with the plan we shared for Lumwana in September. We expect Q4 copper production to be similar to Q2, delivering annual results for our copper business within guidance.

So as we've discussed throughout this call, Barrick is in good position to deliver on our plans for the year. Shown here, gold production is tracking in the bottom half of its guidance range and copper production is tracking to the midpoint. Also note that the gold production guidance includes Tongon and Hemlo, and we expect to have these sales to conclude before the year-end. Also, after adjusting for the year-to-date higher gold price, our total cash cost in AISC are also tracking within guidance. As you can see, copper costs are already within guidance, and we're expecting Lumwana to report a strong finish to the year.

So before I close, I just want to emphasize that our near-term focus is on safety and operational performance. We will adjust things internally as necessary to create value for our shareholders and deliver on our guidance. This company has a strong portfolio of assets with Nevada at its core. Nevada continues to drive more than half of our production from a low -- sorry, deliver more than half of our production from a low-risk jurisdiction. We have long resource lives and continued opportunity to replace reserves we might. We have some of the best growth projects in the world currently in execution. We have a strong balance sheet that's returning excess capital to the shareholders and funding our growth. And we have an excellent global team of people who are empowered to deliver on our strategy.

As we progress on our operational review, it is confirming to me that the value creation opportunity across the portfolio, especially the potential for North American gold assets in Nevada and Dominican Republic. As I've said, Nevada is a core of our company as it continued to deliver more than 50% of our production with an extraordinary opportunity for growth at Fourmile. We will be unwavering in our focus to drive value creation in Nevada.

So thank you, everyone, for your attention. I'll now hand it back to the moderator for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Fahad Tariq at Jefferies.

On the bottom-up operational review at Nevada Gold Mines specifically, can you just give us maybe a framework for what you're looking at or what the team is looking at? And specifically, what is incremental versus the recapitalization efforts that have already been completed, including the new fleet, investment -- reinvestment in the roasters, autoclaves and so on. A lot of work has already been done. So maybe just provide what's incremental in this review.

Okay. Thanks for the question. So look, the operational review is obviously -- we're trying to stabilize and meet more consistent with our delivery through NGM. So we've gone back and we're building those plans up right from the base again. And it's going to incorporate, obviously, the mining, the mining efficiencies, utilization. But it's also going to, more importantly, include our maintenance approach, our planned maintenance. And the expected outcome of is that we don't have these unexpected surprises like we had at Carlin this quarter. So we're just trying to stabilize the operations and make sure we have everything in place so that we can deliver quarter-on-quarter.

Okay. And then maybe as a follow-up, just on the maintenance point. So in the MD&A, it mentions at Carlin, there was excessive scaling in the gold quarry roaster. Is that something that was not captured in the first half maintenance? I believe both roasters had their annual shutdowns in the first half or did the buildup happen after that?

Okay. Look, Henri, maybe you're better positioned to answer that, please?

Yes, Mark. I'm Henri Gonin at NGM. That buildup of the scaling happened after the shutdown at Gold Quarry and it was unforeseen, but it's been taken care of now.

Our next question comes from Matthew Murphy at BMO Capital Markets.

Mark, congrats on the interim CEO role. Also interested in this operational review, how should we think about what the output of this review might be? Like does this include a review of medium-term guidance? And can you be in a position in a few months to have a different view on that?

Okay. Thanks, Matthew. Well, look, the review is obviously, like I said, so that we can be more confident and we get more predictable outcomes from quarter-to-quarter. And that will obviously feed into the budget next year, and we're not expecting any major changes on that at the moment. But it is just to try and understand where there is opportunities. So even down to the things where we say we have replaced reserves every year, but this review will also include looking at maybe stepping out and drilling and seeing if there's other opportunities that we can find within the portfolio around our current assets rather than just replacing reserves.

So maybe a longer-term goal, but also something we'd be looking at. But the primary focus is to get the planned maintenance in place so that we can make sure we just consistently deliver on our quarterly guidance.

Okay. And then one other follow-up. I noticed in the MD&A that some resequencing of Reko Diq CapEx and just interested in what's happening there and when you might close the project financing?

Okay. Let me hand over to Graham for that, Matthew.

Matt, we alluded to this even last quarter, but really, it's just a product of the work that we've been doing with Fluor who came on board middle of the year as our EPCM contractor, and they've been looking at the specific timing of when we place orders, and therefore, the follow-on impact of that is just on cash flow. So really, what we've done is we've rescheduled some of the cash flow that we were expecting in '25, and we've shifted it across '26 and '27.

So it's -- there's no impact on the overall project schedule or the total capital schedule. It remains consistent. It's just a timing issue as we move forward.

In terms of the financing itself, we are very well advanced with the lenders. The sort of remaining piece of the puzzle is U.S. Exim, which is an important part of the lender group. Unfortunately, with the U.S. government shutdown, they haven't been able to sign on the dotted line. But as soon as the shutdown lifts, we will be reengaging with them and we still expect to be able to sign that financing by the end of the year.

Our next question is from Daniel Major at UBS.

Mark, Graham, can you hear me, okay?

Yes.

Great. Two questions, one on the portfolio, great to see more progress and realizing good value for Hemlo and Tongon. Is there any other potential areas of the portfolio following kind of senior management change, et cetera, that you see as opportunities? And is there any processes ongoing for any other assets in the portfolio?

Well, look, not at this stage. Like as I said at the start, the focus is really on the Americas and at NGM and PV and getting those up to where we need them and delivering on the Lumwana expansion and the Reko Diq construction. So we haven't really focused on anything else at this point. But since September, when I took over.

Okay. And then maybe two questions on the NGM dynamic. Firstly, with respect to dialogue with the JV partner around Fourmile and potential exploration kind of depth, if we look at your Slide 11 to the right-hand side of the divide between the Nevada Gold Mines below Goldrush and Fourmile. Has there been any update on kind of results within the JV in that zone recently? And how is the dialogue between the 2 parties changed at all? And could that potentially result in discussions around staged vending or Fourmile?

Okay. So look, just to maybe talk to Fourmile for a minute. Now obviously, as you are well aware, at some stage, that will end up in the in the joint venture with Newmont. I mean, Newmont are well aware of Fourmile, and they're well aware of all our current operations as our joint venture partner. But that's not going to be until we finish this drilling, get those declines in place and basically deliver a feasibility study, and then we will discuss how that earnings is going to work with Newmont. And then on the other question, I don't have any update on any more results.

Yes, there are no material changes, Dan.

Okay. That's useful. And maybe one final one. Just, I guess, directionally thinking about NGM into next year, would you incrementally expect kind of significantly higher production? Or would it be a flatter profile at a high level in this year? Obviously, I guess, you'll give the guidance for the Q4.

Yes. We'll give the guidance with Q4, but it will be, at this stage, based on what I thought it would be relatively flat, I would have mentioned.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek at Scotia Capital.

Tanya. We can't hear you.

You can't or you can?

We can know.

Okay. Good. I'm just going to circle back to the review, Mark, that you've been doing. You said you went to visit most of the operations and met with most of the team. And it sounds as though the focus for you is just getting this predictability on the maintenance programs to really deliver quarter-on-quarter delivery. When you did all of this, and I know when you go around and you look at things, did you have to make any management changes that we should be aware of?

Thanks, Tanya. No, look, at this stage, that's not what it's about. Like I mean, the team in Nevada, which you've probably quite familiar with anyway. But look, we have a strong team, but there is obviously some gaps in the planned maintenance and things because we can't keep having things go wrong unexpectedly like we had at Carlin. So I don't think it's about necessarily people changes. It's just about getting those plans in place and making sure they're solid and we can rely on them going forward.

And look, the other obvious -- I just want to bring that in. The other reason I was obviously in Nevada is I was there for the investigation into that fatality because that's the other big priority that we've got to get on top of, which I'm sure you would agree, and put some changes in place to address that.

Yes. I was just going to ask, Mark, because that's 3 fatalities is a lot. I was just wondering that as you looked and reviewed the asset bases like are there significant changes to the procedures that need to be done? And is the higher turnover at Nevada Gold Mines, obviously, something that you're going to focus on as well in terms of health and safety and improve productivity?

Yes. So Tanya, I don't think it is a gap in our processes and procedures and standards. I mean we went through this, as you know, in Latin America in 2022 when we had that fatality at PV. And look, what I think it is, I think it's about culture. I think it's about leadership. I think most of those systems are in place, and I think they're solid. And we're just going to have to reset and get everyone on the same page that safety is the #1 priority of this company. And as you'd be aware, the minute we get safety in line, normally, what you see is you see an uptick in production and overall just more efficient operations. But look, let me just hand it over to Graham for a minute as well because he's been deeply involved with this. If he's got any additional comments to that.

Thanks, Mark, and thanks, Tanya. I think Mark has hitted on the head in terms of the leadership component. And specifically, when we talk about that, I think, is the supervision in the workplace. We believe we need to get more face on with the people underground in the process from our supervisors. And in some of the reviews and the investigations that we've obviously conducted, they've has shown that perhaps some of the supervisors have been burdened with administrative tasks too. So we need to get them back into the field.

I think also on reflection, not only based on these fatalities that we've seen, but I think in the data that we've been collecting over the last while, the better part of 3 years now, I mean you would have seen our total recordable injury frequency rate come down year-on-year but that's contrasted by the number of fatalities we've had in the last couple of years. And clearly, there's been a focus on the lagging indicators and driving that down from an injury perspective. And we've missed something in terms of the hazard recognition, particularly on the fatal risks.

And I think more focus on the leading indicators is key for us. It is something we've recognized and you may have remembered from some of the other presentations that we put together that we have prioritized leading indicators. And one of those programs is the critical control verifications that we would do, which really is engagement in the field with people conducting tasks that have a fatal risk associated with it. And although we've seen a great uptake across the group in excess of 86,000 rather CCVs completed year-to-date. I think what we now have to focus on is the quality of those so that we are ensuring that everyone is learning from them that they're recognizing the hazards in the workplace associated with those fatal risks.

And then I think another aspect that we have highlighted and touched on and debated over the last while is I think our safety team, from a group perspective, although we firmly believe safety is a line function and must be incorporated at a site level, at a group level, we do need a few more resources to drive some of these initiatives and plans to focus on things like the leading indicators, the competency-based training that we've highlighted and getting the supervisors back into the field.

So I think in a nutshell, those are some of the focus areas, but we've obviously got a plan. And as Mark has mentioned, this is our #1 focus for the team, the entirety.

Yes. It's good to hear, focusing on the safety. Maybe one last question for me, Mark. It sounds as though you've put the pause, you've hit the pause about not any potential asset sales. I know we previously had talked about maybe Mali was for sale. Has that paused as well?

Well, I think Mali, my focus, Tanya, I don't know the you read some of the reports. But look, my focus is on getting these 4 people out of jails. So that's what I'm working through at the minute. I mean, they've been in Castro now for, what, 11 months. So my focus is on that rather than anything else in Mali at the minute. And if we get that achieved, then obviously, we will look at restarting that operation. As you know, we still have people on site doing the care and maintenance, so we could restart that operation. But the focus is we have to get those people out of jail or my focus anyway.

Yes, we hope to get them out as well.

Our next question comes from Anita Soni of CIBC World Markets.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. So I'm going to focus in on PV at first. So previously, Mark, Bristol had talked about the degradation of the PV stockpiles. Could you give us an update on that? And if you've made any progress there and what that could mean in terms of resequencing of stockpiles to be processed earlier?

Well, Anita, yes, thanks. So look, the recovery, as I said, is the focus, right? Because I think we've broken the back of throughput. You would have seen we've had record throughputs at PV now. So it's all about recovery. Actually, I've got Hatch on site at the minute. They're doing an independent review for us as well. And I think there are several moving parts and not being a metallurgist. But what I can say to you, obviously, the handling of those stockpiles, as you pointed out, is absolutely critical. So it's how we blend that feed going into the float circuit so that we can make sure that we don't get wild swings in our recovery throughout the day.

So look, there's a lot of things going on. And I think what we need to do is get real-time data back to the operator so that we can adjust the feed and better control what goes into the float circuit. So I know that's probably not very specific for you, but that's sort of the situation we're in at the minute.

Just to understand because the second question was actually related to the recovery rates of PV, but seem to be undershooting what you had guided to earlier this year by about 5% or 6%. Are you processing any of these lower grade stockpiles right now? Or is it just the prior -- expected like the prior targeted grades and, I guess, direct ore feed that...

Well, it's a blend of a fresh and stockpile material that we're putting through the plant now. So it's -- as it always has been, it's a combined feedstock.

