Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Barrick 2019 first 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 followed by one on your telephone keypad. At any time during the conference, should you need an operator's assistance, please press star zero. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, and a replay will be available on Barrick's website later today, May 8, 2019. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Bristow, Chief Executive Officer for Barrick. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. I'll start again. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our first results presentation as a merged Barrick and Randgold. As I'm sure you would have already noticed and if you had followed some of the interviews this morning, we've certainly got off to a good start. The first quarter's performance was both positive and productive, with a strong across-the-board delivery from all the operations, topped by the transformative and long overdue creation of the Nevada joint venture. It's worth noting again that the Barrick-Randgold merger was a very strategic one, I think it's important that I stress this, designed to produce a company capable of rising above an industry in disarray to become its most valued gold business.
In the short time the two companies have been together, we've made significant progress towards the goals we set when we shared the deal with you and our investors and other stakeholders. I would also stress that speed is not necessarily of the essence when you're playing a long game. Both Barrick and Randgold were built on the solid foundation of discovery, development, and early acquisitions, and that future-focused vision still directs our strategy today. Whether you're a fund manager or a finance minister, don't look to us for instant gratification or easy pickings. The stakeholders who will reap our rewards are those who share our long-term vision and invest in or work with us as partners, and that's really our commitment. In fact, this industry needs that to be able to recover its rightful place and become relevant again as an industry you can invest in.
Please take note of the cautionary statement as presented on the screen. For those who would like to read them, they are in your pack. I start, as usual, with a look at our health and safety record, which, although void of fatalities, remains an area of business which needs improvement. Certainly it has my focus. While Africa held steady, we have more to do in both North and Latin America. This is receiving a lot of attention, not only from me but from the executive team as well as the mine management. It's an issue that is of fundamental importance to a heavy engineering business such as mining, and we are committed to creating an injury-free working environment across the group. Similarly, the cardinal importance we have assigned to sustainability demands that we care for the environment and our communities around our mines.
We are reviewing all our community-led investments to ensure that they will create real value for the life of the mine and beyond. We're also addressing the legacy challenges in some countries. In the meantime, it's pleasing to note that there were no Class 1 environmental incidents in Q1, and that all sites in Africa and in the Middle East have completed their ISO 14001 recertification or surveillance audits. With Latin and North American audits due in Q2 and Q3. Turning now to the operations, these are the highlights of the quarter. The quarter-over-quarter operational comparisons are obviously skewed by the merger, but it's important to note that all the operations delivered on plan and even on a per-share basis, the adjusted earnings were significantly higher.
We have made rapid progress with integrating the organization, streamlining processes, and ensuring that all sites have the geological, operational, and technical capability to meet their business objectives. As we reported earlier, the group has been divided into three geographical regions, each with a very strong executive and small but effective support team. In line with my belief that people should be where they make the most significant contribution to delivering against our strategic objectives, we have reduced the Toronto corporate office to around 70 people. Each and every one of those people has an important, real, and focused role in Barrick's business, and we will be continuing to refine and rationalize our support structure with the focus now shifting to the non-mine site locations outside Toronto. We're also making rapid progress with the establishment of the Nevada joint venture.
There are a few pronunciations I'm still working on, as you'll make up when I go through this presentation. For obvious reasons, has been named, and today we announced the formal name of this joint venture. As you know, we are incorporating the joint venture into an organization, into a company, and that company will be called Nevada Gold Mines. We're going to disclose the logo just now, a little while later. By the way, we didn't employ anyone to do this. We did it ourselves. A little bit more, as I say about that a little later. The organizational structures are being finalized, and we're working towards realizing the synergies and cost reduction opportunities, and those have not changed. I've talked you through the other highlights. I will talk you through the other highlights on this slide when we get to their respective operations.
Looking at the operating results, gold production was up, which is great, and costs were a little better. That means better than what we thought, which is down, or what we planned for. The copper assets all made a real contribution to the bottom line, and they were in line on production and slightly lower on the costs. As I pointed out to some of the journalists I've already interviewed with today, is that apart from the closing assets, every single other asset in Barrick made a contribution to the bottom line, which is a fantastic way to start a business like this. In every way you cut the results, it's a solid set of results that came in ahead of market consensus, as you would've noticed.
Net cash from the operations is up 27%, supporting the payment of a dividend. I think that's also critical, is that we can afford our dividend. When you look at the balance sheet, the $500 odd million that came in from Randgold Resources is still there, and it's offset on the net cash position. Again, we managed this business. There were costs, as you know, in this quarter on the transaction. All in all, the financial results were at best described as robust. When you look at the net debt, we now can boast a strong balance sheet relative to the rest of our peer group. We start our review of operations in Nevada, where all our operations have been integrated into a single complex under a single executive general manager. To him, each operations manager reports.
While there will be further changes, as you would imagine, as we roll out the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture, this principle will be carried over in the new structure. That's quite important. I think some of you, some of the analysts have looked for more clarity. You'll see that we've desegregated Cortez and Goldstrike in our numbers today. We'll continue to do that, working towards being more transparent and allowing you to really understand our business and manage it. What I've always done, as you know, in my career, is my intention is to give you an understanding of our business so that you get the model right. I'm not intending to let you try and guess what our business plan is. We're going to give it to you, and we're going to work on getting more granular as we go along.
At Cortez, production is transitioning as we've messaged from as far as last year. The high-grade open pit, what we call CHOP, Cortez Hill Open Pit, more towards the underground and lower grade open pits. That has impacted on our results. It was always messaged that way, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. That shift to underground and higher grades will continue all the way out to 2022. We've already started to see the improvement and the bigger contribution from the underground, which we call CHUG, Cortez Hills Underground operations. Again, we've got the Deep South, not to be confused with South Deep, which will continue to expand that contribution. Goldstrike's production was down because of the preferential treatment given to Cortez higher grade underground ore relative to the previous quarter.
