US-based Nevada Gold Mines (NGM) continues to demonstrate the impact of Barrick Gold’s strategy of combining the best assets with the best people as new projects and prospects secure its future as a high-quality, long-life operation for decades to come, says NGM chairperson Mark Bristow.

Speaking during a visit by a group of equity analysts and investors to the development of the Goldrush underground project, the openpit operations and processing facilities at Cortez, and the Third Shaft project and core shack at Turquoise Ridge, Bristow said NGM had unlocked significant synergies by consolidating mines, teams, processing facilities and landholdings.

Since the formation of the joint venture (JV) with Newmont three years ago, NGM has produced 10-million ounces of gold (on a 100% basis) and distributed significant cashflows to the JV partners.

Barrick operates NGM, the world’s biggest gold mining complex, and owns 61.5% of the business with Newmont Corporation holding the rest.

NGM has also added 14.7-million ounces of proven and probable mineral reserves (on a 100% basis before depletion) and 8.5-million ounces of inferred mineral resources (on a 100% basis). This growth has been further enhanced by Barrick’s wholly-owned Fourmile project with 0.35-million ounces of indicated mineral resources and 2.2-million ounces of inferred mineral resources as at December 31, 2021, which is not currently included in the NGM JV.

Bristow said that greatly improved knowledge of the orebodies had supported robust ten-year plans and increased the pre-merger life-of-mine substantially, while new opportunities for further optimization as well as new discoveries and innovations continued to extract more value from the assets.

“NGM’s flagship development project is Goldrush, a world-class underground deposit at the Cortez complex, with a life-of-mine plan in excess of 20 years. It is expected to employ 500 people during construction and 570 during operation,” he said.

“NGM has also built strong relations across the full spectrum of the mines’ stakeholders, and its wide-ranging support for educational and other community development initiatives is securing its social licence as a valuable partner with Nevada and its people.”

These initiatives include support for the College of Southern Nevada, its partnership with Discovery Education, as well as its ongoing work with the University of Nevada, Reno and the Great Basin College to develop mining-focused curricula.

“Internally, NGM has launched a unique talent development programme at their ‘training mines’ for underground and surface mining as well as process operations with the aim of providing the company with well-rounded, safety-focused employees and maintaining quality control through structured, comprehensive, competency-based training. In addition, leadership development programmes have been rolled out with a focus on safety,” said executive MD Greg Walker.