Barrick Gold Encountering Problems with USA, Chile and Dominican Republic

 Barrick Gold Problems in the americas


In Reno Nevada, Barrick Gold failed to report that it released toxic chemicals including mercury, cyanide and lead.   The Dominican Republic asked for a review of a contract it had with the Canadian mining company that could threaten the government.
 The Chilean Story

A month prior to the Atacama Water Board in Chile was to request that Barrick Gold Mines Corporation should be fined for not fulfilling its promise to protect the glaciers within the borders of its bi-national Chile-Argentina project, called Pascua Lama, Barrick was fined in Reno, Nevada for releasing toxic chemical substances.

 Days after a Chilean court upheld the injunction rendering their multi-billion dollar investment indefinitely stalled, Barrick Gold executives said in a shareholders meeting in Toronto that they might abandon the Pascua-Lama project altogether.
 
 Three high-level executives from Barrick's South America branch resigned Thursday, further complicating the mining giant’s South American operations. The resignations include the company’s regional president, Guillermo Caló. Robert Mayne-Nicholls and Rodrigo Jiménez, the director of operations and the regional vice president, also announced their departures.

In the Canadian company’s annual report, Chairman Peter Munk lamented the unanticipated financial issues at the mine, though he prioritized its rebound.

“We suffered a significant delay and a major cost overrun at our flagship Pascua-Lama project on the border of Chile and Argentina,” Munk said in the report. “Since that fact surfaced — so unexpectedly — the main focus of our company, at every level, has been directed at ensuring that this project will meet its new cost and schedule estimate.”

A 48 percent decline in the company’s share price and disappointing gold prices have characterized a challenging year for Barrick, Reuters reported Wednesday.

 The court of appeals in Chile’s northern Copiapó Region granted an indigenous community’s request to suspend the mine’s operations April 10. Minera Nevada, S.P.A., the Barrick subsidiary operating Pascua-Lama, has deflected allegations of negligent environmental behavior for most of its decade-long existence on the border between Argentina and Chile.

 The American Story
According to the Huffington Post, the Environmental Protection Agency ordered three mines in northern Nevada to pay a total of $618,000 for failing to report this release of toxic chemicals, including cyanide, lead and mercury from 2005-08.

All three mines are subsidiaries of the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corp. — Barrick Cortez Inc.'s Cortez Gold Mine near Crescent Valley, Barrick Gold US Inc.'s Ruby Hill Gold Mine near Eureka and Homestake Mining Co.'s Bald Mountain Gold Mine near the Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge, according to the Huffington Post.

The three agreed to pay a total of $278,000 in fines and spend an additional $340,000 on an environmentally beneficial project as part of a settlement for allegedly underestimating reports of their toxic release inventory required under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, EPA officials said.
 

"Cyanide, lead and mercury used at these mines have the potential to pose a health threat," said Jared Blumenfeld, EPA's regional administrator for the Pacific Southwest Region, based in San Francisco.
"We insist on accurate reporting of chemical releases so that citizens have a clear idea of the risk from the facilities near their communities," said Blumenfeld.

The supplemental project will be conducted at the Cortez mine to identify the metal compounds formed in its oxide mill process and test methods to verify the quantities of new chemical compounds manufactured during the process.

The companies also agreed to perform audits at all other U.S. mining operations Barrick owns in Nevada and Montana and to determine if any reporting violations occurred and if so pay a $10,000 penalty per violation up to a total of $250,000
"Nonetheless, to achieve regulatory certainty regarding its TRI obligations, Barrick has agreed to enter into a settlement agreement with the EPA," said Louis Schack, director of communications for Barrick Gold of North America, based in Salt Lake City, Utah.


"Crumbs for your gold, the dominican story”
Meanwhile, in the Dominican Republic, independent deputy Carlos Gabriel García commented on Barrick Gold’s Manuel Rocha’s insistence that the government must comply with its agreement with Barrick. Gabriel García referred to this as “challenging” the national interest.


According to the Dominican portal, El Nacional, Deputy García believes that Rocha aims to silence the domestic sectors that have spoken out in favor of revising the agreement with Barrick, in which the Dominican government “will receive crumbs in exchange for its gold.”

 

He said it seems that Rocha is unaware that the company Place Dome was the one that won the bid to explore for gold and that the agreement signed back in 2002 was beneficial to the Dominican government.
The author of the draft resolution of the Chamber of Deputies that asks the government for a revision of the agreement with Barrick, believes that “this agreement cannot be above the interests of the country.”

Rocha, Barrick Gold representative in the DR, defended the 2009 gold exploration agreement with the government. “Since the beginning, we have been very clear that this contract was negotiated in a process that went on for nearly 2 years, between the government and the company along with an expert brought in from Europe, France specifically, and from the Inter-American Development Bank,” he said.
But in fact that gold exploration agreement is a big scam , with so many picky details that dominicans will never see a dime out of the mine, and the dominicans see themselves in the eyes of Chile, where Barrick Gold spend  16 years exploiting a Chilean mines, and Barrick Gold NEVER pay a dime out of it.

