Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Barrick 2020 Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded and a replay will be available on Barrick's website later today February 18, 2021. I would now like to turn you over to Mark Bristow, Chief Executive Officer. Please, go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much. And good morning and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen and welcome again to our presentation of Barrick 2020 and Q4 results. The past year has been one of delivery and developed [Technical Difficulty] in the face of unprecedented challenges, we delivered on our production guidance and at the same time we continued to [Technical Difficulty] our key projects amongst the Pueblo Viejo expansion plan, the Turquoise Ridge [Technical Difficulty], the Goldrush exploration declines and the underground mine at Gounkoto. We improved our understanding of our orebodies by putting geology front and center and we can now optimize our mine plans on firm foundations. The sale of non-core assets generated the $1.5 billion we promised and by cleaning up our portfolio, we aligned it with our strategic focus of tier 1 mines. A world-class business needs a global presence to operate tier 1 assets in any jurisdiction which means that some of our operations are located in more challenged geopolitical domains. In addition to the coronavirus pandemic last year, we also had to deal with the Argentina financial crisis, a coup in Mali, the major impact of political power movement in the DRC and the closure of Porgera in Papua New Guinea. Barrick has clearly demonstrated that it can manage risks across a broad range of assets with a leadership capable, not only of running a large and complex business, but also of recognizing and realizing new opportunities. Please take note of this cautionary statement. And for those who need more time to review, it is available on our website. Key in the past year's performance was the effectiveness of our ESG strategy, which is powered at all levels by a long-established partnership philosophy and our close relationship to all our stakeholders from investors to host communities.…

Thank you. We’ll now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Josh Wolfson of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Mark, I noticed there are a couple of headlines today on the topic of M&A and consolidation and the company sort of reiterating its interest in being part of those discussions as well as some views on copper. Could you sort of I guess, update us with what the views are more specifically I guess in terms of Barrick's own copper portfolio, and then maybe how you look at these opportunities in the context of the market today with there being a pretty material difference in how copper prices have performed versus gold?

Hi, Josh. So I think the best way for me to answer that question, which is pretty broad is to take you back to 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. We're in a very similar place today and it was a transformational period for Randgold Resources at that time, an increasing gold price. Notwithstanding that we did do a very critical deal right in the middle of a big bull market in acquiring Moto and ultimately that led to the Kibali mine of today. At the same time, we had a big capital program. We were building out on Tongon as well. And so we used that opportunity, not only to expand our business but also to pay down our debt. And you've seen the same focus this time around. We've brought the debt down. We have no net debt now. And we've started a dividend policy already before the gold price started moving. This has allowed us to return more to our shareholders as we did in the 2009, 2010; in fact it started in 2008, a 13-year successive increase in the dividends we paid, despite the ups and downs of the gold price. And Barrick is at that point. We've got -- we have committed to returning about a 3.6% yield on the share price of a couple of days ago with the proposed $750 million capital return that we shared with you today. And at the same time, we're not putting the company into any sort of debt, the net debt. We've got lots of liquidity. We've built out our exploration teams in all three regions, very solid leadership. I think we've demonstrated that our mineral resource management and our planning capabilities are now well entrenched. And our executive teams led by Catherine Mark and Willem, certainly can…

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Mike Parkin of National Bank. Please go ahead.

Hey guys, thanks for taking my question. One I had was -- we're seeing quite a cold snap come down through the U.S. And I was wondering if there's been any negative impact to the Nevada gold mines operations due to that cold? Or is it anything that you would expect to maybe drive a bit of a soft Q1? Or it's something that would probably bounce back with the resumption of kind of normal temperatures?

Mike I would just say that where our operations are located in Nevada, it's flipping cold this time of the year, regardless of whether there are cold snaps. We don't notice the cold snap. It was just cold. We look forward to the odd sunny day. So it's a bit like West Africa when you have three months of rain where you get one meter dumped on you. We don't see it appropriate to use weather to explain why we can't run our mines. So our team is well equipped to manage weather in northern Nevada, just like we are in the Andes in South America. So you definitely won't see anyone using it as an excuse cold weather.

Okay. And one last question on COVID. Do you see any potential to implement a company kind of sponsored vaccine clinic to get vaccines to your employees at a faster rate than government programs? Or are you looking at it to just leave it with the governments of your respective host countries and go that route?

