Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Barrick 2022 Third Quarter Results Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star then one on your telephone keypad. At any time during the conference, should you need operator assistance, please press star then zero. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded and a replay will be available on Barrick's website later today, November 3, 2022. I would now like to turn you over to Mark Bristow, Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead, sir.
Very much, ma'am, and good afternoon and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Again, welcome to our presentation of the Q3 results today. For those who don't appreciate it, we are presenting from the London Stock Exchange today, and it's so nice to see those familiar faces and not so familiar faces. That brings back lots of memories for me being here and also times like we are today, you know, not always up, but also down. I look forward to getting some questions from the floor, and thank you very much for coming out in person today. As I've said many times before, the troubles that have been closing in on the global economy, including the mining sector, tightened their grip in the last quarter.
Barrick however, as I hope I'll be able to demonstrate once again, is well placed to contend with these challenges thanks to the disciplined execution of our long-term value creating strategy. We have and still are focused on maintaining a strong balance sheet. Our dividend policy is delivering sustainable returns, and we continue to extend our life of mine plans to ensure that our 10-year production profile remains intact. Our successful exploration programs are feeding high quality prospects into an already bulging pipeline. While our focus is on organic growth, we are also keeping an eye open for value adding M&A opportunities, albeit that those capable of meeting our strict investment criteria remain few and far between. Please take note of our cautionary statement, and for those who wish to study it in more detail, it's available on our website.
We had a softer quarter in quarter three, as I'm sure all of you noticed, and we guided you to. It was mainly due to a sequencing at Carlin and Cortez, but a grade uplift and some hard work in the fourth quarter should keep us on track to achieve our 2022 gold production guidance, albeit at the low end of the range. Our copper portfolio, on the other hand, performed well and is trending towards the midpoint of our guidance. Exploration, as I said in the introduction, continues to discover new opportunities as well as to expand our existing asset base, and we expect to grow our reserves for the group again, and that is net of depletion as we did last year.
Other highlights include the completion of the public comment stage in the Goldrush project and a continued progress with the massive Pueblo Viejo expansion project, with the submission of our environmental and social impact assessment for the new tailing's storage facility. I should also point out that Barrick was serious about responsible tailings management long before recent calamities focused the industry's attention on this issue, and we have made excellent progress and are on track to comply with the new standards on time. We've reviewed all our tailings facilities, both from the closed sites as well as our operating mines. I'll cover the financial results a little later. Again, I've just given you a picture of our operating performance and how you can see the details.
It's worth noting that higher energy related input prices are having an impact on our cost structure, and so costs for the year are trending above the guidance range, and inflationary pressures remain a challenge which we are actively managing. I just point out that a lot of people just roll up inflation. But there is inflation, and we're managing that, and that's easily managed in many cases. But we have the added impact of the geopolitical crisis and conflicts in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world which are seriously impacting. There are fuel costs and, as a result, a number of our operations electricity costs.
Our drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 30% by 2030 is also going to go a long way to mitigate the current impact of fuel prices. We have already seen the benefits of these investments and expect further reductions over the next 12-24 months. This is a solid set of numbers with a strong operating cash flow of $758 million, plus the proceeds from ongoing sales of non-core royalty assets. Our robust balance sheet supports the 15-cent per share dividend made up of a 10-cent base dividend and a 5-cent performance enhancement. In addition to this, our $1 billion share buyback program has repurchased $322 million worth of shares to date.
That's equivalent to 1% of Barrick's issued and outstanding shares at the time that the program was announced. When you add those together with year to date, we've returned just on $1.2 billion to shareholders. We're on track when you look at our forecast for the rest of the year, that we'll exceed a record $1.4 billion return to shareholders of last year. There's an extra component in returns with our commitment to continue to buy back shares when we feel that they materially below their real value. As you can imagine, after today, we're gonna be buying back more, significantly more. Sustainability, as always, remains the cornerstone of Barrick's business. Again, I'd point out we practiced responsible mining long before ESG became the thing.
We've adapted and adopted integrated holistic approach to sustainability because it's in its current form, ESG is skewed towards environmental concerns at the expense of social and governance. Social and the upliftment and development of societies and countries that have been left behind by the developed world is as big a global problem, we would argue, as climate change, and it should, in fact, be linked to it. Poverty is particularly a big issue in Africa, which hosts two of our Tier One mines and many of our prospects. Africa holds 17% of the world's population, but due to its developmental neglect, accounts for only 3%-4% of global carbon emissions. Unless the plan is to keep Africa poor forever, population growth and the fast pace of urbanization will cause this rate to rise and even dramatically rise.
We have invested heavily in clean energy at our African operations, and the Kibali Gold Mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now largely powered by three hydropower stations which we built there, and a refurbished fourth station that provides energy to the community. We are also sponsoring major biodiversity initiatives designed to mitigate the climate change and nature loss risks posed by deforestation and the degradation of habitats. This risk is very real. Just on that, our current cost, blended costs for the last 12 months at Kibali is just under $0.05/kWh. It's very much a mitigating investment. Our drive to 30% reduction by 2030, that will continue in real terms mitigating the increased cost of hydrocarbon fuel.
