Khartoum– After about 22 months of war in Sudan, the mining sector began to recover and escalate the rate of gold production and its revenues, but problems in marketing and export contributed to smuggling towards the middle of the product, which prompted the government to search for new markets, bring refineries to purify it and establish a gold exchange to buy it at the prices of global markets.
According to the Ministry of Minerals, the civil or traditional mining sector is spreading in most parts of Sudan, where it is concentrated in 14 states out of 18 states in the country, and more than two million people work about 80% of the amount of gold produced in the country, while concession companies produce 20%.
Security sources and purchases of gold in western Sudan revealed to Al -Jazeera Net that all the gold product in the states of Darfur and Kordofan (8 states) is currently outside the state’s control, and most of them are bought businessmen linked to the Rapid Support Forces and flee it through neighboring countries by air and Barra.
The majority of hostility works with wages in extracting stones carrying a few fines of gold that are ground and extracted from them, through “mills”, and the stones are extracted from wells that give indicators through the mineral detection devices about the presence of the precious metal.
Production fluctuation
Sudan’s gold production reached its peak in 2017 by 107 tons, according to the database map, then fell to 41.8 tons in the next year, and the deterioration of production in 2023 in which the war erupted to 6.4 tons.
The Central Bank of Sudan announced – in its annual report on the year 2022 – gold topped the country’s highest oil exports by 46.3% of Sudan’s external exports with a cash value equal to 2.02 billion dollars out of a total of $ 4.357 billion are the total country’s exports.
Mohamed Taher Omar, Director General of the Sudanese Mineral Resources Company, “The Supervisory Arms of the Ministry of Minerals”, explains that gold production exceeded 64 tons in 2024, compared to 43 tons in 2022, and export revenues of precious metal amounted to 1.7 billion dollars, which contributed to supporting the war effort, and the company strengthened its role in economic development by attracting foreign investments.
According to Omar’s speech to Al -Jazeera Net, the company was operating in 14 states before the war, but it declined to 6 states, due to the security situation with the focus of operations in the states of the Nile, North River, the Red Sea, Kasla and Qadarfar.
Lower fees
Omar states that the company succeeded in restoring its balance during the war, by facilitating the procedures of companies operating in the gold sector, by accelerating transactions, reducing fees, and collecting all procedures in one window, which contributed to increasing production and revenues, and the company plans to raise production this year to 100 tons.
Mohamed Taher explained that the companies and investors who left Sudan after the war returned to invest in the mining sector, and Omar confirmed that 3 foreign companies are currently producing gold in Sudan, which are Moroccan, Russian and Jordanian, in addition to investors from Qatar who are seeking to enter the sector.
To encourage the organized sector from companies – Taher says – the state’s fees for the re -grinding mining waste will be reduced from 28% to 20% and the concession companies to 18% and is expected to lead to a jump in production during the coming months, and indicates that the traditional sector produces more than 75% of gold and the remaining companies.
Omar admitted that 52% of gold exports pass through official channels, while 48% are out of state control, which calls for more work to combat smuggling, activate government purchase windows for gold produced from traditional mining, tightening control using advanced technologies, and opening offices at all crossings and airports in safe areas, to ensure that gold is not smuggled.
He adds that the company succeeded in controlling the mining companies of the Rapid Support Forces, where 3 companies operate under the supervision of the Ministry of Finance, and similar procedures are carried out for 3 other companies.
On the external market for Sudanese gold, Omar says that the government is working to open new markets to export gold, explaining that the UAE’s choice to be a major market was based on the desire of the exporters, given its financial system and its global market, and markets are opened in Qatar and the Sultanate of Oman, and there is a trend towards Saudi Arabia.
Smuggling outlets
Security sources reveal to Al -Jazeera Net that all the production of traditional mining in the states of Kordofan and Darfur is smuggled abroad and is estimated at about a third of the sector’s production in the country in the absence of government control and the control of the rapid support forces in the states and localities produced in western Sudan.
According to the sources that requested not to disclose their identity, the Rapid Support Forces have a gold mine in the Sinqo area located in the Al -Radoum locality in South Darfur alongside other mines, most notably Aghbash, Darah, Jumbana and Umm Hajara, and thousands of traditional minerals work.
The same sources add that businessmen are linked to leaders in rapid support who buy gold production from hostility and are smuggled through Central Africa, Chad and Darfur with small aircraft landing in the areas controlled by the forces.
Al -Junaid Company, which is affiliated with Rapid Support, is also active in treating gold waste that comes out of the traditional “mills” and is re -processed with advanced devices in locations in the Al -Nahhas area near the border with the southern Sudan.
Kordofan mines
A company linked to the popular movement led by Abdulaziz Al -Helou in the state of South Kordofan also buys all the producer in gold production sites in the movement control areas and is smuggled through South Sudan, according to security sources.
For his part, the journalist specializing in the affairs of North Kordofan State, Ibrahim Jumaa, says that the gold mining sites are spread in the localities of Jabra Al -Sheikh, Judri, Abu Hadid, Al -Jumaa, Al -Jumikh, Jubailat, Al -Zaraf, Abu Zaeima and Umm Bader, and is the crude located in North Kordofan is one of the finest species.
Al -Jazeera Net, the journalist Net explains that there are 3 companies operating in the production areas that have achieved great revenues, but it was affected by the war in relation to the presence of mines on the path of the Rapid Support Forces supply from Darfur on its way to Khartoum or vice versa.
The stock exchange is the solution
According to Jumaa, most of the gold product escapes through the Rapid Support Forces, which use 5 dirt bachelors for small aircraft that spread in multiple points in the western production line in North Kordofan state, as well as the absence of government control, which loses the country with great resources.
In turn, economist Haitham Fathi explains that with the slowdown of investments and the suspension of economic activities such as real estate and manufacturing, Sudanese capital has headed towards traditional mining of gold, which contributed to increasing production.
The economist of Al -Jazeera Net says that there is an increase in gold prices in global markets, which requires the government to expedite the creation of a gold exchange, which would limit Gold smuggling and reserve building at the central bank.
About 50% of gold production (almost) is smuggled abroad, as the minerals seek to sell it at the global market prices, and this wide smuggling reduces the economic returns for gold exports, which reduces its impact on the country’s economy, and if smuggling is reduced, gold revenues can reach 7 billion dollars annually, according to the expert.