Again, we're not working quarter on quarter, this is our plan because we have to replace the higher grade open pit ore. There was an offset. Again, that ore that we stockpiled from Goldstrike will go through the roaster this quarter. Again, we saw improvements in throughput and in recoveries from the TCM circuit at the autoclave from Goldstrike. That was good. Turquoise Ridge achieved a record production in the month of March, mining and hoisting more than 80,000 tons. Turquoise Ridge Twin Creeks combination is a very important part of the Nevada synergies that we're working towards. The third shaft pre-collar construction for the Turquoise Ridge third shaft was completed and pre-sink activities have started. Our capital team is fully engaged with the contractor to make sure that we keep that project on track.
Now moving back, voila, there's the logo. It's about as good as we're gonna do on the launch. Here's a look at Nevada Gold Mines, which we expect to get its final sign-off at the end of this current quarter. In the meantime, as I noted earlier, we are making exceptional progress in restructuring this new business. This is the new logo which we selected in a democratic way, sort of a consultative democratic way, with our colleagues from Newmont Goldcorp. As the map shows, the properties it will comprise of is Cortez, Goldstrike, Turquoise Ridge, and Goldrush from Barrick's side, and Carlin, Twin Creeks, Phoenix, Long Canyon and Lone Tree from Newmont Goldcorp's side. As also has been reported, Barrick will operate and own 61.5% of the business.
It's worth noting that the mines making up the joint venture produced in excess of 4 million ounces of gold in 2018, making it the single largest producer of gold as a complex in the world. Significantly more than the next biggest contributor, I think that's Muruntau and then the Olympiada complex that Polyus owns in Siberia. I must say that the Nevada mines is being structured in a great spirit of cooperation between Barrick and Newmont Goldcorp, and excitement as well, not only about the new business, but also the opportunities that this business is going to unlock. Somebody said the other day that this is a deal that was tried so many times, but one thing that was always consistent, that everyone always recognized the logic of it, although it didn't happen.
It's very pleasing for us to be part of ultimately getting to that point. In this regard, I'd also like to draw your attention to the first new opportunity, even before we've closed the transaction, that is the McCoy-Cove Joint Venture borehole intersection that we announced recently with our partners at Premier. As you can see, as I'm sure you noted, that it's been a very significant intersection. Our geologists are quite excited about exactly that borehole. What's important about it is it's in a different part. It's not in the traditional sort of Carlin style trends that host the other big deposits in Nevada. It also definitely highlights the significance and opportunity that we believe that this joint venture will continue to unlock in Nevada. I'm a geologist, and it's really an amazing place.
It's like the Witwatersrand was in the sort of '80s, '70s and '80s. There's some very significant drill intersections there that I've never seen before. I think this just reinforces the potential of Nevada, and really reinforces my and Barrick's commitment and determination to increase and maintain a dominant presence in this geological address. At the Goldrush project, the twin exploration decline development accelerated during the quarter, and each has now advanced some 680 meters out of the planned 4,000 meters. A dedicated manager, we've restructured all the management across the Barrick group, but specifically for Goldrush, we now have a dedicated manager on the feasibility side of Goldrush, and we've put the decline responsibility under the underground manager at the Cortez mine.
We will also continue to coordinate the Goldrush Fourmile exploration effort, consolidating the geological models to further our understanding of the mineralized corridor between the two. I'm going to show you a slide just now. We've got eight drill rigs, that's Fourmile where those eight yellow circles are on the slide. As you know, Fourmile has initially been excluded from the Nevada joint venture until the full extent of the mineralization has been determined and the feasibility work has been completed. Under the agreement we have, on certain conditions, of course, the ability to roll it back into the joint venture. We are also, and have been, reviewing the existing geotechnical data on all of Barrick's mines, but with a particular emphasis on the operations in Nevada and Goldrush.
In the case of Goldrush Fourmile and all of the Nevada underground mines, we believe this will help us to optimize final mining layouts and also the mining methods. We're quite excited about the opportunity. What's happened in Nevada is, because of the ground conditions, and they're very variable, is that both on the Newmont Goldcorp side and on the Barrick side, we tended to go to the worst possible rock integrity and design accordingly. It's quite variable and there's some very competent parts of Nevada which definitely support like long-hole open stoping with backfill. With that comes very significant efficiencies. We're expecting to change a lot of the mining methodology, both within the Barrick assets and particularly Goldrush, as well as in some of the Newmont Goldcorp assets. There's an example. I thought you would appreciate this.
This is the Goldrush Fourmile plot of the drilling results to date with the hot colors being, so red above five grams a ton. Average grade for total resource, about 15 million ounces now, including inferred for Goldrush. We've just started declaring the initial resources out of Fourmile as you would see in the documentation. You can see the extent of this mineralization, it's continuous. It really is a world-class occurrence. Drilling, as you saw in the previous slide, is ongoing. As far as Goldrush goes, we are now starting to extend the drilling on the edges of the ore body. The big focus in Fourmile is to continue to build out the geological model. Then once we start getting that coat hanger together, we'll start working towards infilling it in.
I think you'll start seeing some consistent contributions to the growth in the declared inventories, whether it's in resources or reserves. Moving on to Canada. Hemlo finished pretty much on target for the quarter, despite a challenging start to the year. With the aim of making Hemlo a tier 2 asset, its team is currently optimizing the mine design and schedule based on quite different geological modeling and updating, which we've been doing. We've done a lot of geotechnical work again at Hemlo. While it's still early days in that project, the potential to bring cash flow forward and add reserves to Hemlo is very encouraging. Whatever happens going forward, Hemlo is going to be a different asset.
