Gold price strength creates window of opportunity for Bristow’s copper ambitions

Grasberg mine

BARRICK Gold CEO, Mark Bristow, renewed his interest in adding more copper assets to the group’s production saying that the elevated gold price had created opportunities.

“The gold price is up and the copper price is down,” Bristow told the Financial Times. “So there are bound to be opportunities.”

Bristow said in February he had held discussions with Canada’s Freeport McMoRan, a copper producer that owns the Grasberg deposit in Indonesia, about a possible deal on the asset. He, however, ruled out a move for Freeport as a whole.

“If he doesn’t do anything soon he may miss the value opportunity, this is the good window, gold prices won’t stay this high,” a banker told the newspaper.

Bristow said last week during a conference call to announce Barrick’s first quarter production and financial numbers that there would be a “dynamic M&A” environment this year and that Barrick was “not shy” about making deals.

Last year he launched a hostile bid for larger rival Newmont Mining, which ended with a joint venture between the two companies in Nevada.

James Goldstone, the manager of the Keystone Investment Trust at Invesco, which holds Barrick shares, cautioned against any deal that moved the company too far away from gold. Barrick has already made a large acquisition with the $6bn purchase of gold miner Randgold in 2018, he said.

“It’s the gold story that will drive positive sentiment, and maintaining that focus on gold is something I’d like to see,” he told the Financial Times.