⚠ Under Three Percent of World SupplyHigh threat
Barrick Mining (B) — threat to the moat
Barrick's 3.26 million ounces are roughly 2.8 percent of world mine production -- scale here buys procurement and technical depth, and never pricing power.
Barrick produced roughly 3.26 million ounces of gold in 2025. World mine production that year was a record 3,671.6 tonnes, and total supply including recycling was 5,002.3 tonnes1. Converted, Barrick's output is around 2.8 percent of what the world's mines produced and about 2 percent of total supply.
That single comparison is the most useful thing on any of Barrick's scale pages, because it establishes what scale can and cannot do here. Being the second or third largest producer of a commodity while supplying under three percent of it means the company has no influence over price whatever. If Barrick shut every mine tomorrow, the gold price would move for a few days on sentiment and then settle, because 1,404 tonnes of recycled supply and eight decades of above-ground stock are still there.
Scale in mining therefore buys the things scale buys in any capital-intensive industry — procurement terms, technical depth, access to capital, the ability to fund exploration across continents — and not the thing scale usually buys, which is pricing power.
The offsetting fact is that the fixed-cost absorption is real and the technical capability is genuinely rare.
The number to watch is unit cost, not ounces. Scale that does not show up as a lower cost per ounce than smaller competitors is not producing an advantage — and on 2026 guidance, Barrick's does not.
- ReportedWorld mine production was a record 3,671.6t in 2025 and total supply including 1,404.3t of recycling was 5,002.3t; Barrick produced 3.26 million ounces.World Gold Council, Gold Demand Trends Q4 and Full Year 2025 — total gold demand including OTC exceeded 5,000t for the first time, worth an unprecedented US$555bn (+45%), with the LBMA gold price setting 53 new all-time highs during 2025; the annual average price was US$3,431.5/oz (+44%) and the Q4 average a record US$4,135.2/oz (+55%). Supply: mine production a record 3,671.6t (+1%), net producer hedging -73.6t, recycled gold 1,404.3t (+3%) — described as a relatively muted response to a 67% increase in the US dollar gold price — for total supply of 5,002.3t. Demand: jewellery fabrication 1,638.0t (-19%) and jewellery consumption 1,542.3t (-18%) with jewellery demand value up 18% to a record; bar and coin 1,374.1t (+16%), a 12-year high; ETFs and similar products +801.2t against -2.9t in 2024, the second strongest year on record; central banks and other institutions 863.3t against 1,092.4t, at the upper end of the expected range, historically elevated and geographically widespread but slowed from their recent pace — FY2025 · publ. 2026-01-29 · source ↗