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Rogers compensates for outage, Air Canada enters partnership with Emirates and Barrick Gold reveals encouraging production results

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By Louis Allen - 
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Rogers Communications (TSX: RCI.B) has announced it will credit its customers for five days of service as a result of the company’s outage that occurred last week, impacting cellular and internet service for millions of Canadians.

The Canadian telecom giant blamed the outage on a network system failure after a maintenance update on its core network.

Rogers Communications chief executive officer Tony Staffieri said the company is striving to make changes to prevent another occurrence.

“You have my personal commitment that Rogers will make every change and investment needed to help ensure that it will not happen again,” he said.

Rogers Communications spokesperson Chloe Luciani-Girouard also weighed in, stating the company understands the impact the outage had on the greater community and is doing everything to make amends.

“We have been listening to our customers and Canadians from across the country who have told us how significant the impacts of the outage were for them,” she said.

“We know that we need to earn back their trust.”

The company hopes the credited five days of service will bring some joy to its suffering customers, vowing to do better in the future. 

MTY Food Group

As millions of Canadians experienced the brunt of the Rogers’ outage, Canadian-based MTY Food Group (TSX: MTY) announced its restaurants lost “tens of millions of dollars in sales” as a result of the 8 July mishap.

With the outage affecting over 12 million users of Rogers’ networks, MTY Food Group chief executive officer Eric Lefebvre said the costs are starting to pile up.

“An outage of that duration is going to cause problems and for many of our franchisees that operate with Rogers, you know, not only [debit] cards were not available but even credit cards for a large portion of our franchisees, and that happened on the Friday which is one of the top days of the week,” he said.

“It cost us, we’re still counting, but it’s tens of millions of dollars in sales.”

Rogers insists the outage serves as a wake-up call for consideration of diversifying its network coverage with more than one carrier.

Air Canada

Air Canada (TSX: AC) has announced it has entered into a strategic partnership with Emirates with plans to engage in codesharing.

Both airlines announced the news in a joint statement this week, vying to codeshare in an effort to create more options for customers when travelling on its networks.

Air Canada chief executive officer Michael Rousseau said entering the partnership is a great opportunity for the company.

“As we continue pursuing our strategy of expanding our global reach in response to growing opportunities in VFR (visiting friends and relatives) markets that serve Canada’s large multicultural communities, we are very pleased to form a strategic partnership with Emirates, a highly respected flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates with a hub in the vibrant city of Dubai,” he said.

The deal will see Air Canada customers receive improved choices when travelling to the United Arab Emirates and other locations beyond Dubai.

Likewise, Emirates customers will benefit when travelling to Toronto and other places where the Canadian airline flies.

More details will be announced once finalised, such as specific codeshare routes.

Barrick Gold

Barrick Gold (TSX: ABX) has announced  its gold production for the second quarter hit 1.043 million ounces, up just slightly from the 2021 second quarter’s 1.041Moz.

On top of this, Barrick produced 120 million pounds of copper in the second quarter and remains on track to achieve its production guidance for the year.

The dual-listed Canadian gold mining company increased its production from 990,000oz in the first quarter to the 1.043Moz in the second, marking a 5% quarter-on-quarter improvement.

Barrick’s gold production increases were put down to encouraging performances at its Carlin, Turquoise Ridge, Veladero, Bulyanhulu and North Mara operations.

As for the company’s copper production, it largely benefited from Barrick’s Lumwana mine.

Capital Power

Capital Power (TSX: CPX) has partnered with Manulife Investment Management (TSX: MFC) to acquire MCV, a natural gas combined-cycle cogeneration facility, for US$894 million (C$1.17 billion).

The companies will acquire the 1.63GW natural gas combined-cycle cogeneration facility in the US from OMERS Infrastructure.

Capital Power and Manulife will contribute $186 million towards the acquisition, gaining equal stakes in the largest natural gas-fired cogeneration facility in the US.

Capital Power president and chief executive officer Brian Vaasjo said the company was well poised to make the exciting purchase.

“Located in Michigan, it is the largest gas-fired cogeneration facility in the United States and combined with its excellent reliability history and operating flexibility, Midland Cogen is a critical asset to support grid reliability during the transition to renewables and is extremely well-positioned for re-contracting beyond 2030.”

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