Tanzania starts refining gold to international standard

Bank of Tanzania Governor Prof Florens Luoga has commended the State Mining Corporation (Stamico) for enabling Tanzania start refining gold to international standards, urging the refinery to acquire accreditation certificate to enable the Bank to start buying refined gold as part of its foreign reserves.

He said this after visiting the gold refinery, Mwanza Precious Minerals Limited, where he witnessed the developments of the plant including trial production which started on April 21, 2021.

“The envisaged dream for Tanzania to stop exporting raw gold is certainly coming true,” Prof Luoga said.

The BoT Governor expressed delight to hear that the refinery is also capable of extracting other valuable minerals from the gold concentrates.

“Given the production capacity of this plant, I believe that it will be able to refine all locally mined gold as well as those from neighbouring countries. The final product will bear the originality mark from Tanzania, and hence promote Tanzania overseas,” the Governor said.

Mwanza Precious Minerals Limited is jointly owned by Stamico (25 per cent) and two foreign companies, ROZZELA General LLC of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and ACME Consultant Engineers PTE Limited from Singapore (RGTACE), which jointly own 75 per cent.

Acting Managing Director of Stamico Dr Venance Mwasse told Governor Luoga that the joint venture and the shares owned by Stamico will continue increasing at the rate of 5 per cent and after 15 years, the state-owned mining company will have 51 per cent shares reducing those of foreign companies to 49 per cent.

Stamico will also be getting 2.5 per cent from total sales as management fee.

The refinery started trial operations on April 21, 2021. It can refine 480 kilogrammes per day at the 999.9 purity and becomes one of the biggest gold plants in Africa.

Dr Mwasse mentioned the benefits of the refinery as including increased revenue to government through inspection fees, local government levies, generation of employment, technology transfer and reduction of gold smuggling.

Also, other minerals could be extracted and given value and BoT will be able to start keeping gold as one of its reserves as provided for by the laws of the land. Governor Luoga was accompanied by other BoT officials.

The refinery is strategically located in the gold-rich zone as the precious metal is found in Geita, Mara, Shinyanga and Mwanza regions. The plant is expected to refine gold from small scale and corporate gold miners and those from neighbouring countries through gold dealers.