Menu

Kian Smith Trade & Co Limited (Kian Smith), a mining explorer and services company, has begun the construction of Nigeria’s first gold refinery. The refinery will be officially launched in March 2019.

Earlier in October, the company secured the first gold refining licence from the Federal Government.

The refinery will start with a production capacity of three tonnes of gold and one tonne of silver per month.

“We will be supplying the Central Bank of Nigeria, the jewellery and the electronics industry,” said Nere Teriba, Managing Director of Kian Smith.

She added that the refinery will provide more than 500,000 jobs in two years. It will also support its suppliers in their bid to become registered business entities in the mining sector.

According to Teriba, there are at least one million unregistered business participants in the Nigerian mining sector. This includes gold miners, sponsors, dealers, processors, aggregators and gold-workers.

“The formalisation, organisation and development we bring to the value chain will provide quick wins to the Nigerian economy,” she said.

Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony on Thursday, the Governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun, represented by the Commissioner for Agriculture, Adepeju Adebajo, said that the refinery project is in line with the government’s industrialisation plan.

The Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Abubakar Bwari, said, “The present administration is determined to develop the mining sector to act as a catalyst for sustainable economic growth of the country.”

He noted that the ministry has discovered that a well-organised gold value chain can trigger an economic revolution as it did in India, South Africa, and Switzerland.

According to a statement by Kian Smith, the company has already secured a significant monthly supply of gold from Zamfara, Kebbi, Kwara, Niger, Kaduna, Ibadan, Ile-Ife and Ilesha; and about 100 kilograms monthly supply from other parts of Africa.

“We are currently finalising supply agreements and terms from suppliers in Kano,” said Teriba. “Next week, we will be securing supply from Kogi State.”

Established in 2011, Kian Smith is involved in minerals, commodities and marine services. The company was also a silver sponsor of the Nigerian Mining Week which held in Abuja on October 15-17.