All right. Maybe I'll get some more detail from you tonight at the dinner. And then the second question that I had was with respect to the collars. I must say I'm a bit surprised that you guys have put on collars. I think it's about -- I realize it's only about 10% of the production, assuming prior estimates, but 10% of the production over that time frame. But why did you guys put the mine? And why not stay on levered to the gold price?

Hi Tanya, it's Graham. -- sorry, Anita, apologies.

You want Tanya, Mark Bristow, or Tom Palmer, which one is even better?

That's a toss-up. Anita yes, thanks. We -- the collar was put on at a time early in the third quarter at a time of record gold prices associated with a potential strategic opportunity, which ultimately didn't close. I think it's important to realize that as you point out, this is less than 10% of our production. And the top of that collar is over $4,300 per ounce. So at current record high gold prices, we're still fully exposed to these current record gold prices. And to put it in perspective, even if the gold price were to go to $5,000 per ounce, we'd still have 99% exposure to the spot prices. So it's a very small position. It's not something we intend to do going forward. It doesn't -- it shouldn't be read as a change in our strategy with respect to hedging. It was a product of a specific situation, which ultimately didn't transpire, but we're comfortable that those positions are not going to have a material impact on our financial results.

So now I'm intrigued, this strategic opportunity, was it acquisition or divestiture?

I think if I was going to tell you that, I would have told you that.

Our final question comes from John Tumazos at Very Independent Research.

Mark, in terms of the big picture, which of your corporate policies are different than your predecessor? Certainly, we're all on the same page for cost and safety and maintenance, et cetera.

Well, look, I don't think the strategy, John, has changed at all. I mean you've obviously gathered my focus or where I see the most value is obviously in Nevada. So we're going to build out those 2 growth projects we have. But then the next thing, you're definitely shifting the focus to America. And I've already started with that, like we're going to spend more -- a bigger proportion of our exploration as well in Nevada and North America. So I suppose it's not really a shift, but if you ask me where my attention is going to be and maybe there is a little bit of a change, then it will be all the focus we're going to put into North America because I do see a big opportunity there, and I do see that as the next big project and the next big growth area for Barrick.

That concludes our Q&A session for today. Back to Cleve for any closing remarks.

Great. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you again on our full year results call in February. And as always, please get in touch with us if you have any further follow-up questions. Thanks again very much.

Thank you, [ Matt ], and very good morning to everyone here this morning. Thank you for joining us. And I must say a big call out to the organizers, [ Tim ] and the team, and it's really pleasing to see the growth in number of buy-side attendees in this conference this year and in particular, welcome to those generalists, we need you in this industry.

It's been quite a year. Gold at record highs and going higher, mining firmly in the spotlight in the critical minerals debate and plenty of volatility across the sector. In times like these, there's always temptation for short-term gratification. Our focus at Barrick has been different.

From the start, our strategy has been to build a best-in-class gold and copper business, long-life Tier 1 assets run by a world-class team, underpinned by discipline and sustainable long-term approach. That's what I want to talk about today, how we built those foundations, how we're delivering on them and how this portfolio is positioned to create real value well into the future.

Before we begin, a reminder that this presentation contains forward-looking statements, and you'll be able to find the full cautionary and the appendix -- in the appendix on our website.

Q2 was another quarter delivered to plan, in line with guidance and building momentum into the second half of the year. Adjusted earnings came in at $0.40 per share, the strongest in more than a decade, and we ended in a net cash position that allowed us to declare a $0.15 dividend, which included a $0.05 top-up.

But the real story here isn't just the numbers. It's that our Tier 1 assets are performing, our growth projects are advancing, and we've set the foundation for an even stronger delivery going forward. Across the portfolio, everything is tracking in line with the guidance we set at the start of the year.

We built a strong foundation for growth, and you can already see that reflected in our share price since we reported the quarter 2 results. The portfolio is delivering, the strategy is working and the momentum is clear as we move forward.

I've always said the real foundation of any mining company is its reserve base. And this slide makes that clear. Since the merger, we've grown reserves per share by 29% in gold and 71% in gold equivalents with copper now making a meaningful contribution.

And we've added 111 million gold equivalent ounces through the drill bit at just $10 per ounce. That's industry-leading, disciplined exploration, replacing everything we mine and doing it at the same or better quality.

Too often in this industry, reserves per share shrink as companies underinvest in exploration or chase ounces through dilutive M&A. Barrick has taken the opposite approach, growing reserves per share and protecting value for our owners. And remember, this is on top of the organic growth projects you'll see later in this presentation.

Discipline has been at the heart of our capital strategy. Since the merger, we've returned almost $7 billion to shareholders, and in the first half of this year alone, $753 million through dividends and buybacks. That's before the performance dividend, which will be paid in quarter 3. And we've done it without raising equity or taking on new debt.

Too many mining companies talk about discipline, but end up diluting shareholders to fund growth. Our approach is different. We grow and return cash at the same time. Our framework gives us flexibility.

We can balance ordinary dividends with performance top-ups and buybacks while continuing to invest in our Tier 1 growth. That's how we maintain a strong balance sheet and still fund projects like Lumwana, Reko Diq and Fourmile. It's a model built on delivery both growth and returns, not one or the other.

This slide really shows the strength of that strategy. Our growth is organic, built around Tier 1 assets and underpinned by disciplined capital allocation. From Pueblo Viejo and Goldrush to Lumwana and Reko Diq and of course, Fourmile, few companies in this industry can match the depth or quality of what you see on this slide.

Together, these projects underpin more than 30% growth in gold equivalent ounces by 2029. It's a resilient portfolio built for the long term, supported by a strong balance sheet, and it's what makes Barrick a peerless investment in gold and copper.

Pueblo Viejo is one of our standout Tier 1 assets. The plant's expansion and the new tailings facility extend its life beyond 20 years and strengthen the cost profile. We've derisked the plan, optimized stockpile processing and secured long-term cash flows from this world-class operation.

Goldrush is a classic brownfields expansion, adding life to the Cortez complex and ramping up to full production of around 400,000 ounces a year by 2028. It's low risk, leverages existing infrastructure and is one of several expansion projects driving Barrick's growth.

Lumwana is another low-risk brownfields expansion, and it's firmly on track. The expansion is being fully funded by Lumwana's own cash flows at current prices. Once complete, it will lift production to 240,000 tonnes of copper a year, supported by a new 52 million tonne per annum plant and a mine life of more than 30 years. This expansion will transform Lumwana into a large, long-life Tier 1 copper mine.

Reko Diq is one of the world's truly great copper gold projects, and it too is advancing well. Early works are underway and Phase 1 is set to deliver approximately 240,000 tonnes of copper and 300,000 ounces of gold a year once it comes into production scheduled for the back end of 2028.

We are busy finalizing the project financing with a consortium of multilateral agencies and banks led by the IFC, which we expect to complete in the next few months. This will be a major milestone in derisking and moving this generational project forward.

And then there's Fourmile. Quite simply, as I said at the quarterlies, the greatest gold discovery of the century. It's 100% Barrick owned and it's emerging as a truly generational project. You would have seen that today, we released an updated PEA and additional information for this project.

To put it in context, Goldstrike underground, the foundational mine that created Barrick, produced 13 million ounces at over 10 grams a tonne from its underground project. Fourmile has the potential to be significantly larger and at even higher grades.

Drilling continues to expand the resource with results pointing to a doubling of ounces by the end of the year. And the green outline on this slide shows the extensions still to come. And I would point you to the grades as labeled on this slide.

It's not just about scale. Fourmile is positioned in the heart of Nevada Gold Mines right alongside processing and infrastructure. That gives it a significant strategic advantage, world-class grade, low-cost development and a clear pathway to becoming Barrick's next Tier 1 mine. This is the kind of discovery that redefines a company.

One of the things that makes Fourmile even more encouraging is our updated preliminary economic assessment, which points to potential for Fourmile to rank among the top 10 gold producers globally with industry-leading operating cash flows. And that's based on a consensus long-term gold price of $2,500 per ounce, well below today's spot price.

Think about what that means for the upside. Very few projects elsewhere in the world can offer this combination of grade, scale and cash flow. Fourmile is one of those rare discoveries that can reset the cost curve, putting us at the very front of the industry.

Our Fourmile studies are progressing well and continue to confirm the attributes that make this ore body so valuable, high grade, significant tonnage and large-scale stopes. All of this points to low-cost, long-life production, the very hallmarks of a Tier 1 asset in the making.

Another aspect of Fourmile, which makes it even more compelling is its metallurgy. Unlike the Goldrush ore bodies, which are mostly double refractory, indications are that a substantial portion of the Fourmile ore bodies could prove to be single refractory.

That means it can be processed more flexibly and at a lower cost across NGM's existing facilities. And because it sits right in the middle of the Carlin Cortex Complex, developing Fourmile requires mine development only, not new processing infrastructure. That's a huge advantage in cost, in risk and in speed to production.

Since we reported quarter 2, what we've been saying is starting to resonate. We are showcasing robust operating performance, world-class drill results from Fourmile and a clear growth strategy. And this is just the beginning. I have no doubt as we continue to deliver the underlying value across our portfolio of operations and projects, we'll become even more apparent.

When we set out -- in 2019, we said we had the foundations to build a standout mining company. Today, we believe Barrick represents one of the most compelling investment cases in gold and copper. We've grown production, replaced reserves, advanced world-class projects and returned billions to shareholders, all while keeping a strong investment-grade balance sheet.

Few in this industry can point to that combination. And we've done it by sticking to our principles, long-life Tier 1 assets, disciplined capital allocation and exploration excellence.

For shareholders, it means sustainable returns and real leverage to gold and copper over the long term. That's what sets Barrick apart. And it's why even after the progress we've made, there's still significant upside ahead. Barrick is delivering today and building real value for the long term.

Thank you for listening. Back to you.

Thank you, Mark. That takes us to the end of the Barrick session. So no time for questions, but thank you, Mark.

Thanks.

Welcome to Barrick's Results Presentation for the Second Quarter of 2025. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this event is being recorded, and a replay will be available on Barrick's website later today.

I will now turn the call over to Mark Bristow, President and CEO of Barrick. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, and a very good morning and good afternoon to everyone, and thank you all for joining us today. It's a pleasure to be here, back in London with the weather has been fantastic. And to take you through our second quarter results and share the progress we're making across the business.

Quarter 2 was a productive quarter for Barrick, one where we built on the positive momentum from quarter 1 with stronger production, continued delivery from our Tier 1 assets and solid progress on our growth projects. We continue to perform in a global environment that remains uncertain and at times even uneven, reinforcing the value of a diversified portfolio, disciplined capital allocation and the ability to operate effectively across a range of settings.

Our performance this quarter speaks for itself. The portfolio is delivering. Our balance sheet remains strong, and the second half is shaping up to be even better. We're growing real value through delivery. And while the market hasn't fully recognized this yet, we see it as a clear opportunity.

Before we begin, I'll just remind everyone that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements and financial measures that are subject to a number of risks and assumptions. You'll find the full cautionary in the appendix to this presentation and on our website, which you can read at your leisure.

So starting with group highlights. This was another quarter delivered in line with plan as we continue to leverage the high gold price. Production tracked our guidance and the second half is set to deliver more in line with the guidance we laid out at the start of the year.

Earnings per share more than doubled versus last year with adjusted earnings per share at $0.47, the highest since 2013. We finished the quarter in a net cash position, which allowed us to continue buying back shares while strengthening the balance sheet. In line with our performance dividend policy, the Board has approved a total dividend of $0.15 per share, which includes a $0.05 performance top-up.

Operationally, we are pleased with the progress across the portfolio. Nevada Gold Mines and Pueblo Viejo delivered solid results. Lumwana started to show its true potential. The ramp-up at Goldrush is gaining momentum. And of course, Fourmile keeps growing as we'll discuss later.

On the operational front, this was another quarter with all the arrows pointing in the right direction. Production improved across the portfolio with solid contributions from Nevada Gold Mines, Pueblo Viejo, Kibali and Lumwana. These assets are delivering as planned, setting us up for a stronger second half.

In copper, we saw a clear year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter improvement, production volumes up and unit costs coming down. Attributable gold production increased. And importantly, we continue to see a reduction in all-in sustaining costs. As we discussed at the start of the year, controlling all-in sustaining cost is a key focus area for us, and we are starting to see that discipline coming through in the numbers.

And as we continue to focus our portfolio on long life Tier 1 assets, we completed the sale of our interest in the Donlin Gold project for $1 billion. The sale reflects our disciplined approach to capital allocation and further sharpens our growth pipeline.

Turning to the group's financial results. The combination of improved operating performance and a stronger gold price has delivered the best quarterly adjusted earnings per share in over a decade. We can see a significant improvement in revenue, net earnings and adjusted net earnings, with all 3 tracking upwards compared to quarter 1 and the same quarter last year.