The challenge to the team is, can we make it into a tier 1 asset, which then it would be a keeper in our portfolio. Normally what we have in our portfolio is tier 1, tier 2, and then we have assets that we are looking to realize and give to somebody else to run. Hemlo is a strategic asset in that it benefits more because of the tax shield that we have in this country. Provided we can create positive cash flow, it always delivers more value than an asset that doesn't have that sort of tax protection. Now we come to the biggest challenge of all, and that is for me to try and pronounce Pueblo Viejo. How did I go?
In the Dominican Republic, everyone's been sort of trying to get me to practice this, my assistant actually wrote the phonetics down.
You need a tourist.
Well, we've got some Spanish people. That doesn't help much either. Anyway, Pueblo Viejo posted another good performance despite lower grades, which were offset by improvements in recovery and throughput, enabling the mine to beat its production plans, which was very pleasing. As with other Latin American operations, there's been an increase in focus on mineral resource management. All our assets have mineral resource managers already. They also, almost all of them have different management. We've done a lot of change in the organization. Not necessarily change out, but change around, and we've moved people around and given people a different focus. It's brought a lot of energy to our team.
All indications so far is that there's significant potential to convert some 7 million ounces in the short term of measured and indicated resources to probable reserve, with still a lot more to come. PV has really been an exciting discovery for us. We knew it was a good asset when we did the due diligence, but certainly the more we've looked at it as a team, the more opportunity we've seen. A lot of it driven by the scoping studies to support a plant expansion. Again, as you know, the Barrick team has been talking about expansion at PV for some time. We've now firmly set on a flow sheet where we believe we can deliver a plan that meets all our investment criteria, and we'll be able to support a plus 800,000-ounce production profile way out after 2022.
It'll be a big project costing some $1.3 billion. We're very excited about this. The other next step, of course, is we expect to complete the pre-feasibility study this year, in fact, in quarter three, then the full feasibility study during next year. Again, an exciting growth project for us. Despite operational and management concerns, as I shared with you last time we chatted, Veladero in Argentina also had a satisfactory quarter after a poor start in the year. There's been a big focus on efficiencies, and costs have come down considerably on the back of business improvement initiatives. Again, the gap in Veladero is that we've got a lot of work to do to catch up and infill the drill spacing. The drill spacing is a bit wide still. You end up with surprises, both good and bad.
As you know, those people who know me, the one thing I'm fully committed to is we take the risk out of grade by drilling the ore bodies properly. We've got a big program in Veladero. We've re-logged all the core. We now have got the drill programs running to be able to shorten up the drill spacings, that will give us a lot more confidence in our plan. We've got about six years of life there, then the big focus has shifted to looking for more because we'd like to extend that, we haven't got a lot to deliver to be able to take that asset to a tier 1 category. As I pointed out, there's been a strong drive on brownfields and near mine greenfields exploration to add ounces and extend the mine plan, the drilling programs are ongoing.
We've put some of our really top people down into South America to drive those. Exploration teams are also evaluating targets across the Frontera district around Veladero and also further south at Del Carmen and Rojo Grande. We've got some really good intersections. Again, it's a Veladero lookalike target, slightly lower grade, but still significant and better infrastructure than what Veladero had when we first discovered it. In Papua New Guinea, Porgera had a good quarter despite, again, challenges rolling out after the earthquake of last year. Porgera also has the potential to become a tier 1 asset. It really needs additional investment for more drilling programs as well as infrastructure and equipment capital to enable it to reduce its operating costs. It's really been quite a neglected asset. It's a real geological tier 1 opportunity.
This mine has been operating for 28 years, and from our assessment of it's certainly got another at least 20 to go. It's not an insignificant asset in our portfolio. As you know, Porgera operates in a difficult jurisdiction and like our African mines, has to work hard to secure its social license. Those people who were at the AGM yesterday would have experienced what has become quite a sort of repetitive thing. Again, I believe we have the skills to be able to work and change that risk profile, at least with our relationships with the communities. Big focus for Porgera is the renewal of the special mining license, and we are fully engaged successfully on this. We've had the first round of public consultation, which went very well. We are engaged with the Prime Minister and his administrators.
As you know, there's a lot of dynamic politics in PNG at the moment. We are managing the situation and working to continue the process of renewing that license. We cross now to Africa, where Loulo-Gounkoto complex in Mali met its guidance. As at other operations, we're paying a lot of attention to replacing the reserves that are depleted by mining, and that's where those assets are, both Loulo-Gounkoto and Kibali. They've had a really good run, and so far we've been able to extend the life of the mine and there's still a significant opportunity in the immediate vicinity of Loulo and Gounkoto. Loulo and Gounkoto are located on part of a very significant geological province, which we refer to as the Kédougou-Kéniéba Inlier.
In fact, the structure that hosts that mineralization, including, of course, the Sadiola Anglo assets in the north and B2Gold assets in the south. It's a very long structure. It's called the Senegal-Malian Shear, and we control 70 kilometers of the strike of that shear just within the Loulo-Gounkoto mining licenses. Additionally, we also have Bambadji on the western side of the border in Senegal, and Bokolobi projects on the same structure. The Mako belt, which hosts Massawa and the Teranga assets, are on the other side of that Inlier, as you can see in that slide. At Gounkoto specifically, exploration has highlighted the potential for a material contribution to the underground project below the super pit, and we're working now on drilling that out and designing the interface between the open pit, the super pit, and the higher grade underground resources below that pit.
