Zacks cut shares of African Barrick Gold (NASDAQ:ABGLF) from a hold rating to a sell rating in a research report report published on Wednesday morning. Barrick Gold Corporation (USA) (NYSE:ABX) had previously in August mentioned that it would lighten its debt by selling as many of its gold mines and projects across the US.

Last week, the Toronto-based miner announced the closing of its Salt Lake City office, which along with the unwinding of its copper business will help Barrick save US$2 billion by the end of 2016. The gold producer had already laid off 20 employees earlier this year and is now planning to lay off the majority of its 110 office workers.

The Cortez mine is located 100 kilometers southwest of Elko, Nevada, is one of the { U.S. | U.S. }assets Barrick is trying to sell. Barrick has also reduced workforce in Toronto and has shut down its office in Perth, Australia.

“While they are valuable assets… if we can generate more value for our shareholders by those assets being in another company, then we are open-minded to that”, Dushnisky said. This type of proposal is called “streaming” because it involves the sale of “future productions” from the mine and upfront payment for the same.

The amount will be used towards Barrick’s goal of raising at least $3 billion this year to reduce its $12.9 billion debt.

Over the past year, Barrick’s share has lost around 30% of its value.

Excess supply over demand has badly hit the commodity market.

The mines named in the announcement included: Golden Sunlight, Ruby Hill, Round Mountain, Bald Mountain, Hilltop, as well as Spring Valley. The president seemed satisfied with the level of interest, expecting to complete the deal by the end of 2015.