Pascua-Lama project gets extension

Silver Wheaton Corp. has agreed to give Barrick Gold Corp. an additional 2 ½ years to meet a production milestone at the stalled Pascua-Lama mining project in South America. Under the agreement, Silver Wheaton paid about $625 million US in cash in return for rights to silver produced by Barrick either at Pascua-Lama on the Chile-Argentina border or its other mines. Construction of Pascua-Lama has been suspended while Barrick works to address environmental and community issues. Barrick now has until June 30, 2020 to reach at least 75 per cent of design capacity at Pascua-Lama. The previous deadline was Dec. 31, 2017.