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Sudan doubles 2017 gold production targets in 9 months

October 20, 2017 at 4:38 am

Sudan has doubled its 2017 gold production targets in just nine months, Sudan’s Ministry of Minerals announced yesterday.

In a report the Ministry declared that 74.6 tons of gold had been mined during the first three quarter period of this year, “The traditional mining companies produced 63.2 tons, doubling the planned production, while the small mining companies produced 0.2 tons and the major mining companies produced 11.2 tons,” the report said.

The Ministry said in the same report that Sudan had plans to expand mineral production in 2018, monitor company licences, attract new investment in a bid to introduce modern mining technology.

The mining sector is currently dominated by private gold prospectors who are regulated by central government policy for purchasing and exporting the country’s gold reserves. Under guidelines introduced in March this year to clamp down on illegal smuggling, private prospectors must sell at least 50% of the gold mined back to the Central Bank of Sudan. Sudan’s gold accounts for 37% of total exports and last year amounted to revenues of $1.2 billion.

The figures make Sudan the third ranked country gold producer in Africa after South Africa and Ghana and the ninth biggest producer worldwide.

Read: Sudan economy to get worse, as inflation rockets