According to business website Statista.com, Africa produced about 700,000 Kgs of gold in 2019. Interestingly, the continent has the capacity to refine more than twice that entire production. Different African countries appear to be ramping up refining capacity, the leading one being South Africa. According to a Reuters report, the South African Government approved 19 refining licenses between 2018 and March 2019.
The reports puts the number of operational or under construction refineries in Africa at 26 by 2019, across 14 African countries. Only 13 of those were willing to declare their refining data, reporting 1,400 tonnes every year – a third of the world’s gold production, worth around 260 trillion shillings. Below, our researcher Pearl Arigye maps the locations of some those refineries and their volume of production, where information is available. This list is for medium to large scale refiners and does not include the smaller artisanal refineries that are scattered across Africa.
Programs Officer,
Africa Centre for Energy and Mineral Policy (ACEMP)
