Top gold producer Burkina Faso opens first refinery

Burkina Faso opened its first gold refinery on Monday, pushing ahead with plans to better organise the commercialisation of the precious metal in one of the continent's top producers.

The west African nation is the continent's third leading gold producer, churning out more than 94 tonnes of the precious metal last year, according to the World Gold Council.

But authorities traditionally struggle to control the informal gold mining sector, which has been blighted by jihadist violence and smuggling.

"Burkina Faso has reached a historic milestone in its quest for economic independence," the presidency said in a statement.

Under Captain Ibrahim Traore, who seized power in a 2022 coup, Burkina Faso has nationalised several gold mines and launched a push to revitalise the country's industrial output, from cotton to tomatoes and textiles.

The authoritarian leader -- who inaugurated the refinery in the capital Ouagadougou -- has pushed an agenda of domestically driven and anti-Western policies with the proclaimed aim of reclaiming national sovereignty.

"Our ambition is no longer to be a country that simply extracts and ships its raw materials abroad," the presidency quoted Traore as saying.

"We want to refine all our metals locally... we want to have the entire value chain here."

Burkina Faso suspended exports of gold from informal mining in 2024 in a bid to "better organise" the sector, Mines Minister Yacouba Zabre Gouba said at the time.

Traore had warned that vast quantities of gold were leaving the country "fraudulently", which "helps to fuel terrorism".

Burkina Faso is entrenched in battling jihadist groups, who control a large part of the country and carry out attacks, despite the mass mobilisation of a civilian volunteer force that supports the military.

Gold, seen as a safe haven investment, has hit record prices in recent months in a lucrative market that fuels different forms of trafficking, including for jihadists in the Sahel region.

The presidency said that the National Gold Refinery of Burkina Faso (RAFFINOR-BF), which had been under construction since 2023, has an annual production capacity of 164 tonnes of gold, rising to a projected long-term capacity of up to 515 tonnes.

The refinery, which cost 11 billion CFA francs ($19 million) to build, was funded by the state in partnership with the domestic private sector, it added.