Our attributable EBITDA growth reflects stronger margins and net cash provided by operating activities came in at $1.33 billion, up 35% from last quarter if we exclude interest and income taxes. Free cash flow improved, supported by the gold price and disciplined capital allocation and as I mentioned, earnings per share increased to $0.47 aligning with the operational and market tailwinds we've discussed.

The trend here is clear. Barrick is on a positive trajectory with even more to come. This slide really highlights the product of our clear and consistent capital return framework. It reflects the disciplined approach we take to allocating capital, ensuring we deliver long-term profitability across our portfolio while building value through the growth of our Tier 1 assets and new projects.

In the first half of the year, we've already returned $753 million to shareholders through a combination of dividends and share buybacks. That is even before the performance dividend we declared which will be paid out in quarter 3, in line with our capital return framework.

And importantly, this is just the first half of the year. All indicators point to an even stronger second half as we continue to deliver on our plans. As we all remind each other every day, in Barrick, health and safety remains a core priority. In this quarter, we saw further improvements across both leading and lagging indicators. Year-to-date, we've achieved a 50% decrease in Lost Time injuries and a 37% decrease in Total Injuries compared to the same period last year.

These gains reflect both stronger frontline engagement and the effectiveness of our critical control verification program, which remains the central to how we manage risk and embed a culture of safety across all our sites.

Let's now turn to operations, and starting with North America. This was the first quarter where Nevada Gold Mines led the group's performance, driven not only by production, but by progress on key growth projects. As we've said before, the complex is transitioning to a predominantly underground operation.

To support development, we initially brought in contractors, but now we're shifting back to self-perform as the capacity of our in-house teams improve. At Goldrush, the ramp-up continues in line with plan, as we move towards nameplate capacity. At the same time, we're super excited by their potential at Fourmile. Barrick's 100% owned asset which is effectively an extension of the Goldrush orebody except better. I'll speak more about that a little later.

At Nevada Gold Mines, we saw increased gold production this quarter, reinforcing the financial strength of the portfolio and helping drive a reduction in all-in sustaining costs. That trend is expected to continue with further cost improvements anticipated by the end of the year.

Production gains were driven largely by higher volumes at Carlin and a reduction in sustaining capital contributed to a lower overall all-in sustaining costs. With all major planned maintenance shutdowns now behind us, we're well positioned to deliver an even stronger second half.

Turning now to Fourmile. This asset is rapidly competing to be the largest and highest grade gold discovery in the industry this century. Since we last showed you this picture, the orebody potential has grown significantly and the grade is also increasing. Let me pause here to reflect for a moment. As you'll recall, our resource as calculated at the end of 2024, and as shown in this table is represented by the red outline of this graphic. It's also that red arrow if somebody is struggling to see the outline.

The black dotted outline in what we expect to convert this year and where all indications point to us doubling the current resource or more. Even more exciting is what's shown by the green outline on the slide, where we are continuing to define significant high-grade orebody extensions.

Fourmile is no doubt emerging as a generational asset, and it's worth putting this in context, and I think Simon did it at our Investor Day. If you look at Goldstrike underground, which was as some of the older folks in this audience will remember, was the maker of the Barrick then.

Goldstrike underground today has produced some 13 million ounces to grade of around 10 grams a tonne. Our current exploration drilling, which is adding to the previous drilling and some of it is shown here in the yellow dots and the black dots, the ones with the grades attached to them, is really highlighting the potential. And it's a long time since we've seen these numbers of intersections at these grades with these thicknesses, and what you have is an extension of Goldrush. And this is now accessing host rock that is brittle.

And we've now got these large brecher bodies that are delivering the grade. It's also important that these large bodies are competent. So when you intersect them for those geologists or mining engineers in the audience, when you drill through them, the core is continuous. And that's not normal in Carlin style orebodies, where you have many brakes in the core when you drill through the orebody.

So, it really does and when you just look at it from -- on a like-for-like, whether you use Goldstrike or Goldrush, the unit underground mining costs are going to be substantially lower. The other part of this is the geometallurgy and we are now well down the road and making intersections across that purple patch that you see on the screen because there's indications that some -- a significant amount of this orebody could well be not double refractory, but single refractory ore. And that's really the focus.

The rest of the -- this year is going to be really to frame the potential of this orebody. We've resisted the temptation of trying to bank it, really to get our head around the size of this orebody and the grade. And then we will start thinking about the next step. And the next natural step is to look to access it from underground.

And we have an opportunity with minimum permitting to be able to do that from the old Bullion Hill site and with that, we believe we will save $500 million to $600 million in drilling as if we were -- compared to if we had to try and drill it out from surface, which are long complicated holes.

So I think what I want to leave you with, and I'm definitely going to be talking about this every quarter going forward is the significance of this resource. And the difference that really should be considered here is that this is a world-class tens of millions of ounces, and it's right in the middle of infrastructure, the Nevada infrastructure. It's not something that you have to go and establish in some complicated place in other parts of the world.

So I'll leave you with that. And again, when you look at the intersections multiple meters, 10, 20, 30, 50 meters at 1 and 2 ounces per tonne rather than grams per tonne, it's very significant.

Let's move on to Latin America and Asia Pacific, which delivered another all-around solid performance this quarter. And it's worth noting that this was a very challenging region when we started out back in 2019. And at Pueblo Viejo, we made further progress on the plant expansion, supporting improved throughput and production quarter-on-quarter. Veladero continued to trend well and at Zaldivar, we secured new mining -- a new mining permit for that operation that now extends the operations life through to at least 2051.

We also continue to advance the permitting process at our El Alto exploration project. And as you'll see shortly, Rich Haddock remains firmly on track a world-class project with exceptional long-term potential. At Pueblo Viejo, we delivered, as I said, a solid improvement in gold production this quarter on increased plant throughput while also driving unit costs lower. The plant modifications completed last quarter are working well, and we expect continued momentum as throughput ramps up further in the second half. You would remember that we went down not in the whole process, but on parts of the process for a period of 35 days in Q1, really focusing on debottlenecking the throughput within the operation.

Construction of the new tailings storage facility is advancing with access roads currently underway and engineering design optimization are going forward. The focus this year has been on debottlenecking the plant and improving throughput, as I've already mentioned. And that progress is clearly reflected in the production trend that you see here.

The little curvation on the third bar on the top is the quarter where we were shut down for a while. That's why the throughput is down on that light blue bar. Throughput continues to rise with steady growth expected through the second half. As a reminder, Q1 was impacted by a planned shutdown, but the overall trend is firmly upward.

We're targeting throughput of 12.8 million tonnes per annum by 2026. Importantly, we continue to optimize the Life of Mine. And while the ramp-up has been gradual, we are managing the blend more aggressively by adding older, higher-grade stockpiles during this phase, which is being built into the plan. And we'll be updating as we go and as we progress our test work on the old stockpiles.

We have a significant reserve base in stockpiles at Pueblo Viejo. As mentioned earlier, the resettlement action plan at PV is progressing well. A key milestone in this quarter was the signing of a formal agreement with the affected communities which was resolved all -- which has resolved all outstanding issues through a commission process mediated by the country's Public Defender and the Catholic Church.

With that in place, families are now moving into the new horizons, housing estate each week, and we're seeing steady progress on this important social commitment. And it's worth noting a lot of these folks living within the effectively the jungle and singular houses of which they didn't own. And this housing estate comes with a pre school, primary school, middle school and ultimately a technical high school and you can walk to school from your home. And that's -- and it's got surge running water, it's a modern state, as you can see.

So and everyone gets a title deed -- so and that's a very important part of developing a value base for people in emerging markets.

Move now to Reko Diq, where we've made further progress in advancing this world-class project. Fluor has now been formally onboarded as the EPCM engineering partner and the design of the tailings storage facility has now been completed. Early works are underway, and the project remains on track. Reko Diq continues to represent a significant long-term value opportunity for Barrick, a truly world-class asset with meaningful upside.

We've also made good progress on the project financing. And with the bulk of the due diligence complete and documentation, well advanced, we continue to work to complete the financing this year. Six years ago, as I mentioned in Latin America and Asia Pacific, the opportunities were limited. Today, it's a region with significant exploration footprint and meaningful value upside.

Over this period, we've rebuilt our exploration team and have established a portfolio of tangible near- and medium-term opportunities. We've had encouraging results in Argentina with prospects that could extend the Life of Mine at Veladero. In Pakistan, drilling, extending our new discovery at Bukit Pasir is ongoing, and we have already got a new discovery in that mining license. And just to point this new discovery, we've had some drill intersections that are some of the best drill intersections ever drilled in the complex porphyry or the porphyry complex of Reko Diq. And we're talking hundreds of meters of intersections at continuous 0.8% copper.

We're also advancing new targets through drilling in the Dominican Republic and in Peru and further strengthening our future growth pipeline in the region.

Turning now to Africa and the Middle East. This quarter focused on further unlocking the value potential across the region, as 1 of our main cash generators of the group. We saw a solid performance across the portfolio with encouraging improvements at Kibali which I'll speak to in more detail shortly.

In Mali, we continue to manage the situation in a measured and constructive manner. We are continuing with arbitration and we are committed to finding a path forward for the benefit of all stakeholders. For those of you tracking updates closely, I encourage you to visit the micro site we recently added to our website.

As I said, Kibali delivered another strong quarter with higher production and improved unit costs across the board, supported in part by a reduction in sustaining capital. We also commissioned the solar power plant and battery energy storage system further strengthening Kibali's position as one of the most automated and also one of the greenest gold mines in the world.

Tanzania delivered another on-track quarter with North Mara continuing its steady performance. At Bulyanhulu, work continues on the expansion project with a focus on a second access and production area to support future growth. Gold sales during the quarter trailed production slightly in Tanzania as we adapt to the new legislation requiring 20% of the production to be reserved for in-country trading with an associated royalty reduction benefit.

And now Zambia and Lumwana, we are very excited about our progress at the Lumwana super pit expansion. The operation continued its steady upward trajectory with year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter increases in production and a positive reduction across all key metrics. The expansion project itself is well on track. We've refined the development plan and Lumwana has self-funded the project through operating cash flows so far this year, and we expected to do that for the rest of the year at current spot prices.

Once complete, the expanded operation is expected to deliver 240,000 tonnes of copper per year supported by a 52 million tonne per annum processing plant and a mine life of more than 30 years. And it's worth just looking at the right-hand side of the results there. And if you look at last year, quarter 2, 2024, production, copper produced 25,000 tonnes and then quarter 1, '25, 27,000; quarter, 2, '25, 44,000 and a commensurate drop in the unit cost per pound of copper, an all-in unit -- all-in sustaining costs. It's very material. And that's where our focus is. Lumwana is a mine that since Barrick acquired it, never made a profit until 2020. And it was all in discipline and unit costs. And today, we are going to expand that. And we need the all-in sustaining cost to be under $3. And then you really -- that proves our feasibility model extremely well.

As you know, there are not many copper mines that are capable of delivering plus -- I mean, minus $3 a pound all-in sustaining costs. And again, Africa and the Middle East remains well positioned to replace its reserve depletion again this year. A hallmark of the region over the many years that has been operating. And this quarter, we continued to advance near-mine exploration with standout progress along the ARK corridor at Kibali with drilling, extending mineralized loads and confirming significant exploration upside. And that ARK sits right next to the main KCD orebody, which is the real basis of Kibali's value.

Greenfield programs are also progressing across the region in Tanzania, the DRC and across the Central African copper belt, which plans both Southern DRC and Zambia. In addition, we continue to advance our early-stage exploration in Saudi Arabia, further reinforcing the depth of our pipeline across this region. This slide really speaks to the strength and resilience of our portfolio.

While we continue to work towards a solution for Loulo-Gounkoto, it is important to note that even without it, the underlying value of our portfolio still significantly exceeds our market value. Barrick remains a peerless opportunity to invest in a world-class gold and copper business and few if any companies in the sector can match the depth or quality of the growth you see here. We grew production in quarter 2.

And the second half, as I have repeatedly said, is set to deliver both higher volumes and lower costs in line with our full year guidance. At the same time, we're replacing the gold and copper we mine and growing 30% organically by 2029. This is a portfolio we are building to deliver over the long term with Tier 1 assets, world-class people and a disciplined capital allocation strategy backing at all. It is our opinion that Barrick remains one of the most compelling investment cases in the gold and copper space today.

This is an enterprise with world-class assets, a clear growth strategy and the balance sheet to fund that growth without diluting our shareholder equity. We are consistently delivering on our promises, growing production, replacing our reserves and returning more capital to shareholders. This is a company built on the foundations of long-life assets, strong partnerships, financial discipline, exploration excellence and a sustainable operating model, the pillars that underpin everything we do.

