Barrick's boss maintains faith in RI

Barrick's boss maintains faith in RI

TORONTO (Reuter): The man who watched Indonesia's Busang, the
largest gold discovery of the century, slip from his grasp is
gracious in defeat.

Peter Munk, chairman and chief executive of Canada's Barrick
Gold Corp. said on Tuesday he still has faith in Indonesia and
its mining law, despite losing the battle for the Busang gold
deposit to Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. last week.

"It's in good hands now and I wish them all the good luck,"
Munk, 69, told Reuters in a telephone interview from Switzerland.

Munk and a team of executives and high-profile advisers --
including former U.S. President George Bush and former Canadian
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney -- spent months wooing the
Indonesian government in an effort to win control of Busang.

In a race that included most of the world's biggest mining
concerns, Barrick, the world's second largest gold company,
initially dominated the negotiations for control of Busang, which
was discovered and 90 percent-owned by Calgary, Alberta-based
prospector Bre-X Minerals Ltd.

Busang contains at least 71 million ounces of gold, valued at
about $25 billion, but Bre-X and others believe the size of the
deposit may be much larger.

Late last year the Indonesian government told Bre-X to form a
joint venture with Barrick and set a deadline for Feb. 17.

But Munk's glittering inside track to success ended abruptly
when the Indonesian government last month brought in Muhammad
"Bob" Hasan, an Indonesian timber tycoon with extensive business
interests, many friends in the mining community and close ties
with President Soeharto.

"Control was not in my hands. It was really not any more in
the government's hands," Munk said. "It was transferred to Mr.
Hasan's hands. He was appointed to make the final say and make
the final decision.

"I did not know of Mr. Hasan's existence until the middle of
January when I was informed by the government. He was not
involved."

Shunning Barrick, Hasan brokered a deal that gave Freeport 15
percent of Busang and the right to mine the deposit. The
arrangement left Bre-X with 45 percent and handed the rest to the
Indonesian government and to two Indonesian companies controlled
by Hasan.

Bre-X received no compensation in the deal.

Despite being thwarted in the end game, Munk said he harbored
no resentment. "So is life," he said philosophically.

"It's given me a great amount of encouragement. Busang is not
the largest gold find in Indonesia," he predicted. "I think there
will be many more gold finds and we intend to find many of them."

The Bre-X case was an exception, Munk said, adding that he
still had faith that Indonesian mining laws would serve him well
in the future.

"Bre-X was a very unfortunate example and I think it is in no
way an indication of the stability of the mining industry and the
interests of the international mining community in Indonesia," he
said. "We intend to pursue our program in Indonesia with a great
amount of vigor."

But Barrick's plans do not include any fresh attempt to bid
for Busang, despite the riches contained in the deposit.

Munk said he was "absolutely not interested" in a project that
Barrick could not control.

"We've (grown) without Busang and we will continue to do it
without Busang," he said. "But we will not sacrifice the
fundamental principles on which we built our company. That ends
and begins with controlling our own mine."