Every one of our projects, investment projects, for cleaner energy, meets our 15% return hurdle rate. It's a real investment. It's not just something to comply with regulators. Last quarter, Barrick advanced its investment in its REDD+ program surrounding our Lumwana mine in Zambia. For those who don't know, REDD+ is an UN-backed framework which covers the role of conservation, the sustainable management of forests, and the enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries through socioeconomic and biodiversity-linked projects. In keeping with our holistic approach to sustainability, Barrick in quarter three alone also invested $8.7 million in community development. These collective sustainability approaches implemented by Barrick, clean energy, community development, and nature-based solutions through the REDD+ programs, will aim to address a just transition throughout the developing world.
We recently started to engage with the Dominican Republic government on another similar REDD+ program as far as carbon credits go. Again, for those who don't appreciate it, if you wanna invest in carbon credits, you have to do it in partnership with countries, with governments. Health and safety for our employees and the welfare of the communities around our mines are part of our sustainability strategy, and we continue to reduce the total recordable injury frequency rate and the lost time injury frequency rate at our mines. I'm saddened to share with you that our journey to zero harm was marred by a contractor fatality at Pueblo Viejo last quarter.
Certainly, in any one of these events, there are lots of lessons to be learned and again, we make it our job to ensure that those lessons are shared with all our operations across the globe. With the threat of COVID-19 still lingering, we are continuing to encourage our workforce to be vaccinated, and we're proud to share with you that 80% of our workforce across the world have been at least partially vaccinated to date. I've started the operational review. I'll start the operational review as usual in North America and at Nevada Gold Mines, Barrick's value foundation. As far as the original objectives of the joint venture are concerned, I can safely say accomplished. Created a whole that's truly greater than the sum of its parts.
From this sound base, Nevada Gold Mines can now exploit the wealth of opportunities in its ambit. We have recruited a future-facing management team, including a new North American regional chief operating officer and a new Nevada Gold Mines executive managing director to lead the company into its new growth phase. Back to last quarter, when Nevada Gold Mines had to deal with some operational issues. At Carlin, production was impacted by a temporary fall of ground, while Cortez was in the process of transitioning from open pit mining at Pipeline to a new phase at the Crossroads pit. For the fourth quarter, Carlin expects higher open pit grades from Goldstrike, while Cortez is anticipating the Crossroads will also deliver a grade improvement. At Turquoise Ridge, the underground operations continued to make good progress, although production was down due to lower underground grades mined and lower autoclave re-recovery.
The mine began commissioning its third shaft, and on the back of a change in management, we are starting to get through some of the maintenance and availability challenges that have impacted the stage processing facility for some time. This slide shows the substantial exploration and expansion targets and their potential to continue to grow the Nevada Gold Mines reserve and resource base. NGM's greatly enhanced geological capacity has delivered an optimal balance between the search for long-term standalone deposits while extending and converting ounces around existing targets. At the same time, Barrick is also looking for new opportunities elsewhere in Nevada and North America as a whole. Let's take Greater North Leeville as just one example of how Nevada Gold Mines is increasing its growth footprint.
Continuing exploration and producing some of the best intercepts in the history of the Carlin Complex, and for those geologists in this room, Carlin has produced some significant grade intercepts, with lots more to come. This target clearly has a multi-million ounce potential. We're gonna be sharing a lot of these projects with you at the Investor Day in two weeks' time. This is a teaser, what's to come, in two weeks' time. We move on to further south to Latin America and a region where we had to take on many post-merger challenges.
We've made enormous progress in minimizing inherited liability and maximizing assets, with the Pueblo Viejo expansion project in the Dominican Republic as a shining example of the latter. This region also includes our Asia Pacific holding, where the revival of Porgera in Papua New Guinea and the development of the Reko Diq project in Pakistan augur well for the future. Despite dealing with the project, which is designed to extend its life beyond 2040, with an annual production rate of in excess of 800,000 ounces. Pueblo Viejo posted a stellar set of results, increasing production 15% quarter on. Construction of the processing plant as part of the expansion is now 70% complete and the environmental and social impact assessment, as I indicated in my introduction, tailings storage facility has been completed in line with the government's terms of reference and has been approved. This, our expectation is, this is gonna convert a significant amount of resources already in the measured and indicated stage two reserves for this month. As we indicated when we started out, it's like a new mine, way past 2040, to the life of the mine. In order to size the TSF properly, which we're currently busy with, that pre-feasibility study. We've been evaluating opportunities within and nearby the Pueblo Viejo lease with some success. Now you can see several new targets that the team has developed and which we are receiving follow-up work with encouraging results. We cross now to Argentina, which continues to be a tough operating environment while the government struggles with currency crises and hyperinflation.
Fortunately, the San Juan Province, which hosts Veladero, has been very supportive, and the mine now is in much better shape than when we found it. This is our first winter of operating on the new leach pad phase 6 facility. It is separate from the old 1-5 facilities, and we are still getting our heads around the geometry and leach dynamics, which we believe have also been exacerbated by the abnormally long winter and freezing of part of the pads. In the meantime, construction of the phase 7 A leach pad continues to advance and work on 7 B will start this quarter, and we hope to also see Veladero's long-awaited connection to the Chile power grid in the near term. Our restructured exploration team has been progressing targets located across the continent and the region.
