Ghana eyes to become an integrated aluminium producer, seeks strategic partner to upgrade VALCO’s smelter

Ghana, popularly known for abundant bauxite reserves, is now reportedly aiming at creating an integrated aluminium industry in the country, said Ghana Lands and Natural Resources minister Samuel Jinapor on Monday, June 13.

With that aim, Ghana is running campaigns and trying its best to find a strategic partner which would help upgrade a state-owned Volta Aluminium Company’s (VALCO) aluminium smelter, said Jinapore on the same day at the Africa CEO Forum conference in Abidjan.

"Today we are insisting ... that exploration, prospecting, mining, refining, smelting, the downstream industry, all of it must be in Ghana," Jinapor said.

Ghana’s move to turn the country into an integrated aluminium producer and expand domestic processing capabilities looks like Africa’s another top bauxite producer, Guinea, which motivates its domestic miners to build alumina refineries.

However, Jinapore did not mention specifically that how much fund the government is expecting from the strategic partner to revamp the smelter.

VALCO, established in 1967, was acquired by the Ghana government in 2008. But later on, it became a subsidiary of GIADEC when the government handed over its 100 per cent shares to it, as part of its mandate, under the Integrated Aluminium Industry.