Barrick Gold

Barrick Gold Corporation is the largest gold mining company in the world, with its headquarters in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Barrick is currently undertaking mining projects in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Zambia. For 2013, it produced 7.2 million ounces of gold at all-in sustaining costs of US $915/ounce and 539 million pounds of copper at C1 cash costs of $1.92/pound. As of December 31, 2013, its proven and probable mineral reserves were 104.1 million ounces of gold, 888 million ounces of silver contained within gold reserves, and 14.0 billion pounds of copper.

On January 20, 2006, Barrick acquired a majority share of Placer Dome. The production of the combined organization moved Barrick to its current position as the largest gold producer, ahead of Newmont Mining Corporation.

History

Founding and early years

Barrick Gold Corporation evolved from a privately held North American oil and gas company, Barrick Resources. After suffering huge financial losses in oil and gas, principal Peter Munk decided to focus on gold. Barrick Resources Corporation became a publicly traded company on May 2, 1983, listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Gold Corporation

Gold Corporation is a company owned by the Western Australian Government, established by the Gold Corporation Act 1987, with a mandate to operate the Perth Mint, to market Australian gold and other related activities.

References

Gold

Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au (from Latin: aurum) and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, malleable and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements, and is solid under standard conditions. The metal therefore occurs often in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum) and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides).

Gold's atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally in the universe. It is thought to have been produced in supernova nucleosynthesis from the collision of two neutron stars and to have been present in the dust from which the Solar System formed. Because the Earth was molten when it was just formed, almost all of the gold present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Therefore, most of the gold that is present today in the Earth's crust and mantle is thought to have been delivered to Earth later, by asteroid impacts during the late heavy bombardment, about 4 billion years ago.