Well what we are able to do is partner with our host countries and in the case of Nevada, our host state on combating COVID and its impact. And by two operations we now have COVID partnership-led PCR laboratories which support our protocols in that we can turn around accurate tests in a couple of hours. And that's been very helpful. We've got two more to really roll out a laboratory in Tanzania which we're working on; and one in Zambia. Now we've just put one into Hemlo as well. So -- or into the town of Marathon. So that's -- and again in all our countries we are very much part of the COVID task force. And our senior executives have now been included in the vaccine logistics and sort of management structures in our various regions and host counties or provinces. Catherine is very much part of that initiative in Canada, as well as in Nevada as is Greg in the immediate part of our Elko, Winnemucca region in Northern Nevada. And in Africa, we're part of the whole African union initiative to source and support the rollout of vaccines. It's a little more complicated there. But there's been some movement recently and we've seen the first Johnson & Johnson vaccines coming into South Africa. And we look forward to be able to manage that into the -- across the nations -- across the countries in which we operate in Africa. South America we were only partners with the Dominican Republic in setting up structures to purchase and order vaccines and get them into the country. We've got a very strong relationship and worked extremely well. It's one of our most responsive COVID initiatives as being -- as you know, Dominican Republic being a holiday destination got hit very hard in the early days of COVID. And then we are working again with the Argentinian government on sourcing vaccines. Again all the emerging and developing world are slightly behind the developed economies as far as rolling out that vaccine. It's absolutely critical for the [Technical Difficulty] to manage a global solution on the vaccine rollout. And so we are part of it. At this stage, it is not possible for private enterprises to purchase vaccines themselves, but we are partnering with our host countries. And already -- for instance in Nevada we're talking about rolling out some of the vaccines to the critical support staff within the mining industry as well as other industries. So it's a very collaborative initiative, and we're -- I mean it's been an impressive partnership across all 13 of our host countries. And I'm optimistic of bringing this pandemic under control in the medium-term. It's definitely not going to happen as quickly as everyone would have liked and so it's very important we all continue to exercise discipline and respect the protocols of social distancing et cetera until such time as we get herd immunity entrenched in our populations.

Thanks, Mark. And all the best in the negotiations with Porgera.

Thanks, Mike.

Our next question comes from Danielle Chigumira of Bernstein. Please go ahead.

Right. Thank you. My first question is on your climate targets. So they seem significantly more ambitious than those set at the Investor Day. And so could you give us any color on specific projects or specific actions that you're planning, which will lead to those higher reductions in greenhouse gases?

So Danielle, we are ambitious. I mean, we are very clear that our target is to achieve a 30% reduction by 2030. And I think the net zero target out to 2050 is a bit academic at the moment because I don't think it's -- I know there's no gold mining company that goes to 2050 in the current plans. But important is that we, I and my team, my enlarged team now have always been absolutely clear that we manage our business on tangible plans. So there's a target. Everyone's been under pressure to accept that they're targeting X, Y and Z. That doesn't mean anything if you don't have a real plan against, which you can measure yourself. And so we started out with a plan to deliver a 10% reduction last year in our 2019 sustainability report. We've now increased that to 15% reduction. We've got a serious plan. Every single one of our operations has got a very specific greenhouse gas strategy whether it's Veladero where we're rolling out the connection with the -- to the Chilean power grid, which is the -- has more sustainable power component to it than any other power [Technical Difficulty] and so that really does take away significant emissions and also drops our costs materially in Veladero. In Dominican Republic, we are the leader in that country with the conversion from heavy fuel to natural gas driving big turbines very efficient, very low emissions and not only for our [Technical Difficulty] PV, but also for the nation. In Nevada, we bought with the joint venture the Newmont coal power station. We're already well down the road on converting that to natural gas. And also we are busy permitting a 200-megawatt solar power station, which will be linked to that natural…

Yes. That's very useful color. Thank you. Just one more for me. On Tanzania you talked about making North Mara plus Buly a tier 1 mine and I'm trying to conceptualize how that happens. Is it the case that some of the geological upside results in a different way of operating those mines, like in a broader complex? How should I be thinking about that?