The Chamber of Deputies decided that three commissions will present a report on the agreement with Barrick Gold. Mateo Aquino Febrillet, Rector of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), is one of the illustrious Dominicans who also supports the revision of the agreement.

 In the Dominican Republic, meanwhile, the soaring price of gold has the government wanting more from the Pueblo Viejo mine, which has 20 million ounces of gold reserves as well as silver, copper and zinc.

Barrick owns 60 percent of the venture and Goldcorp Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, owns 40 percent. The companies reopened the mine last year after investing nearly $4 billion, the largest direct foreign investment ever in the Dominican Republic, and have estimated it will eventually pay about $7 billion to the government.

But President Danilo Medina and Congress have yet to see any money. They want to rewrite the 25-year contract, which promises royalties only after the two Canadian companies recoup their investment and the venture's profits rise above 10 percent.

Barrick's executives "have to change their attitude, because if they don't, the president has told them: 'Either you negotiate or more taxes will be imposed,'" said Ramon Peralta, Medina's administrative minister.


 President Danilo Medina’s "prudent deadline" issued to Barrick Gold Corp to renegotiate the gold mining contract expires today and has the population on edge awaiting the outcome of the standoff between the government and the Canada-based company which operates the facility at Pueblo Viejo (central), El Caribe reports.


It said Medina is expected to refer to the topic this week before leaving for the summit in Costa Rica.
The chief executive is expected to announce the result of the talks before month’s end, according to Presidency Administrative minister José Ramón Peralta.

Medina’s deadline to Barrick Gold formed part of his speech to Congress on February 27, and has since been accompanied by the retention of several shipments of ore at Customs, on violations including the miner’s mistaken ship manifest of the precious metal’s country-of-origin ( smuggling).

 In country after country, the world's biggest miners are facing new environmental standards, confronting changing tax and currency laws and defending long-term contracts they thought were written in stone.
 

Barrick gold only provides misery  and toxic  pollution to the communities were they go.They use tons of cyanide and mercury  in their operations for gold extraction, regardless of poor peasants, crops, river and cattle in  the exploited areas.

The situation now is just unbearable for the affected communities..And there are a lot of riots every week  in different part of Dominican republic because of that.

They have a long history of scams, heavy pollution, illness, bribery and heavy metal contamination.

In a small island like Dominican Republic the consequences are simply lethal... 
They are just destroying the island, were no other kind of human, vegetable or animal kind of life can surface out of there in any circumstances...

Say no to Barrick Gold TODAY !

Government and Barrick without accord after 20 plus meetings

Government and Barrick without accord after 20 plus meetings

The negotiations between the parties entered an "accelerated process"

SANTO DOMINGO. In spite of having held more than 20 meetings between the government and the Barrick Gold mining company after the call for negotiations made by President Danilo Medina last 27 February, there is still no set date for finalizing the conversations between the parties.

These have been extended due to the company that operates the Pueblo Viejo mine, located in Cotui, Sanchez Ramirez, saying that they are operating under a contract approved by the National Contract, according to a report from a source at the Presidential Palace.

Over the last few weeks, the negotiations have entered an "accelerated process," in which Dominican officials and mining executives from the company are taking part. In some of the meetings representatives of the Canadian government have taken part.

In the talks, there are also mining technicians from the Dominican government, contracted for these talks, who in addition are working on everything related to the volume and amount of gold and silver that is extracted and exported by Barrick.

The source said that the government is keeping up permanent talks with the Canadian company, where their greatest interest will be to benefit the country.

Barrick's position

Last Wednesday, the president and chief executive of Barrick Gold, Jamie Sokalsky, revealed that the company was holding on-going talks with the authorities of the Dominican Republic regarding the mine at Pueblo Viejo.

The executive reported, likewise, through a press communiqué, that the net profits of Bardick, the world's largest gold producer, reached US$847 million, a decrease of 18.5% during the first quarter of this year in relation to the same period last year. Barrick said that their share of 60% of Pueblo Viejo provided 96,000 ounces of gold during the quarter.

The government has requested according to the Canadian company, "accelerate and increase in a significant manner their quota of earning from Pueblo Viejo," a joint operation between Barrick and another Canadian mining concern, Goldcorp.

Government's position

In his speech before the joint session of the National Congress, Danilo Medina said that under the fiscal scheme established in the contract for the exploitation of the mine, with an average price of US$1700 and ounce for gold and US$28.00 for silver, Barrick would obtain net income after operating costs for US$2.6 billion in the first two years of production, which would allow the company to recover in this time frame the total investment in the country.

