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Barrick and Cisco Ink Deal for Digital Reinvention of Mining

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Barrick Gold Corporation said that it will partner with Cisco for the digital reinvention of the former’s business. The collaboration will bring together state-of-the-art technology and expertise to unleash the full potential of mining and enhance productivity and efficiency.

Harnessing the digital technology potential will help Barrick to grow its free cash flow per share and will also add value across its business. This will allow it to become a leading twenty-first century company- increasing productivity and efficiency at its mines, along with improving decision-making and performance across every area of its business. Digital technology will also enable the company to lessen its environmental impact and be even more transparent with its local partners especially indigenous communities, local governments, and NGOs.

Both the companies will focus on R&D, and jointly utilize their networks and expertise to drive Barrick's digital reinvention. The companies will work together to develop flagship digital operation at the Cortez mine in Nevada which will include digital technology in every aspect of the mine to provide better, faster, and safer mining. The company will use advanced sensing technology and real-time operational data to inform decision-making. Equipment will also be automated for increased productivity, while predictive algorithms will increase the precision and speed of maintenance and metallurgy.

Cisco will bring digital technology to all of Barrick’s mines as well as to its head office. An enterprise-wide analytics hub will permit performance management, and financial and operational benchmarking. New digital tools will enhance scenario planning and portfolio management.

Moreover, the technology will improve Barrick's environmental and safety performance. The use of digital technology will increase Barrick's permitting activities, thereby enhancing transparency to stakeholders.
 

Barrick is making a significant progress with its cost and efficiency improvement programs. The company’s initiatives including overhead expenses reduction and portfolio optimization are expected to generate meaningful cost savings in 2016.

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

Better-ranked companies in the mining space include New Gold, Inc. (NGD - Free Report) , AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (AU - Free Report) and IAMGOLD Corp. (IAG - Free Report) . While New Gold sports a Zacks Rank #1 (strong Buy), AngloGold and IAMGOLD carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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