Ghana Accelerates the Local Beneficiation of its Mining Resources
Ghana certainly is richly endowed with mining resources and has plentiful reserves of gold, aluminum, lithium, manganese, to name a few. Actually, Ghana is famous for its Gold Coast for the rich supply of gold in that region. Today, as part of the #EnergyTransition, mining companies are shifting their investments to #CriticalMinerals.
In order to keep more benefits locally, Ghana is fostering higher Local Value Addition (#LVA). Among its recent successes, it is worth highlighting the following mineral LVA projects:
- Manganese refinery by Ghana Manganese Company (GMC)
- Gold refinery by Royal Ghana Gold Refinery
- Bauxite smelter by Ghana Bauxite Company
- Spodumene processing plant at Ewoyaa
The manganese refinery necessitated an investment of nearly USD 400 million. The new gold refinery by Royal Ghana Refinery will require a total investment of nearly USD 100 million and shall have a capacity to output 400 kg of gold daily, which would be worth nearly USD 4 million based on today’s market price for gold.
In the longer term, Ghana ambitions to become an #EV battery producer. According to certain estimates, the market for EV will approach USD 9 trillion by 2035. Currently, the value creation in Africa as part of the Global Value Chain (#GVC) for Electric Vehicles is dismally low.
Therefore, Ghana is gradually enacting laws and putting in place regulations to foster more local beneficiation of its key minerals. Africa must not miss the Green Transition high-speed train and leverage this global trend to impart dynamism into its socio-economic development.