On Tuesday, April 4, Samuel Abu Jinapor, Minister of Lands and Natural Resources of Ghana, revealed his anticipation that a comprehensive development of an integrated aluminium industry, with an estimated bauxite resource base of over 900 million tonnes, would create around 2 million sustainable jobs and generate US$1 trillion of revenue for the country.
He said the real benefit of the country’s mineral resources is in the value they add. He stated, for instance, that bauxite sells at around US$40 to US$60 per tonne, while alumina for over US$400 per tonne and primary aluminium for US$2,000 per tonne, on average.
Mr Jinapor said all this at a Downstream Aluminium Industry Workshop hosted by the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC)at Senchi in the Eastern Region, adding that building an integrated aluminium industry would require long-term planning with emphasis on local value addition.
The minister also pointed out that Ghana suffered a loss of revenue over many years due to a lack of planning for developing an integrated aluminium industry.
Besides job creation and revenue generation, an integrated industry can also create local expertise through knowledge and technology transfer and contribute to the government’s industrialisation agenda and infrastructural development, according to Jinapor.
Since 2019, GIADEC has been putting all its efforts into leveraging opportunities in the upstream industries, like mining, refining, and smelting, by developing a long-term master plan. Plans are also to develop three additional mines in Nyinahini, Mpasaaso and Kyebi, conduct some modernisation works, and retrofit VALCO to smelt domestic alumina. The VALCO retrofit is expected to utilise nearly 300,000 tonnes of aluminium annually.
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