The Yélia structure is also delivering significant extensions to the high-grade deeper ore bodies in our drilling. It's worth remembering that Loulo or Yélia, the initial pit was about a million and a half ounces, and we didn't appreciate what we would discover below that pit. Slightly removed. This is a slightly different ore body. We've gone back to that structure. That's the ore body that we call the Purple Patch, which really made the Loulo-Gounkoto project. We've taken a step back. As you see there, it's about a seven-kilometer strike. Outside the Yélia drilling, there's not much information below 100 meters below surface. We've been modeling the geology and looking to extend our search below the current drilling depths. Again, we think that there's opportunity to make additional discoveries. Back into Senegal and Massawa.
As you know, Massawa is currently in the process of applying for its mining license and the related permitting to be able to start the development of the mine. At the same time, we are still exploring at Massawa. We have drill rigs running, looking to add to the reserve base. Currently, the reserves are just shy of our 3 million ounce hurdle rate to make it a tier 2 asset in our portfolio. Back in the Central Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kibali made another strong start to the year, as you would have seen in our press releases, achieving a record for tons hoisted from the underground shaft in March, which is very significant for us. Also being able to maintain recovery at the nameplate rate, which is important.
Lower river levels during the dry season impacted on the availability of hydropower, and that drove the costs up slightly. Like Loulo-Gounkoto, Kibali's exploration program continues to deliver sustained mineral resource and reserve growth, and latest results show, for instance, up in the top left-hand side of the diagram, the opportunity to coalesce the Sessenge open pit and Gorumbwa open pit, with the up-dip extensions of the 9,000 lode into potentially a super pit like we have got in Gounkoto. Definition drilling recently on the 11,000 lode, which you see is the down-dip extension, that has really highlighted a significant potential for that ore body. What's more is it really encourages one, because we keep finding new. Kibali is like a bundle of cigars, and we keep finding these new cigars on the way down. There is a mine that still has a lot of legs in it.
Again, it is already a 10-year life at $1,000 gold price, and we have every expectation for that to continue to be replaced. Then on the greater host structure, which we refer to as the KZ structure, we have many more targets, and potential to continue to add reserves and in particular open-pittable resources and reserves. That really keeps the flexibility of Kibali. Its mining flexibility, if we can continue to ensure that we have got some open pit material that will support the high-grade underground reserves. Zooming out now a little further, we see a vast gold district, which we refer to as the Congo Craton, which extends from the northeastern part of the DRC down into Tanzania. That brings me to the subject of Tanzania and Acacia.
We continue to engage with the government and the board of Acacia regarding the standoff that they have got themselves into. The long impasse has already destroyed a great deal of value, and getting the conflicted parties to see that at this stage, almost any solution is better than none. That is proving difficult, I might add. Nevertheless, as you know, we are full of commitment and tenacity and I have got no doubt that we will eventually get there. As I have said before, just about any solution is a good one for all stakeholders. We are engaged and there was a rumor that we had stepped back. We have not stepped back. We are still engaged in seeking to settle key documents and move this process forward in a manner which is acceptable to all the stakeholders. Just briefly, this is a snapshot of our other mines.
Tongon was again challenged by mechanical mishaps and power supply issues, just missed its production target, although it's still within its guidance and we're comfortable with that. At Kalgoorlie, attributable gold production was 5% lower at 55,000 ounces compared to the previous quarter, primarily due to a combination of lower grade and more throughput, more throughput being a result of some weather issues during the quarter. Lagunas Norte's production declined in line with expectations as the mine ages, it'll be put on care and maintenance towards the end of this year, with the objective that we'll continue to explore. There's a lot of sulfide and carbonaceous material reserves potential. The question is, can we delineate enough for Lagunas to become an asset within our portfolio, or will we only get to a point where we're able to realize that asset?
That's really the focus for Lagunas Norte going forward. Then Morila is moving towards closure, Golden Sunlight has largely ceased mining with its last mill run scheduled for later this month. Elsewhere across the Barrick portfolio, the copper mines all did reasonably well with Lumwana and Jabal Sayid both exceeding our expectations, all the mines making a contribution to the bottom line. In fact, all the assets, as I said earlier, except for the closing assets, made a contribution to the bottom line. As highlighted here, gold mining is all about owning high-quality ounces. Both Barrick and Randgold have a history of making world-class grassroots exploration discoveries, as well as major reserve and resource additions to acquired assets as is shown here. Maybe because of the recent past, you forget this, Barrick made some very, very significant discoveries in its time.
The geological exploration DNA is still very much alive in the country, we've certainly contributed to that in contributing our team. This long-life, high-grade reserve base is supported by an intense company focus on mineral resource management, which we've now embedded across the organization. As I indicated when we announced the merger, we're shifting from a focus on cash flow or high-grading assets to really. So when that happens, it was the right thing to do, as I've said before, but now that we've got a balance sheet that's very manageable, we need to shift back to being driven by our ore bodies, the optimal ore body management. Because when you just focus on grade, you neglect the discipline of efficiency and cost.
That's what we're doing now, we're shifting that back to focusing on efficiencies and cost, of course, the ore body modeling itself. That doesn't mean to say that we're not focused on cash flow like somebody picked up incorrectly this morning. We want to have the same cash flow as the past, but just offer lower grade base. In other words, we want to focus on bringing our cutoff grades down. A good example is Turquoise Ridge where we currently are running at over 9 grams a ton cutoff grade. That's more than double Randgold's reserve grade. We are absolutely clear that we'll get that down significantly. First target is two dots down, so at seven. Then we believe we can get it down to five and below that.
