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Guinea’s gold refinery enters its commissioning phase
The technical team arrived in Conakry on 26 June 2026. The facility meant to absorb the country’s entire output moves from announcement to trials.
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A technical team arrived in Conakry on 26 June 2026 to begin commissioning the country’s gold refinery. Compliance trials follow, then the effective start of production.
The facility reports a capacity of 2,000 kilograms of gold per day — around ten tonnes a week — extensible under continuous operation.
Why the date matters
A week earlier, on 19 June, President Mamadi Doumbouya brought together operators from the industrial, semi-industrial and artisanal chains to announce the end of raw gold exports. His words: “the export of raw gold now belongs to the past.”
A ban without a refining facility would be a ban on exporting altogether. The refinery’s timetable is therefore the whole sector’s timetable: until it is running at rate, the measure weighs on every producer.
What the buyer gains
Moving to a bar assayed in Guinea simplifies the transaction. Where doré required fineness to be verified on arrival, at the buyer’s own refiner, a certified bar arrives with its fineness already established.
That is one cost less, one delay less, and one less source of dispute over fineness discrepancies.
What we are watching
The point to follow is not the announced capacity but the real throughput of the first months, and the turnaround between handing over a lot and receiving the bars. That is what will determine our own delivery times.
We will say so here once we have observed figures rather than announced ones.
Sources: Guinéenews, Presidency of the Republic of Guinea. Photograph: Allen Drebert, public domain.
