Barrick joins challenge to decarbonize surface mining

TORONTO – Barrick Gold Corporation has become a patron of the Charge on Innovation Challenge, an industry-wide effort to cut emissions from surface mining.

The Challenge takes the form of global competition and seeks to leverage the experience and ideas of a variety of industries to develop new concepts and solutions for large-scale haul truck electrification.

Electrification is seen as the key to decarbonize mining and the crux of the challenge is to develop a solution that will safely deliver electricity to large surface haul trucks without adding time to the haul cycle.

So far over 350 companies from across 19 industries have registered their interest as vendors with 80 companies submitting formal expressions of interest.

With the help of the Australian mining equipment industry body Austmine, the patrons will evaluate proposals over the next month with a view to creating a short-list of vendors to submit formal proposals. Once a suitable solution is selected, site trials are expected to start within the next few years.

Barrick president and chief executive Mark Bristow said the company was proud to lend its support to, and play a part in, this initiative which promises to accelerate the industry’s decarbonization. “At Barrick, we have set ourselves an emissions reduction target of 30% by 2030 against our 2018 baseline and our vision is to achieve net zero emissions by 2050,” he said. “While we have already made clear strides in meeting these targets, we are constantly looking at new and innovative ways to further enhance our environmental credentials.”