Canada’s Barrick Gold may be severely hit by a ban on mineral concentrate exports affecting its subsidiary Acacia Mining
The gold miner’s comments come on the heels of a report published Wednesday that claims Acacia has been under-reporting the amount of metal in its shipments to evade taxes, Mining News reports.
Tanzania’s presidential committee found the value of minerals within concentrates in containers at the port city of Dar es Salaam was more than 10 times the amount declared by Acacia. As a result, the nation decided to keep an export ban issued in March on the London-listed miner’s copper and gold concentrates.
The probe's results also led to President John Magufuli firing his mining minister and shutting the board of the mineral audit agency, which he accused of failing to supervise exports properly. The company refuted the committee's findings Friday, saying that if they were correct it would imply that Acacia "is the world’s third largest gold miner" and "produces more gold from just three mines than companies like AngloGold Ashanti from 19 mines, Goldcorp from 11 mines, and Kinross from their 9 mines" according to Mining News.