By Ayo Kehinde
Burkina Faso has inaugurated its first gold refinery, with President Ibrahim Traoré declaring that the West African country must move beyond extracting its mineral resources and develop the entire value chain locally.
Traoré inaugurated the Raffinerie Nationale d’Or du Burkina Faso (RAFFINOR-BF) in Ouagadougou on Monday, September 28, describing the facility as an important step towards greater control of the country’s natural resources.
The refinery, built at a cost of more than 11 billion CFA francs ($19 million), is expected to allow Burkina Faso to undertake activities including gold refining, assaying, certification and secure storage domestically.
The inauguration represents the latest step in the military-led government’s push to increase national control over the mining sector and retain a larger share of the economic value generated by the country’s mineral resources.
The government said the facility is designed to process gold from both industrial and artisanal mining operations and convert doré gold into refined bars.
Speaking after inspecting the facility, Traoré said his administration no longer wanted Burkina Faso to remain a country that simply extracts minerals and exports them for processing elsewhere.
“Our ambition is no longer to be a country that simply extracts and ships its raw materials abroad. We want to refine all our metals locally … we want to have the entire value chain here,” Traore said.
Traoré also linked the refinery to a broader industrialisation agenda, saying the country’s mineral resources should contribute to industrial transformation, job creation and local development.
The government has presented the refinery not merely as a gold-processing facility but as part of a wider effort to increase the country’s capacity to control, process and commercialise its natural resources.
RAFFINOR-BF has an initial refining capacity of 164 tonnes of gold annually.
According to the government, the facility has been designed in phases, with a second stage expected to increase capacity to 515 tonnes per year. Its modular design allows additional refining lines to be added as operations expand.
The refinery includes a foundry, analytical laboratory, secure storage facilities and a jewellery unit, providing infrastructure for several stages of the gold value chain within Burkina Faso.
Officials say the facility will also improve the country’s ability to determine the quantity and quality of gold produced and strengthen traceability of the precious metal.
During the inauguration, Traoré was presented with the first gold bar refined entirely in Burkina Faso.
The government expects RAFFINOR-BF to create approximately 100 direct jobs and more than 5,000 indirect jobs, as the refinery stimulates activities around mining, transportation, logistics, assaying, jewellery production and gold marketing.
The project cost more than 11 billion CFA francs, equivalent to about $19 million, and was financed principally by the Burkinabè state through SONASP, in partnership with domestic private-sector interests.
The refinery’s capacity is considerably higher than Burkina Faso’s recorded annual production in recent years, but officials say the long-term objective is not only to process domestic production but also to establish the country as a regional centre for gold refining.
Government figures presented earlier this year showed that the country produced more than 94 tonnes of gold in 2025, representing an increase of more than 30 tonnes from the previous year.
About 43 tonnes came from artisanal and semi-mechanised operations, according to figures presented by the government.
World Gold Council data also puts Burkina Faso’s 2025 mine production at about 94 tonnes, placing it among Africa’s significant gold producers.
The country’s dependence on gold has also made control of the sector a major economic and security issue.
In February 2024, Burkina Faso suspended the issuance of export permits for artisanal and semi-mechanised gold and other precious commodities, saying the measure was necessary to clean up and better organise the marketing of the country’s mineral resources.
Reuters reported at the time that gold was Burkina Faso’s leading export and that artisanal mining accounted for a substantial part of regional production.
Gold has become the backbone of Burkina Faso’s extractive economy over the past two decades, with industrial and artisanal mining contributing substantially to exports, government revenue and employment.
However, much of the gold historically left the country in unrefined or semi-refined form, meaning that some stages of the value chain — including refining, certification and associated commercial activities — took place outside Burkina Faso.
The government has increasingly argued that the country should capture more of that value domestically.
The inauguration of RAFFINOR-BF is the latest and most visible expression of that policy, giving Burkina Faso its first national gold refinery and providing the Traoré administration with an important new instrument in its drive for greater control over the country’s mineral resources.
