Burkina Faso/Gold refinery: Production capacity of 150 Tonnes of 99.99% pure gold per year

In less than a year’s time, Burkina Faso will no longer need to export its raw gold for refining. It will be refined locally before being marketed. Steps have been taken to make this ambitious idea a reality, as announced at a cabinet meeting on 5 April.

On Thursday 23 November 2023, the President of the Transition and Head of State, Captain Ibrahim Traore, laid the foundation stone for the launch of construction work on the plant, which will be responsible for refining Burkina Faso’s gold nationally, and certainly that of other ESA countries.

According to the Head of State, this is an opportunity to gain total control over this natural resource, which is making a major contribution to the growth of the national economy.

According to reports, the refinery has a production capacity of 150 tonnes of 99.99% pure gold a year, or around 400 kg of gold a day.

Located in Ouaga 2000, south of the capital of Burkina Faso, the new gold refinery will also help to prevent fraud in the export of this mining resource, according to the Head of State.

It will also create jobs for young people – 100 direct jobs and 5,000 indirect jobs, according to officials.

And that’s not all: the country’s authorities are also planning to set up a plant to process mining waste.

For this project, it’s only a matter of days. The idea behind the transition is to create a genuine value chain around the exploitation of gold

Papa Ibrahima