President says gold refinery viable

President Irfaan Ali on Monday at the opening of the Guyana Energy Conference and Supply Chain Expo at the Marriott Hotel said that a gold refinery is viable in Guyana, adding that there is serious interest in the establishment of one.

Noting that with the cost of energy eventually being lowered and Guyana “being a golden country in many ways”, Ali said that with “our gold reserve it now makes the gold refinery viable.”

He said that “we are already seeing great interest in the establishment of a gold refinery here in Guyana, tremendous interest in the establishment of a gold refinery.”

The government has expressed confidence that gold production is set to increase in Guyana as interest continues to mount in the country’s mining industry.

In his speech at the conference’s opening Ali had explained that in the first phase of gas, that is the 40% capacity of the pipeline “you are looking at 4,000 barrels of propane per day… Our local consumption now is 800 barrels per day so we will be producing at least 4,000 barrels and that is in phase one, immediately we have 3,200 barrels available for export, this has to be moved, this has to be transported and here is where the bridge link to Suriname across the Corentyne River is key and critical.”

He had stressed that bauxite is also an important link noting that with Suriname and Guyana combined there is about 1.5b metric tonnes of bauxite reserves “with the natural gas and the cost of energy coming down we can now move to upscale high value manufacturing in an aluminum plant, building an aluminum plant to support the deep water port.”

He stressed, “this is the value addition, this is the value creation, this is what it opens up but none of this can take place if we don’t make the investment now, make the investment in infrastructure.”

In April 2018, then Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman had said that a South African company would be visiting to conduct a feasibility study on a gold refinery and the Government of Guyana was “strongly” considering the possibility.

Speaking at a Guyana Gold Board (GGB) press conference, Trotman said that such a venture would modernise the industry.

“I should say as well that the GGB has received a number of proposals as it relates to a refinery in Guyana. We have been doing this method for decades but we believe the time has come. I said before that every situation gives rise to opportunities and so we are looking, strongly looking at the possibility of setting up a refinery either through a public-private partnership or do it through government,” Trotman had said.

Trotman also noted that they had received proposals from companies in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, India, Canada and the United States of America along with Suriname and local companies that are interested in setting up a gold refinery.

“…So we are moving in the direction of modernizing the industry,” he said.

There was no further word on what transpired with this study.