The 300,000 ounces out of North Mara and more than -- about 250,000 ounces out of Bulyanhulu, you add them together, that's 550,000 ounces. And if North Mara is a moderate-grade mine, Buly is a high-grade mine. We drive the cost down to the bottom half of the cost curve and you've got a tier 1 complex combined in the country. And they both have more than 10 years life, substantially more than 10 years life. So that's really our focus. And what -- North Mara has got a bit of a way to get to that low end of the cost curve, but we'll get it there because it's got so much upside. We've still got to lift the production. Buly is helped significantly by the grade of that ore.

Great. That's useful. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Mike Jalonen of Bank of America.

Hi, Mike. I hope all as well and you're not facing a cold snap in Port Moresby. Just moving to -- I have a question on Hemlo. The -- intrigued by the steady state 1.9 million tonnes per annum production. What are the -- how much tonnes will come from each of the mining fronts to get to that production level? And what will that mean to the mine production? Thanks.

Right now, Mike, there's again no chance of a cold snap here in Port Moresby, I can assure you; buckets of water, yes. About the coldest you get is when you turn the air conditioner down to about 16 centigrade. The Hemlo is -- our outlook this year is about 210,000 ounces and the plan is to get it up to about 250,000 ounces from underground. And that's why we need that extra access in the upper C Zone which we're developing now. And, I mean, you can do the math just work it back. But it's really -- it's a two -- I mean our first prize would be to get it up to 250,000 ounces. As we improve the infrastructure, the hoisting, the ventilation, one of the big challenges is getting a lot of the waste out of the mine to improve our logistics and ore movement. Right now, all that is constraining. We've still got to develop more long-haul open-stope opportunities. We've got to improve our backfill and we've still got quite a bit of remnant mining that we're doing in this next year and perhaps the year, call it, to 2022. And at the same time we're drilling and building that reserve base to support a plus 10-year plus 250,000 ounce producer, which makes it a substantial Canadian gold mine.

Okay. Well, thank you and good luck there.

You know that mine well, don't you Mike?

Saw it in 1980 -- no 1988 with Corona.

That's it. And it's still got legs.

Yes, it does.

Our next question comes from Anita Soni of CIBC World Markets. Please go ahead.

Good morning. So my question is with regards to reserve replacement. So I saw some strong reserve replacement at pretty good grades. But I'm going to ask you about the question -- the areas that lagged a little bit, particularly at Nevada Gold Mines. And you guys have mentioned that, it's going to take a few years to fully see the results to get it up to where you are in Africa in terms of reserve replacement. So can you give us a little bit of color on the plan forward in the next year or two in terms of getting that -- those grades and those ounces back up?

Yes. So, Anita, just trying to explain -- I'm not sure about what you're talking about there because the -- if you look at North America, we went from 31 million ounces in 2019 this is reserves at 2.68 grams a tonne to 29 million ounces at 2.8 grams a tonne. So the -- if you look at Africa of course, we've grown certainly on the back of the Loulo-Gounkoto and Kibali and North Mara replacements. Tongon is a tougher nut to crack because it is in decline. And Bulyanhulu, the big growth will come as we complete the underground feasibility study. So -- and North America is in good shape. It's -- first of all you've got to build the resource profile and we're very disciplined on the grade. And so we've done that. And hopefully Anita you would have seen in my presentation me pointing to further resource expansion. And you've got to build that front ahead of the mining phases in this -- in inventory first then in inferred. Ultimately it gets into measured and indicated which results in reserve. And it's going to take some time. But 76% replacement right now with more than 100% replacement on the resource category bodes well for us to get all our assets delivering reserve replacement over time. And I'll just take you through it. As I pointed out PV is a simple case of significant reserve growth. Veladero we didn't get the drilling done, we wanted to in 2020 because of the restrictions of COVID. So a lot of that drilling has been rolled over to this year. And again, we expect to make significant progress in the skinners, the four quarters expansion of the current Veladero pit. And then we've pointed to North Leeville some significant upside potential.…

Yes. No I did notice the grades were maintained or if not improved at most of the assets. I was just drilling into some of the Long Canyon Phoenix Carlin and Turquoise that didn't quite keep pace with the rest of the assets, but thanks for explanation. And then...

Okay. If you are worried about Long Canyon remember we've stalled Long Canyon, as we recut our permitting. And so that's looking for the second phase expansion of the life of mine and that would also impact our reserves. At the moment, we don't have a permit so it's not coming into the reserve that part of Long Canyon.

