By Cecilia Jamasmie
MINING.com
Canada’s Barrick Gold logged another set of poor results Thursday, marked by a US$2.82 billion impairment charge on mines, a sharp drop in reserves, and a forecast of much lower gold production for the year.
The world’s largest gold miner slashed its gold reserves 26%, saying they fell at the end of 2013 to 104.1 million ounces from 140.2 million ounces a year earlier. Barrick explained it calculated its reserves for the year using a gold price assumption of $1,100 an ounce, well below the $1,500 an ounce applied in 2012.
The Toronto-based company also announced capital-spending cuts of about 50%.