Mineral intelligence
Gold mining assets in Africa
Gold is the one mineral that is money as well as metal, which is why a gold asset is valued differently from every other commodity in the ground.
STRATUM does not yet publish verified gold assets. Intelligence on this mineral is gathered continuously, and members are notified as assets clear verification.
What members see
Grades and assay results, resource and reserve estimates, evidence provenance, deal structure, infrastructure and power, and the geospatial layer. Identity of the operator is released only to compliance-cleared members on an approved request.
Gold mining: uses, market and Africa’s position
What gold is
Gold occurs in hard-rock reef and vein systems, in disseminated deposits within altered host rocks, and in alluvial placers where erosion has concentrated it in river gravels. Grade is quoted in grams per tonne, and because gold is dense and chemically inert it can be recovered by gravity, by flotation, or by cyanide leaching depending on how it is locked into the ore.
What gold is used for
Central bank reserves
Sovereign reserve managers hold gold as a store of value outside any single currency, and have been consistent net buyers in recent years.
Jewellery
Still the largest single end use by volume, concentrated in India, China and the Gulf.
Investment
Bars, coins and exchange traded funds, where demand tends to rise with monetary uncertainty rather than with industrial activity.
Electronics
Small volumes but hard to substitute, because gold does not corrode and conducts reliably at connector scale.
Gold market outlook
Gold behaves differently from industrial metals: its price responds to real interest rates, currency debasement and geopolitical risk rather than to manufacturing demand. That makes gold assets a partial hedge inside a resources portfolio, and it is why gold projects continue to attract capital in periods when base metals cannot.
Gold in Africa
Africa is one of the world's major gold producing regions, second only to Asia. Ghana, South Africa, Mali, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Tanzania, Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire are all significant producers, and artisanal and small scale mining accounts for a large and systematically under measured share of the continent's output. In Ghana, artisanal production overtook the industrial mines for the first time in 2025.
What to check on a gold asset
For a gold asset, look at whether the resource is reported to a recognised standard, whether assay results come from an accredited laboratory, and how metallurgical recovery has been tested. Grade alone means little without recovery, and a high grade intercept in a refractory ore body can be worth less than a lower grade one that leaches cleanly.