In the world searching for real assets, strong partners and responsible growth. Barrick stands apart. Few can match what we offer and fewer still can do it without debt or dilution.

Thank you very much for your attention, and we'll be happy to take questions.

Perfect. Daniel Major from UBS. Nice to see you in London guys. Yes, a few questions from me. So the first one on Loulo-Gounkoto. I appreciate the best solution would be a restart, et cetera. But can you give us any time lines around the key milestones to look forward to in or look for in the arbitration process, what we should be looking for in the event that a resolution can be reached?

So I think we're not at that stage where we don't believe that we can find a resolution. And I've always said, Dan, that we've -- when you engage in talking, there's always an opportunity. Of course, there's been some activity in Mali, which complicates the process, but as far as the exit process goes, the tribunal has been appointed.

The Malian authorities have nominated their member to the tribunal as of we and we have an independent President. So it's constituted. We've already presented our first application for some interim relief measures, really focused on cautioning everyone not to damage the assets while we try and seek a solution. And that process will build on. At the same time, we continue to engage also through other sort of treaty programs between Canada and Mali.

And we have representation in country through our legal counsel, which is in-country really experienced team as well as some of our executives that are still in the country. And we also have third-party mediation ongoing. So there's a lot of effort going in, and we still, as I say, communicate.

So it would be unwise and you've seen some efforts to try and take this discussion dispute into the public domain. We're mindful that that's not the case. We have built a site on our website, which really updates people on the facts, and we'll continue to build on that so that somebody wants to see how it's progressing and once the facts we can do it. But we're -- I mean, in all my years in this game, it's not a good practice to try and negotiate in the public domain.

Okay. And then the next question on divestments. It looks like you're kind of moving forward with Hemlo, Tongon. Zaldivar had the water permit extended. So we've got visibility on the Life of Mine of this asset now. What's the fit in the portfolio? And then I guess the same question for Porgera, is that a core asset as it stands today?

Well, I think we've got enough to get done in the short term. So let us finish that, we'll come back to the others, Dan. I think that I reminded somebody today when in 2019, when we closed the merger with Barrick and Randgold, Hemlo was on for sale then.

We invested quite a lot into Hemlo to reestablish it as an operation, a viable operation. And as we've seen, there's a real appetite for these types of mines. And again, our view is that there's a time where we have to test our portfolio against our disciplined approach to Tier 1 long-life assets that can get us through all the cycles in the commodity space and it's good practice. I mean we, as you know, are one of the few miners that have been able to -- we've added 110 million ounces of gold equivalent ounces to reserves in Barrick in the last 6 years.

And so we invest in our future. We've brought some significant new reserves in the form of Reko Diq and we've converted big reserves in PV and likewise in Lumwana. And so it makes sense to rationalize your portfolio from time-to-time. We did that immediately out the blocks in 2019. As you recall, it's now quite a few years on. We've got a growth ahead of us. It makes good sense to clean up the portfolio. And it's a good time to do it when there are buyers out there in the market.

Okay. And then just 1 more, if I could, on Fourmile, looks like some kind of really exciting results going forward. Does this change the way that you're thinking about the scope of the operation going forward or the time line given the growing scale, yes, how do you see that?

So there's a lot of water still to flow under the bridge in Fourmile. We have shortened the time frame. So we would like to have a sort of scoping position for the project by the end of this year. We'll then decide what's the next step? Is it prefeasibility or feasibility, exactly how we take it to the next step.

And for me, just looking at Fourmile and you look at Nevada Gold Mines, if you take Fourmile and put it into the middle of Nevada Gold Mines, which is where it should be, you replace some of the feed in the roasters, which is our constraint. At 3 to 4x the grade. And so you can up the profile, you add life and you drop the costs. So it's a very valuable asset within that complex.

And I think the harder -- we have worked very hard at our partnership with Newmont in Nevada Gold Mines, and we will continue to do so. And at the same time, I think we've shown that we can permit mines in the United States.

We permitted Goldrush and Robertson recently. That was before Trump administration. Of course, the current administration has made it a lot easier or focusing the permitting process to make sure that it doesn't get hijacked by litigation, but that it is focused and no one is trying to change the regulations. The regulations are proper and aligned with our global view.

And I would just add too, we are very active in the brownfields and greenfields extensions to the Nevada portfolio. That's the Nevada Gold Mines portfolio, the joint venture portfolio. As we are further afield within Nevada as Barrick itself. So we see this opportunity. We've seen it all the time. We've been investing in building that knowledge and making sure that we can permit drill platforms, which we're pretty good at now.

And so over the rest of this year, you'll see some more opportunities, we'll point to some more opportunities to expand our portfolio within the United States.

[indiscernible] Investment Management.

I haven't followed the company for a while, so I have 2 questions out of ignorance. First on Loulo, the -- on the balance sheet, the book value of the assets has been partially impaired, completely impaired. What is the situation there?

So let me pass it on to Graham. It's an accounting procedure given the current situation, and he's the best man to explain that.

So yes, so as Mark said, from an accounting point of view, once the government appointed the administrator to take control of Loulo-Gounkoto, that meant that we no longer had control of that asset. And therefore, from an accounting point of view, when you no longer control assets, you can't consolidate it. And so we did 2 things. We deconsolidated the assets and effectively wrote off the assets and liabilities on the balance sheet.

And then we subsequently did a valuation of our investment because we still own 80% of that asset, we can still expect to get the benefits from our investment in that asset. And so we did a valuation of that asset using a number of different metrics, including risk-adjusted cash flows that we expect to get from the asset over a period of time. And the difference between those 2 was approximately $1 billion before tax, about $600 million after tax, which is what was put through the P&L.

I would just point out at this junction that we also sold the Donlin asset during the quarter. We recognized a gain on that, which was around $750 million, after tax about $600 million. So in effect, we had a loss and a gain, which more or less offset each other, which is why when you look at the adjusted earnings and the net earnings, they're approximately the same.

Okay. Thank you so much, much clearer now. And the second question is just to have a bit more color on the project that you have in Saudi Arabia, Jabal Sayid, if I pronounce it correctly, both in terms of ownership structure and in terms of development expectations, et cetera, et cetera.

So it's a small high-grade copper mine underground. It's got a 10-year life still. We've been very successful in adding life and increasing production. It's a very low-cost producer. It's pay back all its loans and debt and it's a big contributor towards this partnership, it's owned 50-50 between Ma'aden and Barrick.

And that's been -- effectively, we're the only foreign operators because we are the operator of the mine. We are partners, equal partners with Ma'aden, but we operate the mine. And what it's proven is that you can operate in Saudi. And again, we have expanded our partnership with Ma'aden in the exploration front, both around Jabal Sayid, and more recently, we're looking to beyond that partnership because that's the real partnership.

We've built a lot of partnerships in my career in complex jurisdictions. And as you know, Saudi is the state mining company effectively. And it has great depth and really focused on bulk mining, that's its major value. But it has these portfolio of exploration rights across the Arabian Shield, and we see that as a highly prospective minerals belts, particularly prospective for both gold and copper. And so we're working with Ma'aden to expand our partnership across that region. Any questions in the room?

[indiscernible].

Just a quick question on Lumwana and the electricity situation in Zambia. Is there any update on the availability and some of the power plants there?

Yes. Nice to see you, Justin. So we've put a lot of work into the -- when we are doing the feasibility on the expansion on the power. We did a big survey of the whole Zambian power grid. And what we -- 2 things in that we've managed the power, 1 in the short term with the low water levels within the Zambezi River, what we did is work with the state power utility to wheel power through the grid from neighboring countries.

And we were able to do that at relatively -- in a relatively cost-effective way, a lot lower cost than running diesel engines. And the other thing that we discovered was that there was a significant loss of power in the grid because of poor synchronization of the feed -- feeding into the grid from various different sources.

And in a partnership between First Quantum and Barrick, we set about to address that and unlock and our estimate is around 500 megawatts of power. And we've invested in technology to resynchronize that power and being able to unlock some of that lost power. And we have a partnership with First Quantum. They're investing in what we call STATCOMs, which are these synchronizes effectively.

And we are putting -- we are funding some additional redundancy power lines to create loops in the feed. And that is -- and it's -- again, in partnership with the ZESCO. And we believe that -- and we have the permitting now for the power that's required for our expansion. And so as First Quantum.

And we believe that together, we will be able to support the expanded demand for the power expansions and their expansions. And then at the same time, there are a number of power projects within the Zambian grid that need investment, but certainly can deliver low-cost power.

And that power region is -- people are talking now about exporting power from Zambia through to DRC. That's like the strangest thing I've ever heard because DRC is the real power zinc in Central Africa. And then the Tanzanians are constructing and have recently finished a big hydro facility within Tanzania. And it's really large. It has -- it will have -- when it's fully developed significant capacity, and there's now serious negotiations on linking that infrastructure into that region.

And more and more, that region, that SADC region is looking at integrating their power infrastructure across the various countries. And so there's quite a lot of opportunity to improve the security of power supply and also make it more cost effective. So we're very involved in it. We're comfortable that we'll be able to manage with the plans in place, the expansion for Lumwana.

[Operator Instructions]. The first question will come from Matthew Murphy with BMO Capital Markets.

Just a couple of questions on sort of the sequential outlook for the back half of the year. One would be Pueblo Viejo and particularly the focus on improving recoveries. Do you still target 85% recovery in Q4? Or how are you thinking about that? And the other would be the Nevada Gold Mines cost trajectory. How do you feel about the path to lower gold unit costs back half of the year?

So as -- if you do the math, Matthew, there's an improvement in production across the group and particularly at Nevada Gold Mines. And right now, if you adjust for the increase in gold price, we're guiding that we'll get there, certainly on a group basis out to the back end of the year.

On PV, the big focus on PV is throughput. One of the things that with the delays in the expansion and particularly the tailings facility, it's got a substantial stockpile that we blend with the fresh ore. And some of that stockpile is high grade, but it's deteriorating. And so we've -- back in 2019, we did a comprehensive evaluation of those stockpiles into the 2020.

We've started another campaign. And the view is that we need to look at that mix and also taking the older stockpiles, which, by the way, are higher grade. And what it does to in this gold price environment is that is it improves the cash flow because the stockpiles of course, as you'll appreciate or paid for. So it's -- so we'll update you as we go on that.

There's always been a debate around the recoveries and the profile. And in the course of time, we'll keep you posted on what that looks like. Graham, do you want to add?

I would just add, Matt, that in terms of guidance for the second half of the year, obviously, we did guide 46%, 54% for the first half, second half. But then we've also guided that each quarter is sequentially better. So you can do the math yourself, but if it's 54% and 27% at the midpoint, maybe it's 26%, 28% or something like that, just to give you some sort of broad parameters in terms of what you can expect step-ups.

And I think, Matt, just to finish off, as you know, we had -- I touched on it earlier in my presentation. We had a lot of downtime. Gold Quarry -- or first of all, Goldstrike roaster, Gold Quarry roaster, the autoclaves, we had the Rwanda replacement, a motor replacement in Kibali. We were down not 100%, but intermittently down for 35 days in PV. So we got a lot of that big, some of it, retrofitting, others planned maintenance behind us.

So we've got a reasonably good run out to the end of the year, which supports Graham's outline of how we expect to perform. So no magic in the numbers.

Our next question will come from Anita Soni with CIBC.

Just a little bit of a follow-up on PV, just what Matt asked. So substantially higher grades, could you just let us know what the stockpile stands at in terms of millions of tons or how many tons you would be looking to go through in -- as you resequence?

So it's a lot. Simon, are you on the call? Anita let us -- but it's like when you -- I would guess it's around 10 million ounces in stockpiles. It's 20 million out to the end of the life. So it's substantial. I can get the numbers. They are disclosed in our filings.

An update on the tailings. Can you just give us an idea of -- I mean, you're pushing the throughput. That was, I mean, pretty high and pretty good throughput at PV. When we think about the tailings facility, how much room do you have ahead of you? And how should we be thinking about the second phase and when do you need that?

So we've got out until 2030, capacity and some flexibility to extend the life of the current tailings facility is included in that. And so -- right now, we're -- I mean, it's not quite on the critical path, but we're very focused on making sure that we schedule the construction of the tailings facility to be able to receive the tailings out towards the back end of this decade.

All right. And then just moving to Turquoise Ridge, -- just can you remind me, you are blowing through stockpiles there too as well, right? I mean you're mining much higher grades than you're putting through the process plant. When do you think you'll be reverting more to try to get to the like a higher blend, I guess, of the underground material versus stockpiles?

So it's important right now with some of the high grade, it's high carbon material. So you need to blend to be able to manage the recoveries. And that's the Life of Mine plan is managing that blend. So again, the throughput, as you saw in this quarter, there's still some headroom on the throughput. The recoveries are in good shape. And Turquoise Ridge is a significant asset. There is other opportunities in the open pits. And so -- is Simon on? Simon?

