Barrick to appeal Mali court’s administrator

Barrick Mining (TSX: ABX; NYSE: B) plans to appeal a Malian court decision appointing Soumana Makadji, a former health minister, as the provisional administrator of its Loulo-Gounkoto operation for six months.

Barrick’s West Africa director, Mamadou Samaké, confirmed the court appeal to Reuters. Samaké said Barrick is familiar with the new administrator. Since January, Loulo-Gounkoto, one of Africa’s largest gold complexes, has sat idle amid a standoff triggered by Mali’s 2023 mining code, which raised tax rates and expanded state equity participation.

Barrick’s spokespeople didn’t confirm the appeal in an email to The Northern Miner on Monday. The company did say a separate arbitration case is “fully underway” at the Washington-based International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. 

BMO Capital Markets says the market has begun to view the mine as not part of the stock price, which fell 1% in Toronto to $29.03 apiece by mid-afternoon Monday, leaving the company valued at more than $50 billion.

“We push out the mine restart to 2026 and raise our asset discount rate to 12%,” BMO mining analyst Matthew Murphy said in a note on Monday. “We continue to see a negotiated resolution as the logical outcome. However, we acknowledge the path back to production has lengthened and the risk of total asset loss has increased. The changes to our estimates were modest and our target is unchanged.”  

Junta demands

Mali’s 2023 mining code, which raised tax rates and expanded state equity participation, is part of a West African trend among several junta-led countries also including Niger, Burkina Faso and Guinea. In November, Malian authorities blocked Barrick’s gold exports and seized about three tonnes of gold, alleging unpaid taxes. Barrick filed for arbitration at the World Bank-run centre for settling disputes. 

“The arbitration tribunal has been constituted, and Barrick has submitted a request for provisional measures to prevent further escalation and to safeguard its rights under binding mining conventions with the state of Mali,” spokeswoman Kathy du Plessis said in a statement on Monday. 

The dispute deepened after authorities began holding four Barrick employees and issued an arrest warrant for CEO Mark Bristow on money-laundering and terrorism-financing charges, claims Barrick rejects.

“The ongoing detention of its employees — who remain unjustly imprisoned and used as leverage in this process — is deeply concerning and inconsistent with the trust, transparency and accountability required for a genuine long-term partnership,” Barrick said. “To date, no credible rationale has been presented to justify this detention and the government’s position, and the government’s ever-increasing demands have lacked both factual and legal foundation.”

With the mine offline, Barrick is incurring roughly $15 million per month in maintenance and staffing costs, while forfeiting an estimated $1.24 billion in annual revenue. The company has excluded Loulo-Gounkoto from its production forecasts through at least 2028.