The nation’s bauxite potential can be exploited without damaging the forest reserves, the head of Technical Services at Rocksure International Limited, Godfried Addo Ayisi has said.
At the 11th Annual Lecture of the Alumni Association of the University of Mines and Technology (ALUMat), Ayisi spoke on the subject of “Overview of Ghana’s Integrated Aluminium Industry (IAI)”
He maintained that since the exploration and mining operations in the 1940s, Ghana had been exporting bauxite ore and had benefited only from the mining aspect. In contrast, nations like Ukraine, China, and Brazil benefited from the upstream elements, such as alumina refinement and the alumina’s smelting into aluminium.
He said mining those untapped bauxite ore required best practices and methods like surface mining, that would protect the fauna and the flora of the forest reserves housing the mineral resource.
Ayisi stated that if suitable measures were taken to manage and add value to the raw natural resource, the nation could fully profit from mining bauxite.
He stated that bauxite in Ghana will cost $29 per metric ton from May to March 2022.
“This represented a decrease of $3 compared to the prices between February 2018 and April 2020, except for July and October 2018 each which recorded prices of $31.97 per metric ton”, he added.
Ayisi said the world market price of the bauxite ore, alumina and aluminium showed that the prices increase about tenfold from bauxite ore to alumina and about eight-fold from alumina to aluminium, saying, “Indeed, from bauxite ore to aluminium, the prices increase about 70 times”.
Sponsors of the seminar included Anglogold Ashanti Iduapriem Mine, Quantum LC Company Limited, Rocksure International Limited, and Impa Marine and Offshore Logistics Limited.
It took place at the UMaT School of Railway and Infrastructure Development in Essikado in the Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis.