A quick update on Porgera. The new joint venture company has now been incorporated in September, in fact. While there are still some conditions precedents to be fulfilled, the path towards a restart is now clearer than when we last spoke at the last quarterly presentation. In Pakistan, the definitive agreements for the Reko Diq joint venture have been finalized, and the process has moved to its penultimate stage, legalization and closing. Feasibility study update is targeted for 2024 and production for late 2027 into 2028. While I always refer to Nevada as Barrick's value foundation, our Africa and Middle East region is our most consistent producer of excellent performance on all fronts, as well as a rich store of gold and copper growth opportunities.
Barrick's status as Africa's biggest gold miner is underlined by the Loulo-Gounkoto complex, which routinely accounts for around 7% of Mali's GDP. It's been going strong for 18 years, and its continued success in replacing depleted reserves gives it a lease on life of at least another 10 years at sustained levels of production. We've been making a substantial investment in clean energy there, and the expansion of the solar power plant by an additional 40 megawatts and 36-megawatt battery storage system is advancing steadily. This will replace another 23 million liters of heavy fuel when it's fully commissioned in 2024. When it comes to exploration success, the Loulo district remains one of our happy hunting grounds with a lot of discovery potential, as shown here.
The Yalea deposit, which is hosted within a 72-kilometer long mineralized district, still holds strong potential to add further ounces, and the open extensions we are exploring are key to our continuing and highly successful depletion replacement strategy. Kibali, Africa's largest gold mine, produced another steady performance with improved costs across all metrics. Hydropower provides, as I said earlier, most of the mine's energy requirements, offsetting the impact of higher diesel prices. As I pointed out, its average energy spend of just under $0.045/ kWh makes it one of the industry's lowest cost producers. Like Loulo-Gounkoto, Kibali is on track to meet its 2022 production guidance despite the 21-day planned shutdown of the shaft to replace the winder. In fact, that's about to come up.
I believe we started hoisting last night, so we're busy commissioning the new winder as we speak. I think that's a day, Simon? A day earlier or two days earlier than what was planned. A good job from the team. Like Loulo, Barrick's other Tier One asset in Africa, Kibali has many opportunities for reserve growth, with the complex hosting many multiple targets. Our Tanzanian operations are, again, a great example of partnership in action. When we took over North Mara and Bulyanhulu, they were not only badly run, but effectively closed. We've settled their legacy issues in a joint venture deal with the government and transformed them into new mines capable of a combined annual production in excess of 500,000 ounces.
At North Mara, strong underground productivity and higher throughput drove an 8% increase in production versus quarter two, while it continues to ramp up its open pit operations. Bulyanhulu's underground mine also continues to ramp up production, and we have a new fleet in the mine now, which has enabled a step up of the development while we look to further mitigate the constraints imposed by the mine's narrow ore bodies. We turn now to our copper operations with Lumwana and Jabal Sayid both delivering stellar results with exciting growth prospects while Zaldivar produces a consistent performance. Since 2019, we have extended Lumwana's life to 2042 and now have a real opportunity to increase its life of mine beyond 2060.
Our success in drilling out the Lubwe target has provided the potential for a big pushback needed for the development of a super pit, and we've started work on a pre-feasibility study, which is scheduled for completion next year. As you all know, Barrick's core belief is that the best assets managed by the best people will produce the best returns. I'd probably add the most consistent and best returns. Our sustainable dividend framework provides investors with an opportunity for enhanced performance-based rewards as well as financial flexibility, and more importantly, in a cyclical business, predictability. For the third quarter, as I noted earlier, the $0.15 per share dividend comprises a base and a performance component and on an annualized basis equates to a peer-leading dividend yield.
When you combine this dividend with the share buyback, it points to a total shareholder return year-to-date, as I said, at $1.2 billion, which sets us on track to beat the record $1.4 billion return of last year. Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, we are successfully executing our strategy of building the world's most valued gold and copper mining company, as evidenced by these actions. With the industry's largest portfolio of Tier One gold assets and many growth opportunities that are within our grasp, we are confident in our continued ability to deliver on this strategy. Clearly, a compelling thesis for creating value. I thank you for your attention, and the team is here, and we will be happy to take any questions you might have.
I would suggest that we start by the people online. Claudia, is that good enough for you? Thank you. Thanks for that permission.
Thank you. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We will pause for a moment as callers join the queue. The first question comes from Emily Chieng with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, Mark, and thank you for taking my questions. My first one is around Porgera. Looks like you've made some progress there with the application of the special mining license in the recent weeks. Perhaps could you share some color around what the timeline here on out after that lease application is towards startup? If you've got any color around whether or not that could be included into 2023 production guidance.
Emily, this is Papua New Guinea, and I've learned not to stick my head out too far when it comes to forecasts. Right now, we are planning that start up in at the end of the first quarter, so into April. You know, we've got a bit of time this year to get those boxes ticked, and that's really the key to get that done. We've still got quite a way to go. We've got some conditions precedent that we need to deal with. We've got to get the SML, the new special mining license applied for and delivered, and that's a process. There's nothing untoward in that. It's really the operating agreement is just about complete. That's the final significant agreement.
