Barrick to invest US $ 1.3 billion in expansion project in Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo, DR

If there is a sector that will be able to contribute to the rapid dynamism of the Dominican economy, that is mining. The line mines and quarries are part of the primary sector indicated by international organizations like the one that will boost productive activity and, in this area, the mining company Barrick Pueblo Viejo intends to maintain its support for the country, in addition to its contribution in taxes for the rising price in the troy ounce of gold in international markets.

This is a projected investment of US $ 1.3 billion as part of its expansion project, aimed at increasing the production capacity of the metal, although this project is still under study. As part of its contributions, as of July this year 2020, the mining company paid the Treasury US $ 270 million in direct taxes, including advances, profits and royalties on sales of gold and silver in the first quarter, and US $ 14 million in indirect taxes. , even in the midst of the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, the contribution was US $ 194 million, which gives an idea of ​​the contribution of Barrick Pueblo Viejo only by way of liens.

The projections at the corporate level of the value of gold are US $ 1,200 million at the headquarters, that is, taking into account the costs of production, but the expansion project has brought those projections to US $ 1,500 a troy ounce, which gives a margin to the Dominican State to fix its projections in those values, affirmed the president of Barrick Pueblo Viejo, Juana Barceló, at the Listin Diario Breakfast.

The Barrick Pueblo Viejo executive participated in the meeting along with Ciro Ávila, Finance Manager, and Vanessa Reynoso and Mónica Rodríguez, from the Communications Department, which was attended by the president of this publisher Manuel Corripio Alonso and director Miguel Franjul.

During the roundtable discussion, the president of the mining agreed that these nu groupers can change more favorable for the country way, because they correspond to the actual behavior and a statistical study conducted in March this year by the firm Analytica and is already talking about values ​​with historical records in the price of gold.

One of the fundamental reasons to speak of expansion, regardless of the increase in metal prices, has to do with the production factor, to ensure production of 800,000 ounces and maintain the mine.

The expansion project is expected to be operational in 2022. The idea is to extend the life of the mine until 2045, for which it will be necessary to include a process plant and the capacity to handle tailings (waste rock and water ), and a tail dam for a tropical forest from the environmental rescue project. Without this process mining would end in 2021 and production would end in 2031.

That project would increase the mining process to more than 15 years.

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 There will be more work

Out of a total of direct collaborators of 2,050, the mining company plans to increase that number to 2,368, without the contractors that, according to their managers, have the same proportion and without taking into account that for each position generated, a multiplier of 10 must be considered.