Yes. I'm here. Can you hear me now?

There was a question about the stockpile tonnage and grades at PV.

Yes. So we've about 97 million tonnes at 2.45 grams a tonne, so portions of that stockpile will run as high as 2.7 grams, so.

There we are. That's the answer. And if you look at the stockpiles at Turquoise Ridge?

Then sorry, one second, I need to get those numbers fair.

Okay. I'll ask my last question and then.

I'll come back to you.

Just lastly, on sorry, halfway through my modeling here, actually about 2/3 of the way to the modeling. But -- in terms of the Porgera. I know a small contribution, but -- it seems like you have a significant ramp up there in the [Audio Gap] getting back to the prior run rates before you had all those issues with whether the country has the issue with the land side. But what are we looking for in the back half of the year? And what does 2026 look like?

So we've really reoptimized Porgera. If you look at the dividends that we've paid out and the percentage dividend that comes to the 2 investors, engine and ourselves is substantial. And we're busy recouping that the investment we made during care and maintenance.

So there's a stronger cash flow component of every dollar we make back to the investors. And it's important that we get that back. At the same time, we're still 1 of the most significant contributors to the treasury in Papua New Guinea. As you would -- I don't know if you follow that, but you would have seen the Prime Minister actually issued a press release recently praising Porgera for it's contribution to the treasury.

Graham, do you want to add?

I was just going to say, it's -- in terms of production, Anita, the outlook is slightly more than the first half, but not materially more. And just in terms of your earlier question on Turquoise Ridge, it's 26 million tonnes at 2.26 grams a ton on stockpile.

And I think the other thing that, Anita, that -- and it's worth all the analysts reaching out to our team is that Barrick's policy, we do not design Life of Mines to maximize NPV. We design Life of Mines for long-term delivery to fully optimize the orebody. And that's always the way we've done it, and it's the way we will continue to do it. And so when you're building models, you need to be aware of our philosophy, which is quite different to others in this industry.

And you don't get that big production growth in front and then cliff developing in the back end of your Life of Mine.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question will come from Josh Wolfson with RBC.

Going back to the Slide 10. Just looking at some of these outlines, the existing resource looks to be significantly less than half of what the footprint is that's sort of in the green there. And then the grade also looks -- I mean, maybe 50% or maybe a little bit higher than that, but substantially lower grade is existing resource versus what's sort of been delineated. So some pretty big, at least in my view, some pretty big updates at this asset. I guess, first of all, I mean, is that the right way of thinking of things?

And then the second part of this is there was an initial PEA that was issued, I think, in late last year that talked about over 0.5 million ounces and production rates per year and a throughput rate associated with that. And the second part is sort of -- should we still think that those economic criteria are still applicable if this reserve ultimately turns out to be what looks like on this page?

Josh, I don't know where to start. I mean how much more do you want -- so this -- so we are busy with this evaluation. We're at, as you can point the numbers that we shared with you at the end of last year are sitting in that table, that's embedded. Every day, we're getting new results. They've got to be verified. They are -- as you can imagine, these are long boreholes that take a long time to drill.

The preliminary numbers were based on the drilling up to that stage. As you can see in the black dots are the boreholes we finished, the yellow dots are ones that are still going to be drilled. But the -- there's some significant numbers that still have to come out of this orebody that and our correction, the yellow ones are the ones we're drilling in 2025.

Some of them are drilled. That's the yellow -- I mean, the white arrows and the others that have got no grades on still have to be drilled or have been drilled and we haven't got the results back.

So it's -- I think this is a modeled interpretation based on the early-stage drilling that we've done, the continuity is proving to be a lot better than we thought. These are big breaches. And when we take you out there at the -- later on in the -- after Denver, if you're coming, you can come and have a look at it yourself, but it's significant.

I'll see you there. I guess the second question I have is thinking about the valuation of the stock and also, I guess, in the context of the upside you're Fourmile, how are you thinking about capital allocation? When I look at this quarter's results, buyback levels were healthy, they increased from last quarter. There was also a big disposition that helped the cash position, but some of that went to the dividend, that inflow from an asset sale might not be repeated in the future, but it might be. So bottom on, I guess, is how would you be allocating cash here going forward and how important is the buyback?

So I think we're on track to -- we are committed to that $1 billion buyback strategy where the year-to-date at $411 million. And so that's the way we will manage it. As per our capital allocation. We're quite disciplined in the way we manage our capital allocation as Graham and I have been like that certainly ever since we've worked together. And do you want to add something, Graham?

Yes. And I'd just say, Josh, the combination of the performance dividend and the buybacks give us that ability to take advantage of the situation as we see it. And so -- right now, we do have the $1 billion, which is earmarked and to the extent that we line up with excess capital. We have -- we've got options. We can obviously increase the buyback if we've consumed it all.

We obviously are always looking at opportunities, and we can continue to pay a performance dividend. So it's about taking advantage of our options and keeping our flexibility. But certainly, buybacks is something that we will increasingly focus on given the fact that the shares are very undervalued.

And Josh, I'd just add that if you look at like Lumwana when we guided the overall capital Lumwana, we were going to contribute this year. We're at a stage now where we -- unless the copper price really weakens, we'll cover all the capital this year for Lumwana, and that brings that headline $2 billion down materially going forward.

And what we're pointing to is that if you take Barrick's 5-year plan, it's easily fundable from internal resources. And on the sale of noncore assets, some of that will go to as Graham says, you can manage that process within our capital allocation guidelines. And some of it will go to share buybacks because it makes sense because you're taking out production. Some of it will give back to shareholders because it's an extraordinary benefit. And I've always said in business, when you do something you hadn't planned to do, you should share it with your owners, and that's what we do. And on the capital side, I think we're very comfortable in being able to fund our future. And I would just point out something the market hasn't got its head around is once we get to a point of being able to prove the financing of Reko Diq, it takes away that market obsession with the gearing that people keep writing about.

And so we've got some fairly significant catalysts over the next -- almost every quarter going out until the start of 2028.

Our next question will come from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank.

I believe that Tanya is having some audio issues. We can move on to the next question.

Could you update us on your Canadian tax loss position, whether they expire at a particular point in time, American ones do some time and how that interacts in the decision to sell Hemlo or maybe buy something to replace it.

John, it's Graham. We have around $2 billion of ordinary losses and another $2 billion of capital losses. As a rule, they expire in around 20 years, but some of them don't expire at all. So we have quite a lot of headroom and runway on those tax losses. And certainly, in the context of the disposal of Hemlo, they would certainly be useful in protecting the proceeds of that sale substantially.

Our last question will come from Martin Pradier with Veritas Investment Research.

My question is on Tanzania. [Audio Gap] What is the price at which you have to sell that 20%?

So spot price. It's a market-related price. And that's the reason we hung back this quarter just to get everything right. So we want to -- we've made proposals of getting the gold back from the rand refinery in a refined form or selling it into Tanzania to other buyers, but our condition is it needs to go through the Central Bank. And with it is the agreement. We've got to agree on how we do the check assays and any disagreements how are we going to do that.

The positive side of that is we get a 3% benefit because we don't pay duties on that export because it's internal. So there is a significant that these gold prices benefit for us. And so as you know, we've got an solid engagement with the government of Tanzania, and that's what we focus on, just to make sure that everyone is in agreement with how it works and we've got proper binding agreements.

And just last question. If you could share how advanced are you in the conversations about Tongon? Because I've read in the news that there were some offers. And could we see something at the end of this quarter?

The 1 thing I can say without fear of contradiction, don't listen to the scuttle bug of the -- some of these reporters. As you know, these processes run as very controlled progress led by our investment banking partners, and we do not disclose where we are until the process is closed. We definitely engage with our host countries in the process, but it would be unprofessional to leak or disclose the progress or even the participants in this -- in such a process.

This concludes the Q&A. I will now turn the call back to Mark Bristow for closing remarks.

Well, thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As I said, not a particularly enthusiastic day for gold today given the rumors of charges on gold bars that came out at the end of last week. But as a business, a solid performance on the back of the start in quarter 1, a very clear destination insights on delivering overall for the year.

And again, I think this is a great example of the way we allocate capital, the tremendous value that we've embedded in this organization. And really, it's when you grow NAV, it's always a challenge to daylight it much easier to do M&A, but that organic growth is where you really do create value in the mining industry, and we're extremely well positioned to be able to deliver on that.

So thank you, again, for those who came and particularly in this nice London weather. And for the rest, we will see you, hopefully, at Denver and then after that, those who are joining us on the trip, it will be good to catch up. So with that, thank you very much again, and speak to you soon.

This concludes today's event. Should you have any questions, please contact Barrick's Investor Relations department. Thank you for joining us.

Good morning, and good afternoon to all of you that have made the time to join us today. I'm Mark Bristow, President and CEO of Barrick. Earlier this year, we shared our latest sustainability report, highlighting our progress, challenges and goals.

Today, we will walk you through the key takeaways and how we are continuing to build the sustainability strategy grounded in long-term value, resilience and strong partnerships. This session is also about open dialogue. So we welcome your questions and perspectives. Your input truly shapes our journey. We will wrap up with a Q&A, and I encourage all of you to join in. The transparency and accountability remains central to how we operate.

Before we go further, I would like to just draw your attention to our cautionary statement, which is available on the website, should you need a copy.

I'm joined today here at Nevada Gold Mines by several key members of our sustainability team, who will walk us through today's topics. Grant Beringer, our Sustainability Executive, who leads our global strategy across safety, health, communities, the environment and human rights; Detlev Van Der Veen, our Head of Health and Safety, who's been central to building a strong safety culture across our sites; Duncan Pettit, our Sustainability Manager, who will share more on our initiatives and the impact they're having; Allison Brown, our Director of Reclamation and Closure, who will cover our work on these vital areas. And also joining us here today is Graham Shuttleworth, our Group CFO; Lois Wark, Global Head of Communications and Investor Relations; Cleve Rueckert, Director of Investor Relations; and our full Communications and IR team from Toronto.

It's a real privilege to share this update with you, and I hope you'll find the session both informative and engaging. Just a short reminder to navigate to the Sustainability section of our website where you can view and download all our resources, including our policies, the 2024 sustainability report and performance data specific to each asset, our tax contributions report, conflict-free gold and our reporting on modern slavery.

So let's start with a quick look at our global footprint and reflection of the diverse places and people we work with. Our business is anchored by a strong portfolio of Tier 1 assets with several right here at Nevada Gold Mines, one of the top gold jurisdictions in the world. These mines make up nearly half of our total production. We also have Tier 1 operations in the Dominican Republic and the DRC, and we're working towards resolving the situation at Loulo-Gounkoto in Mali.

Our gold portfolio also includes Porgera in PNG, our Tanzanian operations, Veladero in Argentina, Hemlo in Canada and Tongon in the Côte d'Ivoire. No other company in our sector matches our number of Tier 1 assets. And as a result of our focus on quality, geology, long-life mines and long-term value.

On the copper side, we are growing our portfolio, not through big acquisitions, but by developing assets with real potential. Lumwana in Zambia and Jabal Sayid in Saudi Arabia give us a strong base. And with Lumwana's expansion and the Reko Diq project in Pakistan set to come online in 2028, we're on track to double our copper output by the end of the decade. So now I'd like to take a moment to share the story behind these numbers and why we plan so far ahead.

This infographic isn't just about performance metrics. It reflects 6 years of progress since I took the lead at Barrick. Our 2019 sustainability report sets goals we've not only met but exceeded, pushing for continuous improvement year after year. It shows how sustainability is built into the very core of our business, not as a separate initiative, but as a key driver of long-term value and strong partnerships.

Our approach is clear and focused. We measure what matters most: safety, the environment, community development and human rights. It's about creating a business that lasts, one that brings real benefits to our host countries, communities and shareholders. Looking ahead to 2030 and beyond, the path won't always be easy, but we're confident that responsible mining can create positive change, not just now, but for generations to come. It requires foresight, science-based decision-making and the commitment to invest in lasting assets and partnerships.

Sustainability performance is a top priority for us. It's tied directly to executive pay and everyone from leaders to teams is held accountable. At the heart of this is our sustainability scorecard, which tracks our progress in key areas. We're very proud of the fact that we earned an A ranking for sustainability in 2024, reflecting this commitment across the business. Our scorecard built with input from independent experts helps us track how we're doing against global standards while staying true to the realities of our operations. And this year, we adjusted how we weigh each aspect, making all 5 key areas equally important, that is safety, community, human rights, environment and governance.

At Barrick, we've been reporting on the SDGs for years, always highlighting the important role mining plays in advancing these goals, especially in rural and developing areas. We've made great strides in tracking and reporting key SDG sub indicators, which Grant will cover later.

