Burkina Faso has inaugurated its first gold refinery in the capital, Ouagadougou, with President Ibrahim Traoré presented with the first gold bar refined entirely in the country.
The refinery, named RAFFINOR-BF, was inaugurated by Traoré on Monday as part of the government’s efforts to increase local processing of the country’s gold and retain more value from its mineral resources.
The facility was built at a cost of more than 11bn CFA francs, about $19m, with funding from the state through the National Precious Substances Company (SONASP) and private partners, according to the Burkinabe government.
RAFFINOR-BF has an initial refining capacity of 164 tonnes of gold per year, with plans to increase this to 515 tonnes in a second phase.
The facility includes a foundry, analysis laboratory, secure storage area and jewellery unit. It is designed to transform gold doré into fine gold bars with purity of up to 99.9%, according to authorities.
During the inauguration, Traoré said his government wanted to move away from exporting raw mineral resources and instead develop the full value chain within Burkina Faso.
“Our ambition is no longer to be just a country that extracts and takes its raw material outside. We want to refine all our metals here and have the entire value chain here,” Traoré said, according to the government.
The first gold bar produced and refined at the facility was presented to Traoré during the ceremony.
The government said the refinery is expected to strengthen its control over the gold sector by allowing more of the country’s gold to be processed, analysed and certified locally.
Burkina Faso is one of the major gold producers in sub-Saharan Africa, with gold remaining a major source of export earnings. The new refinery is part of broader reforms by Traoré’s government aimed at increasing state participation and local value addition in the mining sector.
The government said RAFFINOR-BF could eventually position Burkina Faso as a regional centre for gold refining and further reduce its reliance on processing the country’s gold outside its borders.
