BARRICK ACCEPTS CHILEAN COURT’S RULING ON CLOSURE

Barrick Gold Corp. said on Friday it would not appeal a Chilean court’s ruling to uphold the closure order on the Chilean portion of its Pascua-lama project imposed by the country’s environmental regulator and the sanctions on its unit. The gold and silver project, which straddles the border between Chile and Argentina, was put on hold in 2013 due to environmental issues, political opposition,

labour unrest and development costs that swelled to us$8.5 billion. In its ruling dated Sept. 17, the court said the company had failed to implement a set of measures to strictly comply with its environmental licence and consequently was not able to adequately protect the environment and people’s health. It also maintained its earlier fine of 7 billion pesos (us$9.2 million) on the miner.