That really opens up a whole new set of ounces in the reserve, in the grade tonnage curve. Again, Nevada has many of those opportunities, and they're driven by the synergies that the joint venture will bring. Everything we do in Barrick is designed to create value. To properly evaluate our assets, we have flexed them across the curve you see here. At the base are our exploration programs and the projects that will deliver future value. In the middle are our tier 1 and tier 2 assets, and those which have the potential to acquire that status, as I've discussed in my presentation. The flat bit at the top holds those assets, which in terms of our strategic criteria, could do better with different owners as we do not necessarily have the leverage left in them. They have value, but they don't have the leverage.
That's what mining business is all about, is where can we best allocate our time to lever that asset, to exploit the optionality of the market pricing as well as the geological potential. That does not mean that any of those assets do not offer value. In fact, apart from the closure sites, as I've already said, we have no bleeders in our portfolio. Every one of them made a contribution to the bottom line. Preparations to bring some of these assets to account have already started, and I believe we will be able to deliver a substantial part of the process by next year, as indicated when we presented the merger transaction initially. Given our solid operational performance for the first quarter, Barrick, I am absolutely convinced, is back and on track. It's on track to deliver against its plans for the year and beyond.
However, when one looks at mine plans and replacement rates, it is clear that the industry as a whole is not in good shape, and I've been saying that for some time. Again, we see the industry toying with survival-style mergers and acquisitions and again, neglecting the requirement to continue to invest in the future of our industry. One thing I'm sure of is that we are good to go. I must say, it's been an absolute privilege to work with the team in Barrick and to see the response and the agility out of those 3 teams as we deal with, and we've certainly still got challenges, but also you've seen the results of that effort. There are very few people left in Barrick who you have to tell twice to do anything.
I'm really looking forward to continuing to build on what we've started in this company. This quarter has seen us great start. I'm confident that we are absolutely well on our way to achieving our strategic objective of becoming the world's most valued gold mining business. I say that with a focus on valued rather than value or valuable. That gets back again to that conversation we had with Catherine, not this Catherine, but the other Catherine, yesterday at the AGM. Because valued means that everyone looks at Barrick and says, "That's the company we want to be part of. That's the company we want to own stock in.
That's the company we'd like to work for." We really believe that these people that run it act like owners and are absolutely committed to delivering sustainable returns, not only for its shareholders, but all other stakeholders associated with us. Thank you very much for your attention, and we'll be delighted to take any questions you might have. Deni, I'm not sure how you want to manage this.
Start with the room.
Start with the room. Okay.
Right.
All right. Well, there we are.
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It's Greg Barnes from TD. Mark or Catherine, there was no discussion in this presentation about the synergies in Nevada. You've had some more time to look at that. You promised some extremely large numbers, $500 million a year right out of the gate. Has your thinking changed? Are you prepared to give us some more thoughts on where you think that can go or how the numbers would evolve over the next several years?
The short answer is, it hasn't changed. The second point is, we'll tell you when we close. We'll give you more color. I mean, we are working on it, so what we've got is work streams on that. There's a lot of work to do. I mean, the whole combination is. It's been exciting to see the consensus amongst both teams about being able to deliver on those synergies. There have been some synergies that are not going to be as good as what we thought, as we get into the weeds around some of the operational underground operations. At the same time, we've discovered new opportunities which will be able to offset that. We're comfortable with our target of getting to that $4.7 billion NPV of the synergies.
To give you some color, stockpile management is one that is coming out better than we anticipated. Being able to look at what their feeds are versus ours, and being able to maximize autoclaves versus roasters. Those are the sort of things that we're focusing on now.
Again, I think, we only get the full value of this combined team once we close. Right now, there's been a massive amount of work on permitting and being prepared to put the permit applications in to be able to transport and change. There's been an enormous amount of work on the whole supply chain procurement effectiveness and efficiencies and just the people. We've now got a management team sorted out. Everyone's got a place, and the leader is Greg Walker, the head of operations for Catherine's division. He will take on the role as Executive Managing Director. Underneath him, we've, again, managed to balance the leadership between the Barrick and the Newmont Goldcorp people very well. What's even more encouraging for me is some of the Newmont Goldcorp senior general managers are retiring.
We've been able to go past them collectively and find really quality younger people who want to make this their career, and they've been operating in those assets for some time. It's an exciting human capital opportunity as well as the actual physical mining synergies. I'm sure that will bring other more innovative synergies out of the business as we go along.
I just want to follow up your comments about the ground conditions in Nevada and the changes you're making. Is that going to speed things up underground or slow it down?
A little bit of both. It's a good question, Greg. The first thing is we need to do a lot more geotech work. We've had a full team dedicated. We started with Gold Rush, we've done Turquoise Ridge, and we've got a lot to do in the Newmont assets. Equally, Newmont has come to the same conclusion and they've recently employed some very high-quality geotech engineers, people who we know well and who will be joining our team. Collectively, both sides have recognized the importance of geotech work. Where we grew up, where I grew up, that's like falling off a bus. Running deep-level South African mines and the whole geotech side of mine planning. Whereas, traditionally, Nevada has really focused on just the lowest common denominator effectively and designing everything high cost, very conservative mine plans.
We've already in CHUG, Quartz Hill Underground, we've already initiated long hole open stoping with backfill and our efficiencies are a whole lot better. There's a lot of opportunity. Goldstrike as well. A lot of parts of Goldstrike, again, we feel that having done the first bit of geotech work and we're catching up with the drilling, we've redirected some of the underground drill rigs to actually drill geotech holes because it's going to be critical in the mine design. Again, we feel that it might delay things a little bit initially, that's why we're putting in those declines, is really exploration and evaluation. In the long term, it'll speed things up. I'll just give you another example.
