Burkina Faso has opened its first gold refinery as the military-led government seeks to process more of the country’s mineral wealth at home and retain greater value from its gold industry.
President Captain Ibrahim Traoré commissioned the Raffinerie Nationale d’Or du Burkina Faso, RAFFINOR-BF, on September 28, 2026, during a ceremony at its five-hectare site in the Ouaga 2000 district of Ouagadougou.
Traoré received the first gold bar to be fully refined inside the country during the ceremony. He said the move was part of a wider effort to end reliance on exporting raw materials for processing abroad.
Traoré said Burkina Faso has reached a historic milestone in its quest for economic independence. He said the ambition is no longer to be a country that simply extracts and ships its raw materials abroad, but to refine all metals on site and have the entire value chain in Burkina Faso.
The facility has an initial capacity of 164 tonnes of gold a year, with plans for a second phase that will raise its annual processing capacity to 515 tonnes. It will handle doré gold from both industrial and artisanal mines and turn it into fine gold bars with a purity level of 99.9 percent.
The plant has been fitted with a foundry, laboratory, secure storage facilities and a jewellery workshop. It was built at a cost of 11 billion CFA francs, about 19 million dollars, funded by the state through the National Precious Substances Company, SONASP, working together with private partners.
Officials estimate that the refinery will provide about 100 direct jobs and more than 5,000 indirect employment opportunities.
