Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Mines, Petroleum and Energy, Mamadou Sangafowa-Coulibaly, announced on 16 September 2026 that the country’s first domestic gold-refining unit will enter operation by the end of the first half of 2027, at the close of a coordination meeting on operationalising the Société Ivoirienne des Métaux Précieux (SIMEP) in Abidjan, according to Fraternité Matin.
What was announced
The refining unit, to be built in Abidjan, will have a processing capacity of around 100 tonnes of gold per year at full operation, according to the minister. Alongside the refinery, SIMEP will operate a national buying counter (comptoir national) that aggregates gold produced through authorised small-scale and artisanal mining (EMAPE) channels and ensures its traceability from extraction through to refining, per Afriksoir. Deputy chief of staff Souleymane Soro, who is coordinating the project, said the refining unit will be based in Abidjan while SIMEP’s broader activities will extend nationwide.
The mechanism: an integrated chain, not just a plant
SIMEP’s mandate covers four links: semi-industrial mine operation, gold collection from small-scale producers, refining, and international commercialisation. Three named partners support different stages: US-based StoneX will handle sales and access to international markets, drawing on its financial capacity and global network; AlphaStream will organise the collection network; and AVA will provide logistics and security. The World Gold Council is supporting SIMEP’s alignment with international precious-metals standards. This structure marks a shift in Ivorian gold policy from a focus on upstream production toward controlling the commercial links — traceability, compliance and margin — where more value is typically captured.
The ownership and financing
SIMEP is a public-participation company. The Ivorian state and the Société pour le Développement Minier de Côte d’Ivoire (SODEMI) jointly hold 49% of its capital, with total national participation, including private Ivorian investors, reaching 70%, according to Afriksoir. The Council of Ministers authorised the state and SODEMI’s capital participation on 3 December 2025, fixing SIMEP’s capital at 5 billion FCFA (roughly $8.6 million), a figure the government describes as equivalent to the refining unit’s estimated construction cost. The project’s concept note and the StoneX partnership were approved earlier, at a presidential council on 4 June 2025.
The actors
Sangafowa-Coulibaly has pushed for downstream mineral processing in Côte d’Ivoire for several years; he raised the refinery project with financial and technical partners during a March 2025 visit to Washington, framing it as part of building “a genuine economy around Ivorian extractive resources.” The 16 September meeting brought together SIMEP’s institutional and private partners to coordinate the operational rollout ahead of the 2027 target.
The implication
A 100-tonne annual refining capacity would be substantial relative to Côte d’Ivoire’s current gold output; the government’s stated aim is to capture more value domestically from a mining sector that has so far exported largely unrefined material. The project also functions as a formalisation tool for Côte d’Ivoire’s artisanal and small-scale mining sector, which the government wants to fold into a traceable, authorised supply chain running through the national buying counter rather than informal channels. The approach parallels moves elsewhere in West Africa — Guinea’s push for local bauxite and alumina processing, and Ghana’s restrictions on unrefined artisanal gold exports — suggesting a regional pattern of producer states trying to move up the value chain rather than simply increasing extraction volumes.
What remains uncertain
No capital cost beyond SIMEP’s own 5 billion FCFA capitalisation has been disclosed for constructing the refinery itself, and the relationship between that figure and the plant’s actual build cost is not detailed in current reporting. It is not yet clear how effectively the buying counter will draw artisanal producers away from existing informal sales channels, which has been a persistent challenge for similar formalisation efforts across the region. Whether the refinery reaches its 100-tonne design capacity on the stated H1 2027 timeline, and how much gold the buying counter actually aggregates from EMAPE producers in its first months, are the next points to watch.