The work, the intersections and the rock mass work that we're doing on Fourmile, that's a whole silicified, brecciated, classic brecciated, Carlin brecciated mineral deposit, which stands up very well. We are very encouraged by what we see from the initial borehole intersections and definitely that mass mining, underground mining will definitely be possible in the Fourmile area. I can rabbit on, we can go to the work that has been done at Carlin underground as well. There's a lot of work to be done there because, again, that's technically quite a challenging underground mine. Again, our work that we're doing and the design and planning we're doing, I think we'll come up with some opportunities there as well. We are replanning all of Barrick's mines, and we expect to do the same on the other side of the Nevada JV as well.
Mark, Stephen Walker here with RBC Capital Markets. You talk about Cortez Hills Underground and potential to take the cut upgrade from nine to seven to five grams.
That's Turquoise Ridge, yeah.
Turquoise Ridge, right. If you look at a similar analysis for underground at Golds trike and at Cortez Hills, does the geometry of the ore deposits allow you to increase the volume? Secondly, does the decline in mining costs that you're starting to look at allow you to maintain the margins as you drop the cutoff grade.
Sure
Whether it's Turquoise Ridge or elsewhere?
Yeah. Look, Turquoise Ridge is a spectacular example of right now, we've been mining, and I mean, the cost that Newmont Goldcorp were charging us to process that ore set the cutoff grade. Effectively, a bit like in the old days in South Africa, we were mining through five-gram ore and leaving it behind. Ultimately, that becomes viable because you've now got it developed in the long run. What the combination with Twin Creeks going to do is we're now only paying for the real costs of that processing facility. That drops the cost significantly. I want to say $45. That's a gram and a half just there.
That brings a whole lot of what we call white areas, or areas that are developed and are below the cut off grade suddenly become above the cut off grade without any capital requirements, as an example. There's an opportunity to that. Of course, you can't apply long hole open stopping to narrow ore bodies, but you can to big wide ore bodies, and there are lots of those in Nevada. When you look at the old CHUG underground, which was a flatter ore body, and it was narrower. You can't go and do that. But on the Deep South and the upper levels of that, there's quite a complex. I'm still getting used to the terminology.
That trend, which we are already mining, we've just developed the declines down, the reason we call it Deep South is below the water table, old water table.
Middle and lower.
It's the middle and lower zone. That's the way I understand it. We're already mining the middle zone, all that is bulk mining. That brings significant improvements in costs, that will continue to happen. That design in Goldrush, we believe that it'll change that mine. Our focus on Goldrush is to really make it a very modern, new world style type of mine with the knowledge that we've got. We should be able to do that with. Turquoise Ridge is going to be sort of halfway. Right now, we've just been trialing road headers, so self-miners. We believe that there's enormous opportunity with that at, because part of Turquoise Ridge has got traditionally very bad ground. Not to blast it really changes the risk profile of support, et cetera.
Again, just to add to that, our automation initiative. What we did is a lot of people thought we threw out the sort of digital and automation initiatives at Barrick, and we didn't. We just transferred them back into the mines. Right now, we've got some really exciting pockets of automation, whether it's open pit drilling or haulage. We're actually at a point now where we're trialing the automatic trucks alongside manned trucks. That artificial intelligence is important to be able to manage that space around the truck. Again, Kibali is the leader in proper automation, where you have one operator on surface, and he or she, and its important part is the she part, is able to run three different operating sections on their own because it's automated.
Again, what we've done in the automation side is we've said we've challenged the team to say we want to deliver efficiencies. We just don't want to automate for the sake of automation. Again, I think over the next couple of years, you'll see the benefits of that effort.
Josh Wolfson at Desjardins. Mark, you mentioned a pretty sizable capital number for the Pueblo Viejo project. When I think about that bigger picture, there's one aspect which is the major tailings dam expansion unlocks a lot of answers, and then a second part, which allows you to process a lot of that ore a lot earlier. There's not a huge margin opportunity there. In the past, you've talked about that project providing very good returns and easily surpassing threshold hurdles. What are we missing with that kind of capital number? How does it work?
You're looking at conceptually, imagine 27 million ounces, conceptually, with a $1.3 billion investment, 800+ thousand ounces a year at the sort of cost that you're seeing now. You could do it on your whizz wheel. It makes real returns, significant returns. Part of that, you're right that we need a tailings disposal site that will support that sort of size mine, and we're working on that. We've got a number of targets that we're evaluating or potential sites that we're evaluating. The process side is very simple. Originally, the team was looking at a concentrate part. You have a high-grade zone, direct feed, a high-grade ore. You have a lower grade ore and some very big stockpiles at around three grams. John, it's three grams, yeah?
The idea then is to take part of that, float it, so you concentrate the gold, and then part of it that you oxidize through a dump leach base process, just putting water through the dump, and you partially oxidize the sulfide.
Process with no
What we're doing now is we're looking at, and that's all quite risky, and it's rehandle. What John and the team have done is that we have tried and full scale confirmation of being able to concentrate and do ultra-fine grind, both in Tongon and at Kibali. The idea is you take that concentrate, ultra-fine grind it, which starts the oxidation process, and finish it in tanks. That you can control the partial, because all you want to do is take the sulfide down, the energy down a little bit so that you can put it through the autoclave. You're taking a large amount of the lower grade ore, concentrating it, reducing the sulfur content, and putting it through the process. The back end of the mine is the same.