To recap, our sustainability strategy is built on a holistic and integrated science-based approach that focuses on context-specific solutions and action on the ground. We do not chase third-party ESG ratings. Instead, we keep our focus on the people and the environment where it truly matters at the mines. We're proud to be shaping a mining model that goes beyond compliance, one that builds economies, transforms communities and leaves a lasting legacy.

We maintain a strong governance structure where sites manage their own sustainability with oversight, support and accountability from regional and group executives. Our policies are clear, and we apply international best practices across all stages from exploration to closure. This includes the IFC performance standards from the permitting process to resettlement, ensuring independent expertise, peer reviews and transparent public participation. We continue this approach in operations with performance also overseen by independent experts from our independent tailings review Board, external auditors for the Cyanide Code and ISO standards and a third-party assurance for our mining standards.

This infrastructure ensures that we don't mark our own homework. Our active role in developing consolidated mining standards reflects our commitment to greater transparency in our sustainability efforts, both within Barrick and across the industry.

So now let's dive into the specifics of our performance, and we'll start with safety, which Detlev will cover.

Thanks, Mark, and hello, everyone. Looking back at our safety performance since 2019, we made real progress. Over the past 5 years, injuries have consistently dropped. In 2024, we saw a 40% reduction in lost time injuries with all 16 of our operations having 0 LTIs between June and September and 8 sites went the entire year without one. That said, we still have 3 fatalities due to energy isolation and mobile equipment incidents. These tragic losses remind us that preventing fatalities is our top priority.

In response, we've doubled down on our journey to 0, launched nearly 2 years ago and the progress is notable. Our fatal risk management program is evolving with better training and verifications. We've also embedded key elements into our safety framework like leadership accountability, critical control checks and visible leadership. And we've standardized safety protocols across sites, invested in technology and training to boost risk awareness. We're confident that serious injuries and fatalities are preventable.

Some of our sites have gone long stretches without any serious injuries, and we're committed to making that the norm. At Barrick, it isn't a finish line. It's a daily commitment. An injury-free day today means starting the journey again tomorrow. That's the heart of our Journey to Zero. Launched in 2022 and refined in 2023, Journey to Zero is a 5-phase road map designed to sharpen our safety focus, strengthen our culture and ensure every person goes home safe and healthy every day. Since its launch, we've aligned safety protocols, invested in behavioral training and implemented real-time risk tools across all sites.

At the core are our fatal risk standards, targeting the most serious hazards. We've identified 10 fatal risks, each with a checklist of critical controls that must be in place before any work begins. If a control is missing or ineffective, we stop the work. This is not optional. Everyone has the authority and the responsibility to act.

Leadership visibility and critical control verifications or CCVs are central to this effort with over 75,000 CCVs completed in 2024, helping us spot and eliminate risk before harm occurs. As we look to 2025 and beyond, our Journey to Zero is evolving. Our goal isn't just compliance. It's a cultural transformation. Together through courageous leadership, accountability and continuous learning, we're building a safer future where zero harm is not just a goal, but a shared reality.

Traditionally, safety performance has been prioritized on lagging indicators that reflect what already has happened, what has gone wrong. While useful, this reactive approach doesn't help us prevent incidents before they happen. That's why we're shifting focus to leading indicators, proactive measures that track what people are doing to stay safe.

To support this proactive approach, we've identified 3 key leading indicators to track across our operations and which form part of both the site and leadership scorecards. First, are the critical control verifications, which are directly aligned to our fatal risk and ensure life-saving controls are in place and functioning. We have renewed our focus on near misses and high potential incidents with an emphasis on the quality of reporting and lessons learned. And lastly, we're measuring the percentage of corrective actions completed tracked monthly to ensure accountability and follow-through.

By focusing on these indicators, we're strengthening our ability to identify risks early, take meaningful actions and continuously improve our safety culture before harm occurs. We believe this approach will drive a reduction in incident rates. We are starting to see the outcomes of this approach. And in 2024, we had the lowest total recordable injury frequency rate among our ICMM peers.

The health and the well-being of our team and local community continues to be a top priority, especially our ongoing fight against malaria. In 2023, we hit our lowest malaria rate ever. And in 2024, we cut it by another 51%. That's a 73% drop since we began operations in Africa. We're staying focused on driving those numbers down even further and working toward eliminating malaria in our communities.

Thanks. And with that, I'll hand it over to Grant.

Thanks, Detlev, and hello to everyone on the call. At Barrick, we see mining as a way to drive real lasting economic growth. That means sharing the benefits of what we do by building true partnerships with the countries and communities where we work. It sounds simple, but it takes ongoing effort and a real commitment to creating long-term value.

Firstly, we focus on hiring locally from our communities and host countries, then supporting local businesses through procuring goods and services and finally, investing in infrastructure and services that help communities thrive. What really makes our localization strategy work isn't just the big investments we make; it's a ripple effect that follows. When we hire local people, we're not just giving out jobs. We're helping build careers. When we buy from local suppliers, we're not just making purchases, we're helping those businesses grow. And that creates even more jobs in the community. And when we invest in things like infrastructure, education and health care, we're not just supporting communities, we're helping change lives.

A healthier, better educated workforce means people can lift themselves out of poverty and help shape a better future, whether by working at our mines or for our suppliers and contractors or perhaps the doctors and teachers we sponsor. That's why our sustainability approach is all about real partnerships because when our host communities succeed, we succeed too.

In 2024, Barrick generated over $15.5 billion in economic value across the countries we operate. That included $2.5 billion in salaries for our nearly 27,000 employees. In addition, $7.1 billion was spent on local suppliers. And in terms of taxes and royalties to our host countries, we paid $2.4 billion. Lastly, we invested over $48 million directly into community development. What really sets Barrick apart is our community development committees or CDC model, which is active at every site. These committees are led by the communities themselves, making sure the projects we support truly reflect their needs and aspirations.

Last year, we backed community-led initiatives like schools, clinics, water systems and sustainable farming programs. But the real story isn't just the money we invest. It's what that investment unlocks. That's why we don't just track the dollars spent but focus on where these dollars go and the lasting impact they create. As Mark mentioned in his introduction, we've long used the UN Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, as our guiding framework. In 2024, we sharpened our focus by tracking specific SDG sub indicators measured from a reference date, which is generally before mining began through to the current date with clear targets set for 2030.

These sub indicators are the building blocks to eradicating poverty, but we can't do it alone. It takes strong partnerships with all stakeholders to reach these goals. Our 2024 report highlights key indicators like the percentage of our communities that have access to clean drinking water or graduation rates at the schools we have built or supported. When it comes to basic health care in places like Pakistan, we are tracking and improving the number of births that are attended by health professionals.

Each site now tracks its own SDG-linked metrics, making our impact local, measurable and transparent. This is how we stay accountable, not just to shareholders but to the communities we work alongside. We're also proud to be an official partner of UNESCO's World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development 2025, a global campaign celebrating engineering's role in building a fairer, more resilient future.

This year's theme, shaping our sustainable future through engineering perfectly matches Barrick's belief that responsible mining drives real progress on the SDGs. We're excited to share a short film with you now. It was created with the World Federation of Engineering Organizations, showcasing how our Pueblo Viejo mine in Dominican Republic is making a real difference.

[Presentation]

While we're focused on Pueblo Viejo, let's highlight one of our biggest community efforts, the resettlement and livelihood restoration program for the new Naranjo tailings storage facility. This project will extend the mine's life past 2040 and keep gold production strong. The resettlement program is best-in-class with 78 families already moved into new homes built to international standards, providing better living conditions, access to services and long-term security. But it's more than just moving homes. We've also rolled out programs like agribusinesses, vocational training and community projects to help families truly thrive.

Most importantly, we reached a fair and transparent collective agreement with the community after much open dialogue, showing our shared commitment to sustainable development. We know mining's true potentials only happens when human rights are respected and protected at every site, in every partnership and with every decision we make. Respecting human rights is central to our sustainability strategy, guided by global standards like the UN guiding principles and the OECD guidelines.

Our human rights program is proactive and risk focused. It includes a dedicated human rights policy implemented across all operations. We conduct regular independent assessments to identify risks and find ways to improve. We also implement enhanced due diligence for high-risk sites to make sure safeguards are stronger where they matter most. We are clear about our role. We are not the government. While we invest in health care, education and water to support communities, governments must stay responsible for protecting human rights and upholding law and order.

Our job is to respect rights, use our leverage responsibly and engage openly with stakeholders. We also support capacity building, but always with the understanding that the state holds the main duty to protect. We are in the process of preparing a stand-alone human rights report, where we will be sharing the summaries of the independent assessments and actions, which we plan to publish by year-end. This is how we stay accountable, not just to global standards, but to the people living and working alongside us.

Most of our engagement with the likes of yourselves and other shareholders is focused on the so-called controversies flagged by ratings agencies, especially issues like the allegations against the Tanzanian Police at North Mara, the legacy harm at [ Porgera ] from past decades. I won't go over our positions again now, but we've included plenty of facts and links in our sustainability report, and we're always open to discussing these issues. That said, we disagree with some of the rating agencies' conclusions, particularly claims that these controversies mean we're not complying with the UN Global Compact. We strongly reject that. We've raised these concerns directly with the agencies, none of which are affiliated with the UNGC, whilst we remain full members of the UNGC. We are committed to engaging with ratings agencies to ensure they have the facts for an accurate assessment.

It is, however, frustrating when this engagement is ignored and independent findings dismissed. Whilst we respect the role of ratings agencies, the lack of transparency is disappointing. Still, we'll keep providing clear, accurate information to help everyone make informed decisions. Now a quick word on our workforce. I won't get into all the numbers, but I do want to highlight the impressive share of our team that comes from local communities. It really shows our commitment to being a true local partner and makes us one of the most diverse companies in the industry. We're also making progress on gender diversity, but we know there's still work to do.

With that, I'll hand things over to Duncan to share our environmental progress this year.

Thanks, Grant, and hello to you all. In 2024, our environmental performance was reflected in our sustainability scorecard, meeting the targets that we have set. Most notably, we've made significant progress in our greenhouse gas emissions performance on both absolute terms and in intensities. That said, we reiterate that our emissions trajectory is nonlinear, and our absolute emissions reductions have outpaced the intensity, which is reflected in the scoring here. In terms of our GHG emissions, our primary hotspots are electricity, our fleet and then limestone emissions specific to Pueblo Viejo.

Our key driver for emissions reductions is focus on our electricity sources, whether that be the national grid or our own self-generation. As demonstrated here, we have made significant progress in transforming our power sources for our mines and have mostly executed majority of the electricity opportunities available to us. These changes in our power sources are responsible for most of our GHG reductions to date.

We remain engaged with equipment manufacturers to advance technologies to address fleet emissions, while limestone use of Pueblo Viejo is a hard-to-abate emission source that is critical to processing and water management. Last year, we shared with you that we had commenced a life of mine emissions forecasting. The importance of this work was to understand the nonlinear emissions profile, but more importantly, to capture the future of Barrick Mining Corporation, one that sees a 50% increase in gold equivalent production on a 100% basis.

With our major projects set to come online before the end of the decade, it was critical to recalibrate our targets. Our original emissions reduction targets set in 2019 were based on a steady-state production model. This slide shows that significant growth in production, along with the expected emissions. However, our emissions intensity forecasts a 17% reduction against our 2018 base year. Along with the significant capital already spent to realize our progress to date, we continue to monitor and plot potential reduction projects on our carbon project pipeline seen here in the fourth quadrant. This work monitors the technological confidence, the GHG emissions reduction potential and costs against our feasibility hurdles.

Once the project moves into the IRR target, then we can make informed decisions to realize further reductions. With our updated forecast in hand, we reviewed our emissions reduction targets. Our long-term strategy does not change. We remain focused on a 2050 net zero target. We have set new medium-term targets that reflect our growth this decade, and these targets are intensity-based aligned with our evolving emissions profile and supported by a growing portfolio of renewable energy investments.

We continue to execute our Scope 3 emission strategy with a focus on supplier engagement. Our emissions within our supplier categories are disproportionately sitting with a small number of suppliers. As indicated by the middle graph, although our response rate through the engagement is lower than we would like, those suppliers that are able to respond are larger companies with larger GHG footprints. Focusing on these hotspots allows us to be efficient with our resources but also focus on partnerships to affect change.

Here, we show our water reuse rates across the group, along with the predominant water sources for each operation. There hasn't been material change year-over-year. However, our reuse rate has increased materially since 2019. This reflects years of consistent performance and a mature water management strategy. While we continue to review site level water balances for incremental improvements, we are operating close to peak efficiency across the group. What sets Barrick apart is our expanded definition of water stress. While most frameworks focus solely on scarcity, we also account for water abundance and recognizing the risk posed by excessive rainfall and runoff are often overlooked when relying on the narrow water stress definition. This is an area where we lead and where our focus continues to grow.