Okay. And then my second and final question I guess is a long one. But you've talked about industry consolidation in the gold space. And I just wanted to understand what exactly it is that catches your eye so much with the assets that are out there. And if you could give us some parameters on what exactly you're looking for and how that competes with your internal projects.

Okay. So I guess the best way is to wind back everything to 2017 early 2018. And you -- and your portfolio of companies you're covering a lot of them were very stressed. And then suddenly everything is utopic with a higher gold price. That doesn't change the long-term profitability of our industry. And then, we've got a couple of single-asset companies that have struggled to deliver against their feasibility study, but being kept alive by a higher gold price. And our industry is right now at a place where it's not worried about its future and I'd point this to both the fund managers who are keeping -- demanding cash returns not worrying about how you package -- use this higher gold price to package -- repackage our industry which is required to create a relevant industry as allocation of capital becomes more -- sort of larger and more clumsy going forward because the funds are just getting bigger and bigger and they need the dollar to be moved more. And so -- and at the same time we've got management teams that are just hanging on to this opportunity using the COVID and the higher gold price to prevent the conversation around consolidation. But it's not going to be like that forever. We've seen the market respond on softening gold price albeit that it's way above the sort of average. And that's why it's important for Barrick to have the strength, financial and management bench strength to be able to force some of these opportunities. On the criteria, we've been very clear. We look at two categories of opportunities: tier 1 which is plus 500,000 ounces at the bottom half of the cost curve or within the bottom half of the cost curve; and tier 2, which is sort of above 250,000 ounces at the bottom half of the cost curve and both having at least 10-year life-of-mine potential. And in times like this as I touched on in my presentation is -- Moto acquisition we made in 2009 in the middle of the crisis a very solid well-structured bull market in the gold price and we did that acquisition. It was a world-class acquisition. We read it right and it has delivered enormous value to our business. And so the key here is not to buy. And I would -- and it's a conversation that should be had because just sucking money out of the gold industry doesn't do anyone any favors. But this industry is -- was very precarious in 2017, early 2018. It hasn't changed. It's just you can't see it because of the higher margins. And so I think it's important that we -- and that's why I keep bashing that drum or beating that drum in that I think we need to do it. And notwithstanding that, as you've seen, Barrick has rarely invested in its organic opportunities both brown and greenfield and we'll continue to do that as well.

Okay. Thank you. Just wanted to close up by congratulating you on your cost control. Those are -- that's pretty good results considering the past year and the year going forward. Thank you.

Thank you and I appreciate that coming from you.

Our next question comes from Matthew Murphy of Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, there. Just wondering, if you're still expecting to formalize a dividend payout policy this year. I thought it might have come with this quarter. Or is it something you're looking to do early this year?

Matt, yes, yes. I think it's important -- and I touched on this in another answer is that a lot of debate at the Board and amongst our executive team on how we manage this. Again if you wind back to 2008, 2009 and 2010, the way we managed that return of capital to shareholders and our dividend strategy they are very similar this time around. We have no visibility of how the short- to medium-term economy or our market looks like. And I think we definitely -- I mean we realized non-core assets, we believe it's important to return -- makes logical sense to return that -- part of that to our shareholders, which I've always done my whole career. We've used the cash generated by our business to bring down our net debt and cover ourselves and so that we are completely independent of the capital markets and are able to run our business without interference. So that's done and I'm very happy with that. We will continue to build the cash portion of our balance sheet through this year, if the gold price stays above $1700. And we believe that this whole unprecedented scenario is unclear and extremely dynamic and I'm pretty confident to be able to bet you that the current analyst outlook on what it's going to look like in 12 months' time is all wrong. And so our Board and debate with our management team have landed on the fact that it's better to return this. It's a significant return. Added to our $0.09 a quarter delivers about a 3.6% yield at current gold -- share prices actually a bit higher than today. And then we'll reassess things next year where I'm sure things will be a lot clearer to everyone.

Okay. Thank you.

There are no more questions from the conference call. This concludes today's conference.

Thank you very much. Sorry, thank you. I'd just like to say to everyone thank you very much for making the time today. Very pleased that we got through this presentation. A lot of people put enormous amount of effort into the communications and everyone was really concerned that we might break our communication through this process. So thanks to everyone that put effort. And again thank you for making the time to join us and we'll speak to you soon.

This concludes today's conference call. Should you have additional questions, please contact the Barrick Investor Relations department. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.