The opportunities that we're now modeling are quite exciting because your 800,000 ounces is the bottom end of a profile that we're doing a trade-off on. As you increase that efficiency of that concentration, you drop the costs. As you drop the costs, you unlock the reserves. That's the model that we're doing now. By quarter three, we'll have a good handle on the actual scope. We've got a scoping study which works, and we will have a sort of pre-feasibility type project by the back half of this year, and then by next year we'll have finished it. I don't know, John, do you want to add anything to that?
the essence is the tank oxidation with ultra-fine grind. As an engineer, that gives us controllability because we can vary the grind to get the oxidation we require. On the pad, we get what we get in terms of oxidation. Now that we've actually got a process that we can control, we've got a really viable project on our hands.
the other thing I would just point out to you, Josh, is in the Goldrush plan, there was always this long-standing debate about whether we have to build another roaster or not as Goldrush grows. With the joint venture, that goes away, largely unless we find another 20 or 30 billion ounces. That's not out of the off field to find more big deposits there. Geologically, that place has still got a whole way to go.
In terms of generating the returns, though, it sounds like it's a lot more than just accelerating production. It's really reducing the cutoff and-
Exactly.
Okay.
Yeah. No, it's a classic economies of scale project. That's what really drives this project.
Thank you, Mark. Steve Butler, GMP Securities. Mark, the previous slide before this one, tier 2 assets, can you remind us again what you define as the lowest parameters for a tier 2 asset in the portfolio?
3 million ounces returns at $1,000 long-term gold price.
Massawa is just beneath that, you said, in resource?
Yeah, just short of that. Yeah. Massawa is a particularly interesting example. It's one of the best, by far, undeveloped gold deposits in Africa. Again, there's a couple of junior companies around it that have installed infrastructure. Again, this is a project that we would be prepared to support in realizing its value. We've engaged with the Senegalese government because, again, the Senegalese government haven't really benefited from gold mining. There's been gold mines in Senegal, but they've all been marginal. Can you exploit the installed infrastructure already in that region and not build another mine? That's the difference between our focus always is how do you make money, not how do you produce ounces. There's an opportunity to work on that. Right now, we've got a focus on completing the process with the Senegalese on getting this project across the line.
Thanks, Mark. Ralph Profiti from Eight Capital. We have Fourmile currently excluded from the Nevada joint venture. Is that due to 43-101 disclosure, or is there a potential that the economics may be different inside and outside the joint venture, depending on what you have on what comes out of the feasibility study?
As you will recall, when we did this joint venture, it was negotiated under quite a lot of pressure. The principles of the deal was based on market consensus of the assets, the net asset value. Very clearly, Fourmile wasn't in the market models. We know how valuable Fourmile is. We felt that we didn't want to put it in because there was no value. There was no market value on it. What we have agreed is Newmont kept out a couple of long-dated assets as well, where there was no value in them because they were marginal in the current market. For Fourmile and for the other assets, either party has the ability to bring it into the joint venture at the feasibility NPV, provided it delivers 15% IRR at $1,200 gold. Am I correct?
Yes.
It'll be also brought in, not only at the NPV of $1,200 gold with an IRR of 15%, but it would attract the same premium multiple as the vending partner. If Barrick was trading at 1.3 times, you would pay it. Also, the joint venture will pay for the cost of the feasibility. You'll recoup the feasibility. It'll come into the joint venture, and the other party can elect to maintain its shareholding by making good cash-wise to the vending partner, or it can take the dilution. That's the way it is. That's the way this is structured. Am I correct in that? Thanks. We're done. Danny?
We'll take calls from the line.
we're going to
Fine.
We'll allow them. They can talk, can't they? Sorry.
We'll now take questions from the phone line. Our first question comes from Chris Terry of Deutsche Bank.
Hi, Mark and team. A few questions from me. I understand you haven't got the medium to long-term guidance out yet, and you're still working through that. Wondered if there was an update on the timing for that and maybe just conceptually, whether you could step through, excluding the Nevada opportunity, obviously, on the JV, but just step through some of the other things you've found in the last three months and how that sizes up for the medium term. I was just also interested on the comments around divestments overall. I know you're taking a longer-term approach to that. Assets like Porgera, I think it was interesting you talked about that with the tier 1 opportunities. I was just wondering whether you could make some high-level comments on some of the assets and the timeline maybe on the divestments. Thank you.
Okay. On the divestments, I've said that our target is around $1.5 billion of realized value as part of that program. I won't be adding any more color to that process. I think that's good enough for you to measure me against. Right now, I don't want to start a public negotiation on these assets. They're all, as I pointed out, valuable. There's some that still need some additional work to really get our head around the true value, and we're busy with that. Also, we are mindful that any transaction we do, we're clear about maintaining our relationship with our host countries because there's no country in which we will be realizing assets that isn't an important destination for our ongoing exploration. That's the reason behind that.
On the guidance, I have this ongoing negotiation with my team, we have to reach a compromise, and that is that we will definitely have it to you this year. We have given you very clear guidance, 5.1 to 5.7 million ounces, and that's a five-year horizon before 5.1 to 5.6 million ounces, and for the next five years, that range, before any disposals. That the cost profile, all-in sustaining costs is sitting at $870 to $920. At the back end of that five years, it'll be at the bottom end or below that number. That's the guidance we're giving you. You've consistently seen that guidance, both from Randgold and Barrick. It's just that we've got a bit more work to be able to be comfortable with that. We're comfortable that we'll meet that guidance easily.
By the way, there's nobody else that has that sort of guidance over five years. The one thing I would add is we will meet our five-year guidance when we give it to you, unlike most other people in this industry.
Okay, thanks Mark. Just one follow-up just on copper specifically. You've got a slide there in your pack. Last three months or so, most investors have got a little bit more bullish on copper. I just wondered whether you could talk about the role of the copper assets and how you think about that within the mix. Thanks.