The critical thing is employment and getting reemploying people. We've got, as we speak at the moment, just under 2,000 people on site, and we are employing, but we won't push the boat out until we get that SML in place. That's the process. We've dry commissioned the processing plant. We've reviewed all the mobile fleet. We've got new mobile fleet inbound as we speak. We'll start the wet commissioning as soon as we clear as to the start-up date. That's where we are. The pit is in pretty good shape. The underground is now clear of all the sludge and slurry, and so we're in reasonable shape to be able to move towards official reopening.
That should take us sort of somewhere around 4-6 months to get it up to capacity.
Great. Thanks, Mark. That's very clear. Just a quick follow-up around some of your operations in Africa there. Are you able to provide any color around what's happening in Mali around the government review of the mining licenses, and if the civil war and the DRC are impacting operations there at all? Thank you.
In Mali, you know, that's an audit. It's not a review. We don't have mining licenses in Mali. They're decrees. They're law, you know. There's a confusion. You can't change the law. But it is an audit, and we're participating with the auditors. We know them. They are, you know, top flight, highly skilled and experienced auditors from that part of West Africa. They know mining. We're comfortable with that process. You're talking about the conflict near Rwanda border in eastern DRC. That's a very long way from Kibali, and it has absolutely no impact on our supply routes or our operations.
Great. Thank you.
Once again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mark. Nice to hear from you, and thank you for the update. I wanted to ask about Turquoise Ridge, the unplanned maintenance at the autoclave and then the lower underground tons mine. So just since the end of the quarter, how is the performance in Q4 at the underground at Turquoise? And then, are there any additional autoclave maintenance expected or planned for Q4? Thank you.
Okay. Hello, Lawson. Just to put it rightly, it's not lower production from underground, it's lower grade, and it's part of the plan. It's not a fault. It's what happens. You get, you know, it's part of the schedule. The issue really is that's driven Turquoise Ridge. If you remember, Twin Creeks Turquoise Ridge had a joint venture where we, Twin Creeks being the Newmont part of the partnership, where we did toll treating of the Turquoise Ridge underground ore, which is high grade, very high grade compared to Twin Creeks. And we, the Newmont managed us, and they had a 25% share in Turquoise Ridge. They managed it and preferred the open pit ore first, which is low grade.
There was never any pressure on the SAG mill, the whole facility. When we took over, one of the exciting things in Turquoise Ridge is the ability to step up the production out of what we call TRUG, Turquoise Ridge Underground, which we did. And the other thing, remember the deal was a hostile deal, so we didn't have chance to do any due diligence. The open pit resources at Twin Creeks were lower than what we expected. But it's got a big stockpile at much better grade than the. Cut 40, you've heard us call that Cut 40, we've delayed that because we're just mining ore that we can't replace the stockpile grades with.
We're still mining a bit of underground from Twin Creeks. The key here is as we ramped up Turquoise Ridge, and it's going extremely well, the mining, we pushed the SAG mill, and we kept failing equipment, particularly some of the valves around the autoclave. We've had to retrofit some of these and it's been going on for a long time. What we did recently is we brought in some better skills to lead that process and the mine as well, so we changed the whole management on the mine. We've set about a systematic upgrade of the mill. Again, we're seeing significant improvement in that process, just the discipline and maintenance.
Again, you know, we've had to work hard at the maintenance of the Newmont installations because the Newmont side of the operations were on a decline. There's no pressure on the facilities. With the merger, we've put processing. We're upgrading, as you know, the Carlin Gold Quarry Roaster, a significant $100 million upgrade to really pull the focus back into the SAG mill to make sure that we can meet the production that we're targeting coming out of Turquoise Ridge. Again, it's an operational thing. You know, it's not fatal. It's completely manageable. It has, excuse me, impacted on the last 6 months of operations, but we're pretty comfortable on top of it as we go towards the end of the year.
Lawson, you know, followed this industry for so long. You can't have everything, and we had a soft quarter this quarter. The good reasons. Could have done better as managers. The good thing is that next quarter is definitely gonna be a lot better than this quarter. With it will come, you know, lower costs, et cetera. Looking into next year and beyond, Nevada Gold Mines is in very good shape, certainly relative to any other gold complex in the world. What is the other question? Did you ask two?
I wanted to ask you one more question. Thank you for your comments about the outlook for 2023. That would have been my natural follow-up. I also just wanted to ask about your comments around Argentina and, you know, your latest thoughts on whether or not you see any potential for improvement from here, based on what you're seeing at both a state and a federal level. Thank you.
Yeah. Argentina is a very frustrating country on every aspect, you know? It's got so much going for it, and it's just the politics is just crazy. I'll just give you an example. If you look at our truck drivers, which are part of a union, and the regulations behind adjustments, salary adjustments, and the Argentinians are managing this crisis like the South Africans used to manage sanctions. They've introduced an artificial exchange rate. We've increased over the last 12 months our driver salaries by 50% in US dollars, but the drivers are still earning the same in pesos. That's how an unnatural and non-market exchange rate when it's forced onto you.
That's the problem in Argentina, is you're getting, you know, inflation or increases, price increases, not really inflation, through regulations. Again, the government is obsessed about protecting dollars, but we make the dollars, and that's what we say to the central bank governor. "You know, we make the dollars. You should be working with us to get more dollars that can settle your problems." They've just introduced a regulation where when we make purchases, we can only pay for the purchases 18 months after they arrive in country. It's fine for Barrick because we've got a balance sheet between us and Shandong. We can finance that, but for you know smaller mining companies, it's very tough.
