Boston, MA 11/01/2013 (wallstreetpr) – Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:ABX) is the largest gold miner in the world and explores, produces and sales gold. It is also a mine development company with interest in copper and nickel. ABX has its business organized into seven segments and as of Thursday, October 31, it had a market cap of $19.61 billion.
In the latest development, the company has announced stopping its operations at the troubled Pascua-Lama mine in Chile. The project had already consumed $5 billion in investment. ABX highly regarded Pascua-Lama project as it was promising to be one of the company’s largest gold productions in future. It was also regarded as one of the low-cost projects that the company was undertaking in Chile. However, in the past weeks or even months, the project was embroiled in labor unrest, political opposition, cost overruns, licensing issues and sharp drop in gold prices. However, the company has promised to resume operations later when the situation permits. In the resurrection of the project, the company would most likely explore partnerships and funding deals. Basically, Pascua-Lama is ABX’s top priority investment and had it not been for the widespread legal and civil unrest, the company would be happy to capitalize on its positivity.
Shutting down of mines is not unique to ABX, several other big miners have had to recoil from projects which they deem to be troublesome in various ways. Investors have taken the decision to shelf the Chilean mining project kindly, after all it seems to ease the company’s cash flow pressure. Perhaps this explains why the company’s stock did not suffer much on the browsers following the Pascua-Lama shutdown news.
It was the widespread sell off in gold equities saw ABX shares shed more than 4.39% to hover around $19.60 at the close of regular trading session on Thursday, October 31.