And there he added that of the US$753 million from income for exports, the country would receive US$56 million.

Pueblo Viejo has huge reserves

As of 31 December 2012, Pueblo Viejo had proven and probably gold reserves of 15 million ounces, and a useful life of 25 years. It is estimated that this reserve is one of the largest in the world. With the exploitation of the gold mine, Barrick Gold is administering in Dominican territory one of the businesses where the company is betting to improve its earnings, given the decrease in its earning in 2012. The company has reported a net loss of US$3.06 billion (US$3.06 per share) in the fourth quarter of last year.

Barrick Gold have made in the past a scam bribery with Dominicans politicians .That contract is so picky  with so many small details that there is no way that dominicans will ever see a dime out of that contract.

 

The result is that now in the middle of the island we have a company that haven't pay a dime yet and is heavily exploiting a big part of territory  , and now want to convert it into a pool of cyanide and mercury.

 

 Margajita river, heavily contaminated by Barrick Gold

There is a heavy pollution as well.In that area you will NEVER see a plant or a tree grow never EVER again.

Now residents in the communities are crying with desperation because of the illness, the peasants for the dead crops and cattle and the people for their health. 

 

People start moving and there are riots almost every week against Barrick Gold ..

Economist Jaime Aristy Escuder Saturday accused the mining company Barrick Gold in exaggerating the cost of its investment in the country, in order to extend the time you have to start pay the state the profits.

Escuder further stated that while Barrick installation monies allegedly spent on the Pueblo Viejo, Cotuí mine, more monies will be needed, as the contract states that until the company recovers the initial investment, the Dominican state resources will not be paid, in respect of the exploitation.

They have being cough smuggling gold as well in AILA international airport..

 

That is a scam, after scam , after scam.. 

The plan is very simple: Not to pay a dime to Dominicans , in the same way that Barrick did in Chile for 16 years, and pour tons of  cyanide regardless of the life of 10 millions of Dominicans...

Usually, the aftermath is a total devastation.

 

We need the help of the international community..

We need to say united: SAY NO TO BARRICK GOLD!

Click here to see more information

Barrick’s environmental foes jump on wobbly miner

RE: Say no to Barrick Gold pirates

Barrick’s environmental foes jump on wobbly miner

by MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT , Globe and Mail
http://www.dominicantoday.com/dr/forum/living-in-the-dr/general-info/52340/Say-no-to-Barrick-Gold-pirates
April 25th, 2013




The shares of embattled miner Barrick Gold Corp. are continuing their upward bounce after plunging to 20 year lows earlier this month, a move higher driven by a continuing recovery in the bullion price.


The world’s largest gold producer is adding another 2.3 per cent or 44 cents to $19.82 a share in Thursday trading, a good move from the recent low of $17.98. The rise should certainly should cheer up shell-shocked shareholders who’ve been watching their investment get pummelled by self-inflicted wounds through ill-timed acquisitions and cost over runs on major projects.

The long term outlook for Barrick shares hinges on many factors: the gold price is obviously the biggest driver, but the company also faces vociferous opposition from environmentalists and many residents around its mine sites, which should be a long term worry for shareholders.

Given that it’s the largest company in the business, with 25 mines in 10 countries, it isn’t totally surprising that Barrick would be a magnet for protesters. Mining can be a hugely disruptive businesses. Open-pit mines are massive undertakings, as is the management of the vast quantities of waste rock left over after ores are processed.

The main hubbub at Wednesday’s annual meeting dealt with the controversial $11.9-million signing bonus for co-chairman John Thornton, so investors may have missed another report timed for release during the meeting from Barrick’s environmental foes.

The report is 30 pages of footnoted attacks on Barrick for weak environmental practices and human rights abuses around its mines. The report accuses the company of “ignoring the warning signs of numerous conflicts across the globe.”


Investors shouldn’t stay tuned to this issue because it’s unlikely to go away any time soon.

For its part, Barrick released a statement dissing the report: “The report lacks credibility ... responsible mining is an absolute priority for Barrick and is central to how we run our business, reflected by the fact that we have been ranked as a leader in social and environmental responsibility for five consecutive years by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Our operations are a catalyst for economic development and create meaningful, long-term benefits for the communities in which we operate.”

But some recent signs of how much the company is chafing under environmental criticisms came from founder Peter Munk at the annual meeting.

Barrick Gold Corp. chairman Peter Munk arrives at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on Wednesday, April 24, 2013, for his company’s annual general meeting. Behind to his right, Barrick board member and former prime minister Brian Mulroney.



“There are now libraries – libraries – full of reports. One report after another of every little aspect of air quality ... road conditions, dust conditions in building a mine. And each and every one of those can be changed, and every time they get changed, they get changed for the worse,” he complained.