This slide shows our biodiversity exposure and opportunities across our sites, a view shaped by both global tools and our local realities. Global data sets often lack the nuance needed for site level decision-making. And that's why we've mapped regional pressures here, not just site-specific risks to better understand where and how nature is under stress. What matters most is how we manage, and measure biodiversity change over time. And that is why we developed the Biodiversity Residual Impact Assessment tool or BRIA in collaboration with third-party experts. This is one of the industry's first comprehensive biodiversity assessment tools.

And among others, it's designed to measure site-specific baselines focused on key biodiversity features, including integrity and abundance and track biodiversity performance consistently over time. The rollout of the tool is progressing well, and we have already implemented it in scenario analysis for informed decision-making associated with rehabilitation, restoration and conservation decisions. Our focus remains on delivering measurable conservation outcomes, including supporting the Garamba National Park in the DRC to advancing forest conservation in Zambia and investing in habitat restoration across Northern Nevada. With no net loss as a core commitment, this tool will help ensure our sites are left in a safe and ecologically resilient state post closure.

And that's the perfect segue to hand over to Allison.

Thanks, Duncan, and hello to everyone on the call. At Barrick, we view mine closure as a long-term value driver. Integrating closure planning into our business allows us to design and operate our mines in a way that leaves positive, sustainable legacies long after mining ceases. A key focus for us is ensuring that our tailings storage facilities are operated and closed responsibly. This means that all of our facilities must conform with our rigorous internal standards, which are aligned to the global industry standard on tailings management or GISTM.

In 2023, we published detailed information about our highest priority tailings storage facilities. And next week, we're releasing our disclosures for the remainder of our facilities. In addition, we continue to work toward bringing our inactive tailings storage facilities into safe closure on a priority basis. Achieving safe closure requires long-term risks to human health and the environment to be thoroughly assessed and mitigated. We currently have 13 facilities in safe closure with 5 more targeted for next year.

We differentiate ourselves by incorporating sustainability reviews into our safe closure process. This ensures that stakeholders are engaged, key biodiversity features are conserved, and cultural values are protected in addition to the facilities being safe. And of course, achieving safe closure does not absolve us of our responsibility to monitor and manage our closed facilities. Their status is assessed and confirmed by our independent reviewers and accountable executives at a regular frequency.

In parallel, we prioritize execution of progressive closure plans across the group. Each of our operations maintains a multiyear reclamation plan, which is integrated with the mine plan. This allows us to advance closure activities while our mines are still active, which reduces risk and lowers long-term liabilities. And thanks to the dedication of our site teams, we exceeded our annual target for the second year in a row by completing 824 hectares of concurrent reclamation in 2024.

And finally, we continue to implement our robust annual liability review process, which allows us to understand the cost drivers and develop fit-for-purpose closure solutions. This disciplined approach has allowed us to maintain one of the lowest reclamation liabilities as a percentage of revenue in the industry.

And with that, I'll hand it back to Mark to wrap up our presentation.

Thank you, Allison, and also a big thank you to the other presenters. So ladies and gentlemen, I hope today's session has given you some appreciation of how deep sustainability is woven into everything we do at Barrick.

Our long-term science-based approach is delivering real results on the ground. But as we all know, yesterday's progress doesn't guarantee tomorrow's success. And so we're committed to continuous improvement and creating lasting value. Looking ahead, we've got several key projects underway like the Pueblo Viejo resettlement, Lumwana expansion and the safe construction of Reko Diq. At Porgera, we're focused on building strong foundations and fully embedding Barrick's culture and sustainability framework since it went into care and maintenance after the merger in 2019. We fully support the industry-wide push for consolidated responsible mining standards through groups like the ICMM, World Gold Council, Mining Association of Canada and Copper Mark.

Barrick and Duncan, in particular, is actively involved in this work because these standards are essential for driving accountability and real progress across the sector. But above all, safety remains our top priority, every shift, every day. In 2024, we saw injury-free months and even LTI-free years at some sites, which is encouraging. But every number means nothing if it doesn't mean every employee returns home safe to their family.

And today, we are also releasing our sustainability report summary, a clear, easy to digest version of the full report that will be available on our website right after this discussion.

So to wrap up, mining done right is a powerful force for development. It drives entrepreneurship, builds resilient communities and brings people together for collective action. Our sustainability strategy isn't just a framework. It's how we create lasting responsible impact.

So ladies and gentlemen, that ends the formal presentation part of today and thank you for your time. We would now like to open it up for questions from yourselves.

Lois will speak through the instructions on the screen so that you can ask your question paying attention to the device applicable to you. And finally, a recording of today's sustainability update and the presentation will be made publicly available after the call.

Thank you, and over to Lois.

[Operator Instructions]

Any questions? [ Claudia ], have you had anything?

No, there is nothing through here, Mark.

Lois?

No, nothing so far, we'll give another minute to. Yes. I have a question in Q&A from [ Peter Lynch ]. Could you please comment on the situation in Mali? From 2 perspectives, sovereign risk cost of capital, social license to operate, contagion to other less than well-governed nations? And two, will you walk away?

So Peter, it's a very complicated situation that we face in Mali. And right now, there are losers on all sides. I think the point about sovereign risk is real, but it's also a situation that has been forced through a military coup, in fact, 2 military coups. And what the military leadership promised to the people of Mali was a better Mali. And what we've seen is a real attempt to shake down the mining industry. And that's a real concern for us.

And as you know, we have been in Mali for 30-odd years and have participated in really transforming that economy and making it into one of the leaders in the mining industry across the African continent. And we've done it through partnerships, as you've heard today, with our local -- with local business and by investing and developing the in-country skills who became leaders of one of the largest gold mines or mining complexes in the world. And what we've seen is that the mine is -- was forced to close earlier in the year and is at a stage now where it's under administration control from an administrator, which we do not agree with.

We are, by far, the best qualified to be able to restart the mine and bring it back to make its rightful contributions to the Mali economy. But that requires us to sit down and find a solution for -- that's a win-win solution for both Mali and for Barrick. And I would just point out that Barrick and Mali, the split of economic benefits up until the mine was closed was in favor of Mali.

So today, the losers have been Mali and its people. And whilst we stand open at any time to engage and work to find a solution as we have done in numerous times over the last 30 years with different governments. We believe that for us to be able to operate and risk our investors' investment, we need a clear and international level agreement. And that's what we're working towards through the agreed dispute resolution process through the International World Bank exit council. And so that's where we are. I'm not sure about the sovereignty you talk about, but that is -- we always work with sovereign governments, representing the people elected through a ballot. Right now, in Mali, that's not the case. And notwithstanding that, we are still engaged to try and find solutions.

And I think the point about social license, I would argue, and I think anyone who's been our partner and still our partner in Mali would support the fact that we had a very strong social license in Mali and that the current situation is not a product of losing our social license. It's a product of a heavy hand trying to garner more money without appreciating that in mining, you need to be able to deliver a sustainable long-term business plan, which we've always done in Mali, having been there for 3 decades.

Thanks, Mark. We have a question from [ Colin Sander Pres ]. Can you please provide an update on any going and/or planned resettlement and he gives examples, and any issues faced, gives examples of Tanzania, Zambia and Mali.

Just say that again.

Can you please provide an update of any ongoing and/or planned resettlement and any issues fixed and give examples of Tanzania, Zambia and Mali.

Yes. Thank you very much. I think we -- I'll pass that on to Grant, who's responsible for leading any resettlements across our group.

Yes. Thanks for the question. Yes, we are conducting a number of resettlement activities right now. We mentioned, obviously, the one at PV for the new tailings storage facility, which has been a process for the better part of 5 years in terms of the engagement with the communities on that right from the beginning in terms of the environmental impact assessment. And I think that's an important point to note is that resettlement is not necessarily separate from our ESHA process.

It starts with that process and key to that is that open and honest conversation with the communities right from the beginning, and that had happened. We've had over 3,000 meetings with our communities there in the Dominican Republic to discuss this. So it really has been a participatory process.

Zambia and in Tanzania, we're also conducting resettlement action plans at the moment for the expansion projects. And I think you talk about some of the lessons learned through this process. I mean the one thing is that no resettlement is the same as the next. There's always something unique about those resettlements. But core to each of those is that early engagement with the communities and ensuring that you engage holistically with the communities.

There's always opportunities for individuals within the community to claim to represent individuals. But for us, it's important to make sure that everyone's voice is heard. And I think we mentioned our CDCs. It's a great method forum to engage with individuals outside of perhaps the resettlement process, but doesn't mean we can't deal with some of the issues and the queries and the uncertainties around resettlement. So I think those are some of the lessons that we have learned, but also recognizing that in any resettlement, the government needs to be involved, too.

Often, we request them to assist with host land, host land that ideally is serviced and also has title. And I think that's a very important part of our resettlement plan, which is different to relocation. Resettlement for us is making sure that people are left in a better position than before we started the process.

And often, the land that we secure for the host site and often where we build the houses those individuals get titled to that land, which in many developing countries is nonexistent. So -- and that sets them up for success in the future. But beyond that, we also look at the livelihood restoration programs and agribusinesses that we started.

So yes, we are learning as we go, but I do believe that with the guidance from the IFC Performance Standard 5 and our experience in doing this, you'll remember that we've completed some of the biggest resettlements in Africa, Kibali notably, that we have that experience to leverage from and make sure that these resettlement programs are success.

We have another question from Lucy Langer. Thanks very much for this presentation. Could you comment on how learnings are being carried forward from the more successful human rights work, eg, work in the Dominican Republic to some of the sites that have been more challenging in your view. What is the biggest challenge to communicating effectively your point of view with third-party ESG rating agencies?

So thank you, Lucy. And before I hand it over to Grant to answer, I think we've tried to explain to you today the importance of sustainability. And we, as Barrick believe that when we mine in a country, we are actually mining as custodians of a national asset. And so we look at it that way. And so every member of our team appreciates our responsibility and engages in a transparent and open and regular conversation with our communities, with our workforce and also with the provincial and federal governments of the countries we operate in.

And so with that, I'll pass on to Grant, he can answer the specifics.

Thanks, Mark, and thanks, Lucy, for the question. I think we learned lessons from all of our sites. I don't necessarily believe that one was more successful than the next, much like I just mentioned for resettlement, they are all unique with their unique challenges. Yes, I think, yes, the work we've done in the Dominican Republic has been very successful. And also, I think a good time to mention that human rights goes beyond security and law and order. It is also related to our practices on human resources.

And as we mentioned in the presentation, getting over those hurdles and barriers for women to enter the workplace. And yes, on that front, the Dominican Republic has -- and PV, in particular, has done some really good work in getting over some of those barriers, as you saw in the video.

But I think where we really, I think, take a lot of both comfort and as well as some of the learnings is through that independent input that we get. And that's critical to our business. You heard Mark mention in the presentation that we are not here to mark our own homework. So we do get independent assessors to come in and do a holistic assessment on human rights, our compliance to the standards I mentioned, but also to our internal standards. And it goes across the organization through to our contractors, too.

And I think what is the most beneficial for us is that it's not just a report that they send to us, and we've ticked the box. We take those reports and there's an action tracker on each of those, which we'll share a summary of in our human rights report later this year.

And we sit down with each of the site teams, and we work through those. In fact, that part of their outputs for the year in terms of how we close those actions out. And they aren't action to noncompliance, but it's actions that we believe we can improve on every site because constant improvement is something that we believe in at Barrick in every asset of the business.

So on the lessons learned side of things, that's a key focus for us. But again, I can't stress enough the point I made around engaging with the communities and understanding what their needs are. North Mara is a great example for us. As you know, when we got there in late 2019, there was no social license to operate. We've established that now. Yes, there's still work for us to do, but it is significant, the milestones we've reached.

But I think in terms of North Mara in particular and the human rights aspect is that we've been able to engage with the communities and understand what some of their concerns were regarding that and have engaged with local NGOs that have been able to assist us on those aspects. So one of the examples is in the society, there is gender-based violence. And they came to us to ask how we could assist in that in creating awareness. So we engaged with a local NGO that is well versed in this and created that awareness. So I think it's more than just a report or an assessment that's done. It's actually engaging with the communities on what they believe we can help with on the human rights aspects.

I think to your question on the third-party ESG ratings, I mean, I mentioned in the presentation around some of the frustrations we have, the difficulties that we have in the engagement process. We feel at this stage, it is quite one-sided, meaning we are engaging and reaching out to them. And to be fair, there are some of the agencies that really have reciprocated, and we've had very good discussions. And you would have seen those in some of the ratings.

