Large scale gold production hits all-time high in 2022

Large-scale gold production hit an all-time high of 3.1 million ounces in 2022, the Ghana Chamber of Mines has reported.

The figure represents an increment of 13% over the 2021 figure of 2.7 million ounces.

Speaking at the Ghana Chamber of Mines Annual General Meeting in Accra on Friday, June 9, 2023, the President of the Chamber, Joshua Mortoti, noted that a combination of fresh output and expansion of production at existing large-scale mines drove the large-scale sector’s contribution to national gold output from 2.7 million ounces in 2021 to 3.1 million ounces in 2022.

The country’s overall gold output including production from small-scale miners increased from 2.8 million ounces in 2021 to 3.7 million ounces in 2022, representing an increase of 32%.

The chamber’s producing member companies contributed 3 million ounces of the large-scale gold output with the remaining 35,421 ounces declared as being attributable to non-Chamber member large-scale mines.

In the preceding year, the corresponding outturns of the Chamber and non-Chamber mines were 2.7 million ounces and 9,631 ounces, respectively.

The recent upturn in exports of diamonds persisted in 2022, with an expansion in the volume of exports from 54,174 carats in 2021 to 82,252 carats in 2022. On a year-on-year basis, the volume of diamond exports improved by 52 percent.

The output of manganese fell from 3.3 million tonnes in 2021 to 3.2 million tonnes in 2022. In the same manner, the production of bauxite reduced from 0.839 million tonnes in 2021 to 0.773 million tonnes in 2022.

According to the president of the Chamber, the minerals and mining quarrying sector was the largest contributor to direct domestic taxes as mobilized by the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in 2022.

The sector’s fiscal payments amounted to GH₵6.380 billion, which represents 18.6% of aggregate direct domestic tax receipts. The impost receipts comprised corporate income tax (CIT) of GH₵3.580 billion, mineral royalties of GH₵1.796 billion, employee income tax (PAYE) of GH₵ 1.002 billion, and a residual impost revenue of GH₵ 1.108 million.

He further noted that, due to the upturn in export revenue, the minerals sector consolidated its position as the country’s largest source of forex in 2022. "Data from the Bank of Ghana suggests that mineral export revenue outstripped the proceeds from the export of crude oil and cocoa, as well as inward remittances in 2022.

The relative contribution of the minerals sector to total merchandise exports also increased from 36 percent in 2021 to 39 percent in 2022, which was higher than the outturns of 31 percent and 13 percent attributable to the crude oil and cocoa sectors in 2022 respectively," he noted.