TORONTO (miningweekly.com) – The world's most prolific gold producer Barrick Gold has announced a suite of refinements to its senior management team, abandoning its co-president-led senior management structure.

Kelvin Dushnisky had been assigned as president of the company with immediate effect and former co-president Jim Gowans would, until his retirement on December 31, support the transition as a senior adviser to chairperson John Thornton.

Dushnisky would have overall responsibility to execute the company’s strategic priorities, with a focus on improving productivity and driving down costs.

Barrick had been dealing with high debt levels in a lower gold-price environment, despite having announced several asset sales aimed at reducing $3-billion in debt this year. Moody’s Investors Service had last week downgraded the company, citing its belief that material organic debt reduction was unlikely, compounded by falling metal output over the next several years.

Thornton stressed that as the contracting company became leaner, more efficient and keenly focused on a smaller number of core assets, it was empowering its leaders in the field to function as “true business owners”.

“As we work to accelerate Barrick’s return to the lean, decentralised model that drove the company’s early success, the time is right to put a structure in place that supports this vision," he said.

As president, Dushnisky ensured that the entire company remained focused on the company’s prime objective, increasing free cash flow a share from a portfolio of high-quality gold assets in its core regions.

Further, previous chief of staff Richard Williams was appointed COO and would report to Dushnisky, while former senior VP of technical services Basie Maree was promoted to chief technical officer, reporting to Williams.

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Williams would drive a targeted $2-billion in company-wide expenditure cuts by the end of 2016, leading the day-to-day accomplishment of company objectives.

He would drive organisational efficiencies, with a focus on enabling the mine managers to deliver on business objectives.

Mining veteran Maree would play a chief role in this effort and apply his more than 35 years of know-how in operations, mineral processing and mine plan optimisation. He would provide strategic technical advice and support to the operations, ensuring mine managers had the information and tools they needed to realise the full potential of each mine.

"We believe that with the right talent in place, the best business decisions are made closest to the ground. Gowans has trained and mentored our mine managers in this mindset for over a year and a half, preparing them to take on more responsibility and accountability,” Thornton noted.