They have changed for the better because we believe we're able to provide them with information, with facts that they ultimately can use to make their product better. There's obviously an unfortunate link to the UN Global Compact by one of the raters, which, as I mentioned in the presentation, they had no affiliation with the UNGC. In fact, they should not be commenting on compliance on that front or not. Only the UNGC can do that. And I mean, we've been a member for many years and have reported annually on our compliance to the UNGC. And never once that we had any comments back from the UN Global Compact.

So we want to try and work with that ratings agency in particular, deal with the issues and present those facts. But at this point, we do feel that, that engagement needs to come from their side too, in order for us to have that open and honest dialogue.

Another question from [ Peter Lynch ]. Could you please give some more color on the White Rhino project and the bigger project to create a wildlife corridor across that part of Africa, commenting on local employment and other peripheral benefits.

So again, Peter, this is a subject that's very close to a lot of our hearts, particularly Grant and I. And it's an integral part of biodiversity and really preserving some critical biodiversity across the world, in fact. And on the Rhino program, it really has -- it's a great example of a partnership with African parks and other sponsors and starting with the community around the Garamba National Park and ensuring that we invest and that they also participate in the work that we're doing.

And so not to steal Grant's thunder, I mean, he's very involved in this, and it's a spectacular effort and we can talk about it all day, really the sensitivity and intricacy of the very biodiversity across that very special part of Central Africa. So I'll just pass on to Grant, see if he can [indiscernible]. But it's probably something you should take offline and explore with Grant further.

Yes. Thanks, Mark, and thanks, Peter. And as you know, we're available to chat on this in more detail. As Mark has mentioned, I can probably go on for a long time. I mean every opportunity we get; Mark and I go out to Garamba and visit because it is a passion for both of us, and it is a real privilege to be part of that initiative. And it doesn't -- as you know, it hasn't stopped at just the initial Rhinos that we brought up to the Garamba National Park, but beyond that, and we have a Phase 2, if you will, of that project, which is in progress.

But I think this has been something that we have envisaged for many years. In fact, almost when Kibali started, we looked at Garamba and we looked at bringing in some of these large herbivores, particularly the Rhino.

And -- but we knew that it wasn't something we could do immediately. We needed to make sure that the park was secure and also that the communities around the park truly understood that benefit, but also that they were part of this initiative. There's no point in us doing this without their support and buy. And that took time, particularly on the security side of things at the park being in the Northeastern DRC on the border of Sudan, a very porous border. And obviously, we know the conflicts in Sudan that there were a lot of coaches that were coming across.

And our first investment into the park was actually to help with antipoaching and make sure that the park was secure before we went into the next phase. And so 2 years ago, we did that assessment. We deemed it's safe to bring the rhinos in based on all of that work that we've done, tracking of and coloring of elephants, the antipoaching team that had been developed. And we felt it was the right time. And we brought in the first 16 Rhino, which has been hugely successful.

And we visited there not so long ago and saw the impact -- the positive impact that the rhinos are having as a mega herbivore in terms of just balancing that ecosystem. But for us, I think it is important that we link it back to science-based approach, and that's everything we do in sustainability is based on that. And we're plugging this into our biodiversity tool, which Duncan had mentioned earlier to really measure that impact. So there's a lot more work to be done here. And sure, it's a great initiative.

But want to understand how we can do even more with the park but also take those learnings to other aspects of our operations and the parks that we support and conservation efforts that we support. But yes, we can catch up, Peter, on more details and take you through some of the plans that we have in the future.

And I'd just wrap up by saying on biodiversity, it's not only just Garamba National Park. We recently Grant team got recognized for the conservation and protection of specific and sensitive biodiversity in the Long Canyon project in Nevada and the amount of work that we've done on restoring original river systems and bringing back the stage grafts and rehabilitating and revegetating original habitat.

And likewise, in Zambia, we are working with -- to restore forestry. And everywhere we work, we work with the communities to make sure that people embrace what we believe in and that we can measure it and make a real contribution. So it's an integral part because people always focus on mining as being negatively impacting the environment, and we pride ourselves in making sure that on balance, we deliver a more positive impact than any negativity of our impacts of our operations.

Another question from [ Colin Sander Pres ]. On tailings storage facilities, any new specific concerns for the extreme and/or very high facilities?

I'll pass that on to Grant and Alissa, Grant...

Yes. Thanks. So I mean, we -- obviously, as you know, we comply with the GISTM, the global tailings standard, which we were part of right from the beginning through the ICMM. I personally was involved with the panel of experts and met with them on many occasions. To put a standard together that was best practice was world-class. And as you know, then 3 years after that in 2023, we disclosed our very high and extreme facilities on our website in full compliance to GISTM. And we reached another sort of milestone with the GISTM on the 5th of August, so in a couple of days, and the disclosure on the rest of those facilities.

And we've done a lot of work in the background in doing that. And that disclosure will come out on the 5th of August. But to your question around the extreme and very high facilities, this -- there are no big changes associated with those. We obviously do those reviews on an annual basis in terms of GISTM disclosures to make sure those are up to date. But it's not about the disclosures. It's about how we're operating them on a daily basis on the site level.

So at each and every one of our facilities, be it extreme, very high or down to low, we have responsible tailings engineers on the sites that are part of Barrick's team, and they do daily inspections of those facilities. But then in collaboration with them, we have our engineer of record, which is an independent expert that reviews those facilities, depending on the type of facility, that cadence may vary, but generally, every quarter. And then as we mentioned in the presentation, we have our Independent Tailings Review Board, the ITRB, which is, as the name suggests, independent, but they are well-respected, well-experienced individuals in this geotech space. And in fact, we've even brought on now an expert on the environmental and geohydrological basis just to cover those aspects that the GISTM have brought in, and they have a regular cadence in terms of the sites they visit.

And that information is fed back to myself and John Steele, who's our responsible tailings executive. And that information then is passed on through to the rest of our executive team, our COOs and also to the Board. But that's -- so it's a really comprehensive process. But I think the most important part, which you -- any management of any business is being on the ground, on the site and having those discussions. For example, we've been here at NGM for the last couple of days and I've been out to many of our facilities, Phoenix, Carlin, Gold Quarry to have a look at our facilities, engage with the tailings engineers. And I think that's how we make sure that we're on top of things in terms of those facilities.

I'm just going to take a follow-up question from [ Colin Sander Pres ]. Last follow-up on tailings. In Porgera, any updates on the riverine disposal tailings disposal?

Sorry, is this still the best preferred method given local specific.

Yes. So Peter, I think we've obviously discussed this a few times when we've chatted. But we've obviously put that road map together, which we presented in subsequent -- or in previous rather sustainability reports. I think it's clear that this is a process that we need to follow. We need to prove this concept. The conditions in PNG and in the Porgera Highlands in particular, are such that a conventional tailings facility cannot be built safely. We've just talked about the GISTM. I mean, to reach compliance with a conventional tailings facility in the Porgera Islands is not feasible.

Just due to the high seismicity in that area, we have low magnitude earthquakes and even high on a regular basis. Not only that, combine that with a high rainfall, almost 4 meters of rain every year, which is significant. And so we cannot following best practice, build a conventional facility.

But in saying that, we are looking at ways that we can reduce the riverine tailings. We have already done so. We've shown that percentage decrease and the methods are putting some of that tailings material back underground, and we're ramping that process up. But in conjunction with that, we're running a pilot project to see how we can commingle tailings and waste rock to make it more geotechnically stable. So that's a process that we've initiated. We've got an independent geotech consultant on board to assist us with that process. And as and when we get those results, we'll obviously share them with yourself because we're also keen to see how we can fast track this process and reduce that tailings load.

We have a question from [ Michelle Dillard ]. Very thorough presentation. You are clearly doing a lot on human rights. I'm curious from your perspective, what areas you still need to improve on? Which sites do you feel need more attention? Or what topics on human rights are you going to focus on more next year?

So Michelle, I'll start with that just point that, of course, the focus right now is and will continue to be on PNG. It's a complex social situation, and we continue to work with all the various stakeholders, and I'm sure that you follow the -- particularly the dynamics within the tribal structures and the highlands. So that's a focus. I think one of the things I would point to that has been enormous successes and Grant touched on it in a previous answer and also in his presentation is the progress that we've made in North Mara of really exposing exploitation of these sort of circumstances and that when you really invest in the community, you unpack the real reality of the situation.

And if you look at the impact that our work and our engagement with the community and our regaining the social license in that region has had its standout. I think for us; we are always listening to third-party views on issues. And I don't have to point out, but I will that in many cases, there are interest groups that don't necessarily have local communities at heart when they try and agitate certain issues.

But we are very clear, and you would have heard from our presentation, we have a strong framework that guides us in our approach to human rights. We use international auditors to help advise us and point to gaps in the communities in which we operate. But we do believe, overall, our investment and our engagement and the way we handle ourselves in these emerging market economies, particularly it has many more pluses than negatives.

And I think with that, I'll just pass on to Grant and see if he wants to add anything to that answer.

Yes. Thanks, Mark. I think -- I mean, I think you've answered a lot of the -- what we do in our focus areas, Michelle, as you've asked. I think in terms of improvement, as I've mentioned earlier, continuous improvement is something that I think every company should strive for, and we certainly do. That's what makes us a world-class business. You can only become world-class if you're focused every day on improving. And it's no different to how we approach sustainability. And I think we've shown that more broadly in sustainability and all the initiatives and the industry firsts that we put forward the ESG scorecard that we put forward is an industry first, and we've been doing that for the past 5 years.

Our biodiversity tool and now our tracking against the SDGs on a site level is unique and I believe a first for the industry. And we're promoting that. We're pushing that. So safe to say that on the human rights aspect, we're applying that same level of rigor. Mark focused on those sites that we've listed as high risk. We've mentioned those. And so we have a regular -- a more regular cadence in terms of not only external assessments, but internal assessments on those. So we'll continue to do that. And hopefully, our human rights report at the end of the year will give you a little more color on what we're focusing on.

I think when it comes to human rights, there's no particular aspect that we need to focus on. It's holistic. They're all interconnected. But we'll elaborate a little more on that in our human rights report. And should you have any questions thereafter, we'd be more than happy to discuss it with you.

I'll take the last question from [ Peter Lynch ]. On the GHG reduction project pipeline, I'll admit I've not done the math. May I ask for your confidence level to meet your 2030 emissions intensity. Do you think it's a stretch target? And then on the projects to the further right, both low and high confidence, what needs to change to make them investable?

So as you can imagine, GHG is a moving target. We, again, to Grant's point, use a science-based approach to our GHG -- it's all engineered. We adjust it as we go. It's not aspirational. It's really managed. And to fill in some of the color, I'll pass it to Grant.

Yes. Thanks, Peter. I think in terms of our GHG targets, we've gone into a lot of detail in our report. And I think you may have not done the math just yet, but we certainly have. And we're confident in terms of those targets. And based on that intensity, and I think that's important to note. All of you, I'm sure, are investing in Barrick because we've shown our growth pipeline and how we've extended the life of our current operations and our new exciting projects like Reko Diq. And those coming in, they weren't in our portfolio when we did the initial targets in 2020.

So we need to adapt to those but still remain focused on how we can reduce those GHG emissions at those various sites. And we've shown in our intensity calculations that, that is achievable.

And so to answer your question in terms of the 2030 emissions intensity target, we are confident. Is it a stretch target? Possibly, but I believe that there's still some work to be done in 2030, not only by us, but by the industry. So -- and a lot of work to be done still on sort of the green technology, I think, in terms of batteries and so on. We believe we're still behind the curve there. That isn't necessarily the solution. And there's other ways that we're engaging with our OEMs to see how we can move the needle on that basis.

But again, more than happy to run through some of those details. I mean I'll just quickly see if Duncan, do you want to add anything to that on the graph that we presented.

Yes. Thanks, Grant. And Peter, I think the only thing I'd add to what's already been said, I mean, the pipeline is really a point-in-time snapshot. We've seen in very recent history, the significant changes in energy prices and commodity prices. And in particular, technology and how fast that is moving. Grant mentioned battery is just an example. So as we see the years come and those shift again, it very quickly moves those opportunities into different parts of the graph.

And then once those hit into either more confidence in the technology or a change in certain commodity prices for different fuels, that makes the assessment a lot easier. But again, we need to make sure we're spending that capital responsibly and sustainably for a longer term and not just to the wins of the short-term market.

Just a quick response to Michelle. Our human rights report will be published in Q4 of this year and with that we can be...

All right. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, again for the time. It's -- I appreciate the questions and your commitment to stay and pursue those questions. Again, we're always open, as Grant has indicated, to take any other questions. I know that he and the team are engaged with many of you throughout the year, and that's the way we like it. And so again, thank you very much for giving us so much of your time this morning.