It's the same when we're looking to keep money offshore. We've gotta pay dividends, and we wanna get some returns back. They will give us a 20% retention of the dollars offshore, but we are expected to pre-finance the gold sales. We do that because Barrick's got a big trading arm and we make money out of that trade. Again, if you don't have that capacity, it's hard to do business. It's a, you know, we talk all the time to the central government and they're very accommodating in the conversation, but they just can't get themselves to understand what needs to be done to unlock the hard currency component of their economy. They've got plenty to deliver dollars.
You know, it's a great tourist attraction. It's got fantastic agriculture, some of the best wines in the world, and it's got mining. It should be able to work it out. For some reason, the folk in Buenos Aires are struggling to catch up with that. You know, Economics 101. Is that onto your question?
Yeah. That's perfect. If I could actually sneak in one more question, maybe just on your comments on M&A activity in the sector. You mentioned that you continue to be on the sharp lookout for opportunities, but they're just not meeting your investment filters. Can you maybe just refresh what those investment filters are and, you know, how important do you consider M&A to Barrick's sort of strategy going forward?
You know, let me rephrase that because I don't think we're gonna get the message across. You know, there's a scarcity of high quality assets. You know, we coined the phrase Tier One, which has been adulterated by most folk as far as the definition goes. Tier One asset in gold means 500,000 ounces for at least 10 years at the lower half of the cost curve. A Tier One asset for a copper project is more than 5 million tons of contained copper or a 30-year life and also at the lower half of the cost curve. That's simple. When you do that, you make money. I can assure you make money. We calculate those returns at our long-term strategic gold price.
That's what. There's not many out there. There's probably 11 or 12 in gold. We've got 6 of those. You know, there's not 22. That's the challenge. You know, you've seen us play in the market on all the sales at the back end of last year, the beginning of this year and walk away from every asset because it doesn't fit our criteria. A lot of those transactions were done at assumed prices above what the spot price is today, and you've got the increase in cost. You know, it's not a healthy situation. Some folk in Canada seem to think that the only way to grow is through M&A.
I can tell you that's not the way you grow value for shareholders.
The next question comes from Tanya Jakusconek with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Great. Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon. Thank you so much for taking my questions. I've got three. I'll try to make them quick. The first one is just on Nevada Gold Mines. Mark, when we were there on the mine tour in September, we talked about Nevada Gold Mines' Q4 being about 1 million ounces of production coming for the quarter for Q4. Now that we're one month into the quarter, how does that outlook feel to you? Is it still doable with grade and throughput?
I'm not sure where you got 1 million ounces. Not sure, Tanya, where you got those 1 million ounces from, but close, not 1 million, around 950,000 ounces, and we're on track for that. This is Nevada Gold Mines itself, not North America. North America gets close to that.
Yeah. Nevada Gold Mines. Okay. Thank you for that.
Yeah.
You talked a little bit about growing your reserves at year-end 2022. First off, just wanted to confirm that, you know, you're thinking about that $1,300 gold price up from $1,200. When you talk about growing your reserves, just wanna go around the world and think about the assets that are gonna grow. When we were at Nevada Gold Mines, I think we talked about reserves not being replaced this year at Nevada Gold Mines. Maybe we can go around the world and see where else are we replacing, and is this separate from you getting the permit in H1 of next year for Pueblo Viejo and having that huge chunk of resources move to reserves?
I just wanna understand where it's coming from, and is it separate from Pueblo Viejo's reserve increase should we get the permit?
You're right. Let me start with Nevada. You're right on that. It's about 50%, we'll replace in reserves. We're growing the resources. Nevada, given its size, it's a cyclical thing, so it takes a while to build up the resources and then you. We showed you those resource growth projects which will ultimately transition back to our reserves. The reason for that, for those who don't follow this closely, like Tanya, is we've gotta we drill them out first from surface, then we've got to develop to the resources and drill it out from underground so the cycle is much longer than, for instance, our African assets, where in Africa we should replace and add about 1 million ounces, Tanya. About 1 million ounces net increase in reserves, 3.5 or so.
No, it's the current production rate on a 100% basis, and then about 1 million ounces of additional reserves. You okay? No, I'm not, because he's gonna have it on a slide with the detail. Then on Dominican Republic, we've always pointed to 9 million ounces of potential conversion on a 100% basis. That's more than makes. We're still working on the final pit. As I said, we're sizing that tailings facility, and that more than makes up for the rest. There's some smaller additions in Veladero, but it covers the 50%. Our share of 50% that isn't converted in Nevada, and it covers all of LatAm, Asia-Pacific. That's really the broadly.
We'll give you more detail, as Graham says, at the Investor Day. I would add the $1,300. Again, just to put things in perspective, it's not about $1,300, it's about the input cost model we use to set long-term gold prices. More or less, the inflation, our view of the long-term impact on input costs at this stage is around $100 an ounce. That's where we are indicating we might land with the new reserve long-term gold price. On the copper side, you know, it'll be above $2.75, and we're busy working on that as well. We use an input cost model to manage our long-term revenues rather than take a guess at the gold price.
