Ghana seeking strategic partner to rebuild VALCO aluminum smelter

Ghana is on a roadshow to find a strategic partner to “revamp” state-owned Volta Aluminum Company’s (VALCO) aluminium smelter, Ghana Lands and Natural Resources minister Samuel Jinapor said on Monday at the Africa CEO Forum conference in Abidjan.

Jinapor said Ghana, which has ample reserves of aluminium ore bauxite, aims to create an integrated aluminium industry in the country.

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

Ghana’s push to expand domestic processing capabilities echoes a move by Africa’s top bauxite producer, Guinea, which is requiring miners to build alumina refineries in the country.

Jinapor did not specify how much the government is looking to get from a strategic partner to fund the smelter upgrade.

(By Bate Felix, Nellie Peyton and Helen Reid; Editing by Jan Harvey and David Evans)