FILE PHOTO: A small toy figure and gold imitation are seen in front of the Barrick logo in this illustration taken November 19, 2021. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File PhotoDado Ruvic/Reuters
Barrick Gold Corp. ABX-T says it will be forced to shut down its operations in Mali within a week if the military junta continues to restrict its gold exports from the West African country.
The Toronto-based company disclosed on Monday that the regime had imposed yet another restriction on the company’s operations by issuing an interim attachment order on its existing gold stock at its Loulo-Gounkoto mining complex.
The attachment order effectively means that the Malian government could be authorized to confiscate Barrick’s gold stocks in the country. The export restrictions, announced last month, are blocking any gold shipments from Barrick’s mining complex in Mali.
The attachment order will further limit Barrick’s exports and will disrupt its normal operations, the company said. At the same time, Malian authorities are still imprisoning several of Barrick’s senior employees in the country, despite the company’s efforts to get them freed.
The complex in Mali is one of Barrick’s biggest international mining operations and accounts for about 14 per cent of its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA).
The attachment order and export restrictions are the latest in a long series of pressure tactics against Barrick in recent months as the military junta seeks to squeeze more tax revenue from the multinational miner. The regime took power in a military coup in 2021 and has forged close links to Moscow, recruiting Russian soldiers while evicting thousands of French troops and United Nations peacekeepers.
“Barrick believes the interim attachment order is unwarranted and is in contravention of the agreed dispute resolution mechanisms,” the company said in its statement on Monday.
“If this issue is not resolved within the coming week, Barrick will have no choice but to temporarily suspend operations at Loulo-Gounkoto. Such an action would be deeply regrettable but necessary.”
Barrick president Mark Bristow said the blocked exports will harm Mali’s economy, potentially affecting the company’s 8,000 employees and many local suppliers. Barrick says it has invested more than US$10-billion in the country over the past three decades, contributing about 5 per cent to 10 per cent of Mali’s GDP annually.
Last month, Barrick announced that it was seeking arbitration of the dispute through the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes, but the move does not seem to have stopped the regime’s escalating restrictions on the company.
“In parallel, Barrick continues its efforts to reach an agreement with the Mali government on a memorandum of agreement to resolve the existing disputes, redefine the partnership’s future and increase the State’s share of benefits from the Loulo-Gounkoto complex,” the company said on Monday.
Mali has been applying heavy pressure on foreign mining companies over the past 18 months in an attempt to secure a bigger share of their revenue and equity. It has sought US$417-million from Barrick in the tax dispute.
In late September, the authorities arrested four of Barrick’s employees, holding them in custody for several days before releasing them. A few weeks later, they arrested three employees of Australian-based Resolute Mining Ltd., including its CEO, Terence Holohan, and held them in custody for more than a week until the company promised to pay US$160-million in a tax dispute.
In late November, several of Barrick’s senior managers were arrested, and they have still not been released. The authorities continued to escalate the pressure in early December by issuing an arrest warrant for Mr. Bristow and the CEO of the Loulo-Gounkoto complex, Abbas Coulibaly, neither of whom were in the country at the time.
Barrick denounced the arrest warrants, alleging that the arrests “raise serious concerns about the misuse of the criminal justice system.”
Copies of the arrest warrants, posted online by Malian journalists, showed that Mr. Bristow was being charged with money-laundering and violating Mali’s financial regulations during the period from 2019 to 2023.
In October, Mali’s government threatened to take back part of the Loulo-Gounkoto complex by allowing one of the operating permits at the complex to expire.
Barrick owns 80 per cent of the complex, while the government owns the remainder. A new mining code, introduced in 2023, envisions the government holding ownership stakes of up to 35 per cent in Mali’s mines.