HEDGING: Barrick eliminates all gold hedges

TORONTO — The world's largest gold producer, Barrick Gold, has divested all of its gold hedges and now has full leverage to the gold price.

"Our positive view on the gold price led us to accelerate the elimination of these contracts ahead of the schedule we had established. With their elimination we no longer have any gold price related mark-to-market exposure and will now fully benefit from increases in the gold price," said Aaron Regent, Barrick's president and CEO.

"Barrick's gold production and reserves are now completely unhedged and our capital structure has also been simplified," he added.

In the last two years, Barrick has eliminated its gold hedge position of 9.5 million oz at a weighted average price of US$930/oz by either selling its fixed price contracts or by converting them into floating price contracts.

Barrick expects to produce between 7.7 million and 8.1 million oz of gold in 2010. Details are available at www.Barrick.com.