Barrick Mining's Q4 Gold Output Tumbles Y/Y: Will It Rebound in Q1?

Barrick Mining Corporation B saw a 19% year-over-year decline in fourth-quarter 2025 gold production to 871,000 ounces. This follows a roughly 12% year-over-year fall in the prior quarter. Lower production, mainly due to the suspension of operations at the Loulo-Gounkoto mine, also contributed to the year-over-year rise in its unit costs.

Certain operational issues adversely impacted Barrick’s gold production for full-year 2025. The company’s attributable gold production fell around 17% year over year to roughly 3.26 million ounces in 2025.

The company provided a tepid forecast for 2026, with attributable gold production expected to be in the range of 2.9-3.25 million ounces. While Loulo-Gounkoto is poised to deliver additional production along with modestly higher output from Pueblo Viejo, production is expected to be lower across Veladero, North Mara and Carlin in 2026. Turquoise Ridge is also projected to see lower grades. Weak production is expected to weigh on the company’s performance in the near term.

Despite gains in realized gold prices, production growth would be critical to sustain revenues and margins in the coming quarters. The consensus estimate implies a gold production of roughly 784,000 ounces for the first quarter of 2026, indicating around 10% decline from the prior quarter.

Among Barrick’s major peers, Newmont Corporation NEM reported a year-over-year decline in gold production for the fourth quarter, largely linked to its strategic divestment of non-core assets. Newmont's attributable gold production of 1.45 million ounces was nearly 24% lower than the prior-year quarter figure. Newmont anticipates gold production for 2026 at about 5.26 million ounces.

Agnico Eagle Mines Limited’s AEM payable gold production was 840,608 ounces in the fourth quarter, down from 847,401 ounces in the prior-year quarter. For full-year 2025, Agnico Eagle produced 3,447,367 ounces of gold. Agnico Eagle expects production to remain stable at roughly 3.3-3.5 million ounces annually from 2026 to 2028.

B’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Barrick’s shares have gained 29.7% in the past six months compared with the Zacks Mining – Gold industry’s rally of 28.6%, courtesy of the gold price rally.

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From a valuation standpoint, B is currently trading at a forward 12-month earnings multiple of 11.38, a roughly 5.4% discount when stacked up with the industry average of 12.03X. It carries a Value Score of B.

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for B’s 2026 and 2027 earnings implies a year-over-year rise of 49.6% and 19%, respectively. The EPS estimates for 2026 and 2027 have been trending higher over the past 60 days.

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B currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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