From my own understanding, when you do talk about the increase in your reserves at year-end 2022, it does include the Pueblo Viejo conversion from resources to reserves?
Yes. Exactly.
Okay. All right.
That's always been the case. Yeah.
Okay. My last
I think you know, Tanya, to point out that remember when we did the deal, Reko Diq was a real issue because it hadn't repaid its capital, its original capital. It paid out over $3 billion to the government, and it had more reserves locked up than it could produce. I mean, it was. We would have stopped some of the mining already this year. If that commitment and partnership we've built with both the communities around our mine to be able to establish and sign off publicly on a new facility and the government is significant, and it effectively delivers a new plus 800 million ounces a year mine for Barrick.
No. Understood. Just my last question, if I could. I wanted just to ask about the inflationary pressures you're seeing. You mentioned electricity, definitely, and you know, that part of your part of the world where you're operating, these power costs are high. Are you seeing any relief or maybe not as you know, the momentum has declined, I guess, in the growth of inflationary pressures on labor and/or consumables?
I think we need to start. There's inflation, and then there's input cost increases related to the geopolitical situation, which has got nothing to do with inflation, you know, particularly coming out of Eastern Europe. That's more a cost of energy situation. But there's others, explosives, etc. You fix the crisis in Ukraine, you take all of that away. But then there's inflation, which is a long-coming issue, and it's a product of excessive quantitative easing. We have a world today that's the global debt is multiples of global GDP, which is an impossible thing to already have. It means we've, you know, we just haven't managed, and we haven't allowed the damage of these financial crises to be leveled through inflation or adjustments, currency adjustments. That.
Again, you know, just let me remind you. It started last December when the Fed said inflation is transitory. In January, it said, "No, it's realflation." Last month, they said they think it's at an end. "Oh, it's not going away." Today, there's talk again, people are saying they're seeing signs of reduction in costs. We're definitely seeing ups and downs in fuel price and gas prices. It's gonna be very dynamic because right now in Southern Africa, people, the traders have moved to pricing gas and oil in at European rates when it's actually being produced in South America. It's a very crazy market, and that's why Graham says we're just not forecasting that. He said that a couple of times.
We'll manage it as best we can, and we've got contracts in on gas and, you know, we work hard on that and we've upped the pace of investing in renewable energy. We're way down the road on that, way ahead of most companies in achieving that, as I touched on some of them. The connection into the Chile grid is significant for costs in Veladero, for instance, because it just takes away that diesel generation. Likewise Zambia, you know, a lot of African countries have renewable energy in their grid, but the grids are unstable.
We've pivoted to investing in grid stabilization technology so that we can access the grid, whereas just, you know, 15 years ago, we were moving off the grid, particularly Barrick, because it was unstable and diesel was attractive. We've reversed that trend. I'll get Graham to comment on more on the cost. The costs are. The inflation costs, we, again, contractually, we are obsessed about commercial engagement, and we're working with each one of our suppliers. Through COVID, we increased the number of suppliers and the source of those consumables. We have a lot of flexibility. We have built in competition already. We're not reliant on any one particular supplier.
Our commercial team has done an excellent job in managing those cost pressures, and we'll continue to do that. Go ahead.
Sure. Is this on? Yeah.
Yeah.
Hi, Tanya. I think Mark's covered, you know, most of the key points. Just to reiterate, as he says, the biggest driver of that inflationary pressure that we're seeing is energy prices. At least half of that higher cost that we're seeing is related to energy prices. To the extent that, you know, we have seen diesel gas prices start to come off from the high during the middle of this year, and to the extent that that continues, we will see some respite from that. But yeah, there's a lot of other inflationary pressures on consumables, labor, other areas which are, you know, not gonna go away in a hurry. It really just depends a lot on that energy outlook. Yeah, I think that covers it.
Yeah. I was actually.
Just finishing off on the labor inflation.
Yeah. Yeah.
We haven't seen any major out of the ordinary shifts in labor costs around the world apart from Argentina. There is, of course, pressure building in the United States, and because the United States is an anomaly. It's supposedly the driver of all this inflation, but you're seeing embedded dollar inflation, which is not normal in a situation like this, where you've got such a strong standout currency, and it's in-country. That's again, I think there's a lot of damage to the entire sort of balance, consumptive industrial balance across the globe that's gonna take some time to work out. What we have seen is that the supply chains are improving, and they're starting to operate.
The problem during parts of COVID is that they weren't operational. Apart from not being efficient, they were not operational, many of them. For instance, we bought steel balls from China, then Europe, then China, back to Europe, as we try to manage that, those supply chains. We do a lot of that today. What we have done is built a global purchasing platform, so with multiple suppliers, so we can move around. You know, we've got a supply chain run by real supply chain executives, not retreaded mining people. Our supply chain is very efficient in managing these challenges.
Okay, great. Thank you so much. I'll pass it over to someone else.
Thanks, Tanya.
The next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. I just wanted to get an idea as we you know go forward into 2023. I think you've addressed it largely, and I think we'll have to probably stay tuned for your Investor Day on November 18th. You know, as we look at you know the production profile going into next year, obviously you are gonna be closer to the bottom end of the guidance range. If we carry that through into 2023, a similar kind of you know sort of performance versus the prior guidance, not really seeing a material you know a big increase in production that would lend itself to a cost sort of a volume benefit into next year.
