Fourmile Exploration Drilling To Double Resource By End Of 2025

TORONTO – Barrick Mining Corporation COO, Interim President and CEO, Mark Hill, said, “Higher gold production combined with lower costs and strong commodity prices drove record cash flow for Barrick in Q3,” said Mark Hill, Group Chief Operating Officer and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer. “This allowed us to significantly increase share repurchases while also making progress on our key growth projects, maintaining our industry-leading balance sheet. Given the confidence in ongoing cash flow generation and shareholder focus, the Board has approved a 25% increase in the base quarterly dividend. Our portfolio of world-class assets continues to grow, as demonstrated by the generational gold discovery at Fourmile in Nevada.”
The quality of our portfolio is undeniable and the opportunity in front of the Barrick team is significant. We are singularly focused on driving improved performance and shareholder value, particularly at our Tier One gold assets in Nevada and the Dominican Republic. To this end, we have begun an operational review from the bottom up to ensure we are completely focused on delivering results safely and consistently going forward and we will provide an update with our year-end results. For the third quarter Barrick produced 829,000 ounces of gold and 55,000 tonnes of copper and generated $4.1 billion in revenue, as well as a record $2.4 billion in operating cash flow and $1.5 billion in free cash flow.
We continue to expect gold production of 3.15–3.50 million ounces, tracking in the lower half of the range, with quarterly production highest in Q4. Following the agreed sales of Hemlo and Tongon, we expect a portion of the production for the fourth quarter from these assets will be excluded.”
Gold production in Q3 was 4% higher than Q2 at 829,000 ounces. Cortez and Turquoise Ridge, in Nevada, performed well, increasing production 15% and 13% over Q2, respectively. Pueblo Viejo achieved record-high throughput in Q3 with the highest quarterly production since 2022. Unplanned downtime at the Goldstrike roaster near the end of the quarter delayed some of Carlin’s processing volume and production from Q3 into Q4.
Copper production in Q3 was 7% lower than Q2 at 55,000 tonnes.
The Reko Diq project, in the Chagai district of Balochistan, remains on schedule, with onsite construction activities accelerating and project financing approaching completion. The Lumwana expansion, in Zambia, has advanced in both procurement and construction and continues to track slightly ahead of schedule. There was also significant progress at Pueblo Viejo, in the Dominican Republic, where more than 180 families have now moved into the new community Nuevos Horizontes , and the tailings storage facility construction is on track to support the expansion.
Full-year 2025 guidance remains unchanged.
Updated studies completed during the quarter reaffirm the Fourmile project in Nevada as one of this century’s most significant gold discoveries. A new PEA, supported by the 2024 mineral resource estimate and ongoing 2025 evaluation results, underscores Fourmile’s rare combination of grade, scale, and exploration upside, confirming its potential to become one of the world’s most valuable gold mines. The current drilling program—the largest undertaken to date—supports a potential doubling of the existing resource in 2025. Meanwhile, planned access via the Bullion Hill Decline is progressing as expected, with permitting and engineering activities on track.
The Fourmile project in Nevada is cementing its position as one of the century’s greatest gold discoveries. Backed by ongoing 2025 evaluation results and the 2024 mineral resource, the new preliminary economic assessment (PEA) underscores Fourmile’s rare combination of grade, scale and exploration upside, confirming its potential to become one of the world’s leading gold producers.
Fourmile is emerging as a multi-generational project. With the ongoing exploration drilling results, the Company expects to double the resource by the end of this year, and continuing to define significant high-grade orebody extensions underpinning the current exploration upside estimate of 32-34Mt @ 15 – 16g/t2 outside of the current 2024 mineral resource. As a result, Fourmile is rapidly competing to be the largest and highest-grade gold discovery this century.
The Fourmile orebody that makes it even more compelling is the geometallurgy. Unlike Goldrush, which is double refractory, indications are that a significant portion of Fourmile’s mineralization will be single refractory. This means that it can be processed more flexibly and at a lower cost across Nevada Gold Mines’ existing facilities. When combined with the unique positioning of Fourmile, within the greater Carlin-Cortez complexes, this offers a globally unique value proposition with potential to achieve world-class annual cash flows at a very low capital intensity. Finding gold at these grades anywhere is exceptional but to do so at this scale adjacent to multiple existing processing facilities is truly remarkable.
The geologically unique feature that drives the value in Fourmile is the steeply dipping structurally controlled breccia domain. This differs from the classic Carlin style mineralization in that it is strongly silicified, resulting in a strong geotechnical rock mass which can potentially support multiple large-scale mining fronts. In addition, indications are that this portion of the orebody contains little preg-robbing carbon, resulting in its single refractory metallurgical characteristic. Importantly, the steeply dipping structurally controlled breccia domain is also the higher-grade portion of the orebody and is currently modelled to represent approximately 80% of the 2.4km mineralized extents defined by drilling to date. As a result, Barrick believes that there is still significant potential to expand the extent of the Fourmile style of orebodies with the potential to increase the production rates beyond even these numbers as confidence in the orebody and geotechnical modelling progresses.
Barrick plans to continue to ramp up its current fleet of 16 surface rigs to more than 20 rigs with approximately 120km of directional surface drilling planned in 2026. The drill program is targeting 30-35m drill spacing for indicated resources and 80-90m for inferred resources, which translates to 370km of surface drilling and 80km of underground drilling by the end of 2028. In parallel, Barrick is progressing the permitting of the Bullion Hill exploration decline and expectations are the company will commence construction of the portal and start underground development in 2026. Concurrently, the Goldrush multi-purpose development is still advancing towards the Fourmile boundary. This underground development is expected to provide critical underground exploration drill access to the deeper portions of the orebody from 2027 onwards.
By 2029, Barrick plans to have 34km of development in place, connecting Bullion Hill with the Goldrush multi-purpose development and setting the mine up for the initial test stoping shortly thereafter. As Fourmile commences its production ramp-up, it will offset low-grade stockpiles from the planned feed to the Carlin-Cortez process facilities, adding significant low-cost production to the Nevada Gold Mines profile.