Exploration & FourmileNarrow moat

The cheapest ounces a miner can add are the ones it finds itself, because organic discovery lets it capture the full value of a deposit rather than paying another company a premium for ounces already found. Barrick prides itself on exploration, and its best recent vindication is Fourmile — a very high-grade gold discovery next to its Nevada operations that management has described in glowing terms and whose resource has been growing with the drill bit.

A discovery like Fourmile is genuinely valuable. High grade means low cost; proximity to existing mills means it can be developed without building a whole new mine from scratch; and every ounce found organically is an ounce Barrick did not have to overpay for. Successful exploration is the one form of reserve replacement that actually creates value rather than merely transferring it.

But exploration is a hard and humbling business, and it is no one's moat. Most drilling finds nothing economic; major discoveries are rare, lumpy, and impossible to schedule; and even a Fourmile takes years to move from a promising intercept to producing ounces. A company cannot count on discovery the way it counts on a recurring subscription. Fourmile is a real prize and a reason for optimism about Nevada's future — but it is a lucky, hard-won result of a costly process — Barrick pushed Fourmile forward again in early 2026¹ — not a dependable engine that guarantees Barrick's reserves will always be replaced.