According to Mr. Munk governments aren’t helping either, because they’re listening to non-governmental organizations. “What’s happening is that this enormously altered public perception of environmental concern – NGOs, human rights, water quality, air quality, etc. etc. etc. – becomes put one on top of the other, and how do governments react? They impose more regulations.”


Mr. Munk speaks to shareholders about Barrick’s troubled Pascua-Lama mine in Chile and Argentina. Work on the Chilean part of the mine was halted by court order over allegations of polluted groundwater.


If they can give the chairman $11.9 million bonus, how come that Barrick Gold have NEVER pay a dime to Dominican Republic for a free gold mine?

• 
  

If they stoped Barrick Gold in Chile and Argentina, how come we can not do the same in Dominican Republic?

• 
  

How come they keep contaminating , working, smuggling gold, with such impunity in DR?

Great deal for Barrick, not for DR

Great deal for Barrick, not for DR



 Deputy Environment Minister Eleuterio Martinez has told Clave that the contract the Dominican government signed with Barrick Gold is good business for the company because it awards them the benefits of the exploitation of the gold deposits, considered among the largest in the world, but relieves them of responsibility for the pollution of the Cotui area where the Pueblo Viejo mine is located. Clave reports that the negotiation of the contract originally sought to tackle the severe pollution in the area. But in the end, as Barrick Gold was able to negotiate, the Dominican government is again responsible for dealing with the pollution.

"As a person and as a Dominican, Barrick scares me, because there is no guarantee that they will show concern for this land," said Martinez. "That was a great business deal for them, but not for us."

Clave reports that it is estimated that the work to tackle the effects of the exploitation of the mine from 1975 to 1999 will cost US$75 million. In the contract with Barrick Gold, the company agreed to cover 50% and up to a limit of US$37.5 million for tackling the pollution, but delegated this responsibility to the Dominican government. He said the Dominican government does not have money for tackling these environmental problems.

Luis Carvajal from the environmental team at the UASD state university says that in the contract, instead of the Ministry of Environment reviewing Barrick's environmental plans and approving them, the government is required to submit their plans to the mining company for approval.

Martinez says: "The key words are follow up, who is going to follow up with Barrick; first because it is a monster and the authorities will require a great deal of money in order to comply, not only with the contract, but with what is established by the law." He described some of the conditions in the contract as "scary".

Martinez says that future mining operations will cause even more pollution. He said that Barrick is operating with the license granted to Placer Dome, but it is opening new fronts.

Clave reports that Rosario mine operated from 1975 to 1999 and exploited the oxide but left the sulphur oxides behind, creating serious pollution problems. Carvajal said that when the Placer Dome contract was under discussion the main objective was to tackle the sulphur pollution in the area.


Cotui mayor against Barrick Gold


The mayor of Cotui, Bienvenido Lazala is accusing Barrick Gold of causing an ecological disaster in Sanchez Ramirez province through water pollution and the disappearance of aquatic and land species. He called on the government to revise the contract that he defined as "against national interests in the economic and social aspects".

Lazala visited El Nacional newspaper and complained about the Ministry of Environment's indifference in demanding environmental conservation practices. He said that the extraction of gold in the Pueblo Viejo area has polluted the waters of the Yuna, Maguaca and Chacuey rivers and those of the Hatillo Dam. He said that Barrick Gold is using the waters of Hatillo Dam for their operation with dangerous substances such as cyanide.


 Lazala says that groups in Cotui are joining forces to press the government to secure a revision of the contract with Barrick Gold.

Comité contra la Megaminería llama a movilización nacional los días 23 y 24 de abril





Las organizaciones que integran el Comité Contra la Megaminería y el Uso del Cianuro (CCMM) llamaron este martes a la población a movilizarse los días 23 y 24 de abril en sendas “Jornadas por la vida y la soberanía”, que busca hacer frente a los atropellos de los que son víctimas tanto la población y como el medio ambiente.

Entre las exigencias están la anulación del contrato con la minera Barrick Gold, preservación de Loma Miranda, el pago de salarios justos a los trabajadores, anulación de la última reforma fiscal y que se dejen sin efecto los contractos con las compañías generadoras de electricidad.

“El pueblo dominicano es víctima de las más grandes injusticias, el costo de la canasta familiar se ha incrementado de manera exorbitante, los impuestos se tragan nuestros salarios y el patrimonio nacional está siendo cedido a intereses extranjeros en condiciones desiguales. Ante tales atropellos es tiempo de que la población se lance a las calles en señal de rechazo a todas las medidas tomadas por el Gobierno”, sostuvo Escalin Gutiérrez, vocera del comité.

Gutiérrez reiteró que la protesta cuenta con respaldo nacional y que en Cotuí, Santiago, La Vega, Bonao, Barahona, San Francisco de Macorís y algunos barrios de la capital habrá movilizaciones.


(For more information check the forum "say no to barrick gold pirates " at www.dominicantoday.com )