By Divya Rajagopal and Felix Njini
TORONTO (Reuters) -Barrick Gold will resume operations at its shuttered Loulo-Gounkoto mine in Mali once authorities in the country allow it to resume gold shipments, CEO Mark Bristow said on Wednesday.
The Toronto-based miner said it has been assured by Mali that gold worth about $245 million seized by authorities still belongs to the company, Bristow told Reuters in Toronto. Mali and Barrick have been locked in a dispute since last October over implementation of the country’s new mining code.
The miner’s shares rose as much as 6% on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Wednesday morning after it reported that its profit surged last year, buoyed by a rally in bullion prices. Barrick also announced a new $1 billion share buyback program.
Tensions between Mali and Barrick, the country’s largest investor, escalated when authorities detained four of the company’s employees, issued an arrest warrant for Bristow and earlier this year seized gold stockpiled at Barrick’s mine site.
The government had earlier blocked Barrick’s shipments from Loulo-Gounkoto before seizing the gold.
“We will start the operations as soon as we get approval to ship the gold and we need to ship the gold to pay anything to the government,” Bristow said.
He said that Barrick paid $460 million to the Mali government last year and would have contributed about $550 million to the nation’s treasury this year if operations had not been suspended.
Barrick lowered its gold output forecast this year to between 3.2 million ounces and 3.5 million ounces due to the temporary halt at the Mali mine.
Mali’s aggressive push for higher taxes and a bigger state shareholding in mining projects has soured ties with its mining investors. Gold output plunged 23% to 51 metric tons last year, the nation’s mines ministry said.
Both Mali and Barrick are losing out from the closure of Loulo-Gounkoto, Bristow said.
“So if you calculate that to per week… and every week we don’t do this it hurts everyone,” he said.
Barrick has also filed for an international arbitration against Mali to find a resolution to the dispute.
Despite the tension with authorities, Barrick still considers Mali a long-term investment destination, and wants to maintain a presence in the country, Bristow said.
(Reporting by Divya Rajagopal; Writing by Felix Njini; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