Yeah. Copper is an absolutely strategic metal for us. Why? Because with the merger, we moved into much younger geological provinces, particularly the whole western seaboard of the Americas, both south and north. With that comes an association between gold and copper. Copper has many similarities in the process front and also geologically, apart from the fact that in many cases, it cohabits with gold. That's the reason, and we were very clear when we launched this merger that we have specific criteria, and for copper, it's got to meet our investment criteria, and that's hard for a copper mine. Secondly, we would certainly invest in anything that was copper and gold, and we would also invest in pure copper if there was an opportunity where our presence at an address gave us a competitive advantage over the traditional copper miners.
That's really the guidance in which we will operate, and I've got no reason that we're going to change that plan. I'll give you a simple example. Jabal Sayid is in an area which is part of the, what we think, the Arabian Shield, which we all know as geologists, but we think that that's the same geology as the Nubian Shield. We call it the Nubian Arabian Shield. There's Sukari in there, which is technically a tier 1 asset. There's been no other sort of big discoveries like that because no one's really looked for them. Our relationship with Ma'aden in Saudi Arabia gives us that opportunity to explore that whole Arabian Shield and across the Red Sea into the Nubian Shield with a partner that knows how to operate in those jurisdictions. I mean, culturally.
We've got the geological expertise, and they have the geopolitical key. By the way, Jabal Sayid has got some significant upside, which we're already working on. When we got there, people were worrying about whether it could actually deliver on its design, and we think it can, and certainly geologically it can. Again, there's been very little geological modeling or no mineral resource manager, no geology-driven business because it's high-grade copper. What we are doing is putting together a dedicated exploration team to evaluate that region, and at the same time, we'll expand and deliver the full potential on Jabal Sayid, and then we'll make the decisions in the fullness of time. That asset really does make significant cash flow.
If we can jack it up in its throughput, it's going to make even better cash flow.
Thanks, Mark.
Our next question comes from John Bridges of J.P. Morgan.
Good afternoon, Mark. Congratulations on the progress. Keep up the good work with the Spanish. I still struggle with it and occasionally slip into Afrikaans, which creates all sorts of problems. Wondered, you've been talking this morning about Acacia and forcing the issue. Does that mean buying out minorities? How do you see the way forward with that issue?
I think all options are on the table, whether it's taking out the minorities or encouraging the Acacia board to run a strategic program or somewhere in between. The problem is that we are not prepared to overpay for this asset. It's got a lot of issues. Right now it's really in a bad space, and we need a lot of work to get it back on an even keel. Again, I think everyone understands that it's very difficult for Acacia board to actually run that company. I'm a bit concerned that all the effort we've made, we don't seem to be able to get through to anyone. We're certainly making progress with the Tanzanian government. Again, there's a standoff of the two parties, and we're in the middle, trying to facilitate it.
Also we have an argument over whether we can exercise our rights as a major shareholder. It's a very complex situation. When you get into that environment as a mediator, it's difficult because both parties are still trying to keep all options open, and it makes a difficult negotiation. As you see, we go a few steps forward and a couple steps back. As I've said before, there's no doubt in my mind when we get to the solution, whatever it is, it's going to be good for stakeholders because right now it's not good for anyone.
Understood. I'm a bit confused because my understanding was that the Tanzanians wanted to talk to you and the Acacia people wanted to be involved, but they weren't able to.
Yes, to a degree. That's the lip service. The Tanzanian governments are very committed to trying to find a solution. The problem is there a commitment on both sides and enough courage to be able to close out? We can't sign anything that we're not prepared to because we're not in a position to legally. Our only role is to be able to play messenger and end up, and which we are well advanced in getting to is try and get an agreement, a basic detailed agreement that we can deliver to the Acacia board and its independent committees. Then it's up to them to make that decision. It would be a lot easier if Acacia were more engaged in that discussion. Again, I think you're seeing everyone protecting a bit of their own turf because it's a complex situation.
There's not a lot of trust left on either side. We're going to continue working with it. Again, we've assured Acacia that we're working to get this thing done, and we will present it with them. At the same time, they've also questioned our right to be able to vote our shares. You've got to ask the question, why are we here? Why doesn't Acacia go and do the deal? The answer is they can't.
Yeah. Complicated.
We'll eventually get somebody to see reason, I hope. Not from the lack of trying on Barrick, I must say. For a long time now.
Okay. Appreciate the color. [Foreign language]
Thank you.
Our next question comes from John Tumazos of John Tumazos Very Independent Research.
Thank you. [Foreign language] Buena suerte, Don Marco. In the quarter, Barrick had about a 2% return on equity. Assuming constant gold prices, Mark, when you got things humming in a couple of years, what's a reasonable target? 6%, 8% for ROE?
Buenas dias.
Buenas dias.
That's a tough question to answer. I think our legal people are going to be cringing about exactly what I'm going to say now. I can see it in this audience. If you look at our dividend policy, our dividend we've just paid, we can afford it, very much afford it. That's a 1.2% yield. That's significant in the gold industry, making it out of real money. We've just started. I've said, and John Thornton said this too, our focus is to drive this business to be able to deliver real value for its stakeholders. In Randgold, we got the dividend yield up significantly. I've got no doubt that we've got on balance, we've got a better portfolio of assets, and there's no better way than with the best people and the best assets to produce the leading returns.
It's my objective to be able to become the go-to gold company when it comes to returns. That's our focus and every reason we have to be able to continue to deliver on that.
[Foreign language].
This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mark Bristow for closing remarks.
Okay. Well, thank you very much again for your patience and your questions. Traditionally, we can't serve a glass of wine or anything now, can we? You can have a cup of tea or coffee with the team, I think next door. Are these the refreshments over there? Traditionally, in Randgold, we used to offer you a glass of wine, but we'll work on that. I think we've got to get a liquor license or something. Yeah, thanks very much for your attention. Cheers.
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating. Should you have additional questions, please contact the Barrick Investor Relations department. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.