When you look at costs going into next year-over-year, is it fair to say that, you know, costs will remain at the current levels going into next year? Or would you expect some relief into the second half of the year?
Anita, look, you know, this is like how long is a piece of string?
Yep.
I think, well, I know that our policy right now as we stand is we'll work on the blended cost for 2022 into 2023, and then play it as we go. That's. You know, we've had a big bell curve in 2022, and we'll use that as a base on which to. We have. Our teams have designed cost guidance for the mines, looking specifically at each single consumable item. We'll share a little bit more of that with you when we talk at the investment day.
On the investor day, just so I understand what you guys are going to be delivering, will it be the detailed guidance for next year and, you know, something a little less detailed for the following years, or will it be in chart form at this stage?
We're gonna update our five-year plans on the operations, and we're gonna give you a sort of big picture look at our ten-year plan, and we'll tidy it up further when we speak to you in February.
All right. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Jackie Przybylowski with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. My first question, I guess, will be on the dividend. I know you have a pretty specific framework in mind, and we've seen a small decline in the dividend quarter over quarter because of that framework. Have you got any thoughts about maybe potentially modifying that framework to smooth the dividend out going forward? Or is this something you prefer to see sort of an accurate reflection of the current picture? I'm just asking, I guess, because, I mean, we did see your share price's response has been fairly negative today, and I'm wondering if that's part of the reason why.
Just wondering if you have any thoughts on how you might review that if you're thinking about it going forward?
Jackie, it's let me try and explain this to you. We didn't go out and try and buy investors on the back of dividends right at the beginning, out of the blocks in 2019. We were very clear we wanna rebuild the balance sheet, strengthen it, and we cleaned up $4.2 billion of debt. We're now net cash positive. We grew our dividend every quarter or kept it the same all the way until this last quarter. We brought in this performance dividend as part of our policy, and we specifically explained, 'cause this is a resource industry. You know, there's a confusion about do you invest in your own future or do you keep giving the money away that you need to invest in?
We are organically driven. We're an organically driven organization. We look to invest in our future. We don't believe fundamentally that the only way you can grow is through M&A. So it's terribly important. The other thing is, you know, I've been around through these cycles before, and I've had plenty of soft quarters. The good thing about a soft quarter is the next quarter is always better. But we're going into completely uncharted territory. You've got a very strong yielding paper currency. Investors all around the world are monetizing their investments. They are unsure where it's going. Is it a recession? Are we at sort of risk of a depression?
We've got more passive money in the public markets than we've ever had in the history of modern-day markets. We don't know how that passive money is gonna react. What we do know is that already the active funds in the resource industry have dried up. In fact, a lot of them have cashed up, and they're sitting with cash. They're not sharing it with anyone. They are banging the table demanding dividends. That's an unhealthy situation to have. What we can assure you, there is our major part of our register understand us. They are clear. They are clear about growth. They want us to do what we said we would do.
We don't wanna ever get into a situation where we're beholden on the market. We wanna be able to invest in our own future. We've got a plethora of opportunities. We are very well positioned to continue to deliver on our strategy organically. Our copper strategy is working as planned. You know, there's nothing that keeps me awake at night in Barrick. Do you want to add to that?
Jackie, just to sort of take that and simplify it, you know, the formula that we put together was very purposefully done to deliver an additional dividend at times when our performance measured by our available cash resources was strong. To give people absolute clarity on how that would be calculated so that they have the visibility of that, while still maintaining a dividend through the cycle. As Mark has pointed out, this is a cyclical industry and therefore, you know, perpetually increasing dividends is just not a reality. Having a formula that is clear and that is linked to that cycle but which is underpinned by a base dividend, we think is a responsible way of moving forward.
It was deliberately put in place so that when the market corrected, which it has, investors would have complete understanding of how that dividend would be determined. In answer to your question, no, we have no intention of changing that formula.
I think, the other thing, I mean, this is very, I find it's difficult to follow. We have a market and industry that was at $1,800 and above. People declared dividend policies of ratios, you know, share of cash flows, et cetera, which we refrain from doing, or link it to the gold price. The gold price is down $300. The cost side of that equation is up $100+. People are still keeping the dividends the same in a resource industry. That's where your revenue is, you've lost, you know, 40, not quite, 30% of your revenue and you're keeping your dividend the same. Doesn't make sense, and you're paying out more than your cash flow.
That's crazy, and that's what the industry, some of the fund managers are looking for. I'm absolutely sure that the investors behind those funds don't wanna see that. They're investing in our business because we're a resource business, so they want full exposure to the metals that we mine.
Mm.
We plan to be absolutely reliable in the way we run our business as we have done for the last 30 years. It's gonna be the same.
That's very clear. Thanks for that answer. That's really helpful. If I could ask as a follow-up, you've mentioned growth opportunities, and I know Reko Diq has been a big one for you. I saw the comments in the MD&A, and I know you're still waiting for some, I guess, events to happen on the sort of bureaucratic side in Pakistan before you can move forward with Reko Diq. Is there any way you can give a sort of a timeframe for when you see that sort of coming together and when you might be able to close that agreement and restart the feasibility study and the work that you're planning to do there?
