“We poured our first bar of gold under the new company – we don’t make too much fuss about it,” Bristow said with a laugh in the Barrick headquarters in Toronto before turning more serious. “We’ve got some work to do re-erecting the power towers after people blew them up.”
Tribal conflicts and protests have downed power lines several times since Porgera started production in 1990 under Canada’s Placer Dome which Barrick acquired in 2006 and may continue even with the new agreement. Assaults on illegal miners and toxic waste claims dogged the operation, like at the Acacia mine in Tanzania.
But Bristow, who’s led the company since it merged in 2019 with the South African company he built, Randgold Resources, transformed Acacia after what he called “a great deal for a crippled organization.”
Barrick had 72% of Acacia but no management control when authorities shut it down forcing the company to take it private…