We've set ourselves the end of the year for the closure. It's at the behest of the Supreme Court, because, you know, this is something we believe in. We believe in managing risk responsibly, and we've passed it on through the president of the country to the Supreme Court for reference. Once that's done, it'll go back to parliament to get certain legislation passed. Once we've got that, we'll sign the documents. All of the documents are settled, all agreements are settled. They're just waiting for that process. In the meantime, we are doing some work. We've completed the baseline study, the environmental baseline study.
We need to get that in place because we need a couple of seasons to be able to refresh the 2011 environmental permitting because it's timed out. We need some, and we did that. We're improving the infrastructure with the airstrip at site, and we've started to invest in education initiatives, potable water, and we've certainly done all the remodeling we can do and designing of the limited amount of drilling that we plan to do geotech. We've done all that design. We've engaged with the tendering for the drilling work that we plan to do, both water and the confirmation drilling of the main resources.
We're gonna do some seismic work, so we also are busy with that final design on the seismic work focused on understanding the aquifers. We've of course, as you would imagine, well down the road on infrastructure and logistics, planning and confirmation and designing the way we're gonna manage, you know, access and in and out of the project. We're also building a project team, which will be located out of Dubai initially and ultimately migrate to the country. In the design side of things, it's the most central place. It's a short flight, and there are four flights a week into Quetta, which is right next to the mine.
We can get all the engineers and experts into Dubai, one flight from anywhere in the world. That's the sort of preliminary work that we're doing ahead of the agreements.
Thanks. It sounds like next year is gonna be super busy there.
Next year is gonna be super busy in Barrick as it always is. This year was very busy as well.
Thank you. I believe you. Thank you very much, Mark.
Okay.
The next question comes from Cleve Rueckert with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hey, everybody. Hey, Mark. Hey, Graham. Thanks for taking our questions here. Just a few quick ones, hopefully from us. In terms of the sequential increase in production, Mark, sorry if I missed it, but did you give us a sense of how much you expect the grades to increase? Is that production increase pretty much all grade? You know, I guess with that, I'm just trying to figure out how much we could expect costs on a per ounce basis to come down with that increase in production.
Yeah, I think it is a slightly grade improving and it's also oxide, so a bit of an increase in recovery because we use the Mill 5, particularly at Crossroads. There will be a drop in costs, the unit cost, that's per ounce cost on the back of an increasing production level. I think that's a good enough bit of guidance at this stage. I've got compliance standing in front of me, sort of giving me faces.
It's grade improvement, not moving more tons, you know.
Yeah, no. Look, in Nevada, there's always some ton variation, but it's usually when we're mining through leachable material, and we put it on the leach pad. That's very important for us because it adds ounces without consuming capacity. As far as the roasters go and the autoclaves, you know, we're process constrained, so the way to change it is grade and haul all oxide ore through the oxide mills.
Okay. All right. That's clear. You know, I got to ask just a follow-up question on capital allocation. You know, look, the message about this industry being cyclical has not gone unnoticed, so, you know, appreciate your approach to it. You did say earlier in the call that, you know, with the stock where it is, you're gonna increase buybacks. You know, I mean, that obviously has an effect on the cash balance. I'm just curious, you know, how you're thinking about it. If you've gotten any feedback from, you know, from your larger shareholders whether, you know, there's a preference for buybacks today or, you know, kind of allow the cash balance to build and let the, you know, let the dividend do what it does on the back of that.
We manage that all the time. It's not about capital allocation, it's about returns to our shareholders and the ability to invest in our growth projects. When you look at our allocation, really it's absolutely the right thing to do when you get a share price sitting where it is today to buy it. It's the best use of funds because, you know, clearly no one believes in it, and we do. We've continued to buy on a proper considered program. We don't just go and buy a whole pile. We manage it, the purchase, the repurchase plan. Of course, we have committed to a base dividend. We manage that in our cash flow.
The performance dividend is linked to cash on the balance sheet. You know, it's designed that way, as Graham pointed out earlier, because when we invest in a project, we'll drive that cost, that cash position down for a period. We know that our hurdle rates are so high that we beat most fund managers' growth performance in investing in our own projects, and that's what we have for. Otherwise, if our investors or the fund managers who are custodian of our investors' money feel they can do better, then they should sell the stock and invest that money elsewhere. That's our business, that's our model, and that's why people buy our shares. You know, I'm sure that makes sense to you.
That's clear. Thanks, Mark. Appreciate it. See you in a couple weeks.
Sure.
At this time, there are no more questions from the conference call.
Okay. Thank you, everyone. Back there. We're here on this call now. Anybody got questions? You just want a drink? You, you're not gonna ask the Canadians some questions, are you? All right. Well, thank you everyone again for coming. We're gonna be outside, and so if you have questions that you're too shy to ask in public, we're 100% available to answer them. The whole team is here. We've got the explorers, the tax guys and the people involved in Pakistan, and of course, the beanies, the chief beanies as well. We'll see you outside. Thanks again. Thank you everyone who phoned in. Appreciate your time. We look forward to talking to you at our Investor Day.
We are on a roadshow, so we'll see some of you as we go around the world to get into New York in two weeks' time. Cheers.
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.