MOSCOW — Russian aluminium giant Rusal said on Thursday it has agreed with Ghana's state-owned Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC) to jointly develop bauxite mining and alumina refining projects in Ghana, in a deal announced during the Russia-Africa summit in Moscow.

Source: Reuters via Kitco News

The projects will be carried out through two joint ventures in which Rusal will hold majority stakes, the company said. Together they aim to mine up to 5 million tons of bauxite a year and to build an alumina refinery with an annual capacity of 1.2 million tons.

Source: Reuters via Kitco News

5 million tonsPlanned bauxite output per year
1.2 million tonsPlanned alumina refinery capacity per year
100+ million tonsEstimated bauxite resources at Nyinahin

The development area is the Nyinahin deposit in southwest Ghana, where Rusal said estimated resources are more than 100 million tons of bauxite — the ore from which alumina, and then aluminium, is made. Rusal chief executive Evgeny Nikitin outlined the production targets after a memorandum was signed on the sidelines of the summit, Russia's RIA state news agency reported.

Source: Mining.com.au (Reuters/RIA)

The deal matters to Rusal because the company has been rebuilding its raw-material supply lines: it produced 6.858 million tons of alumina in 2025, which was 85 percent of what it needed, and it has been looking to control more of its own bauxite and alumina supply since losing a large share of that supply in 2022.

Source: Reuters via Kitco News

For Ghana, the agreement replaces a search that began when the government last year cancelled a $1.2 billion lease agreement with local firm Rocksure International in order to seek a foreign partner for Nyinahin — yaani, about Rs 10,500 crore. GIADEC chief executive Reindorf Twumasi Ankrah was quoted in Rusal's statement as saying the deal fits his corporation's goal of building a fully integrated aluminium industry in Ghana, with bauxite processed inside the country instead of simply exported as ore.

Source: Reuters via Kitco News

Rusal is the world's largest aluminium producer outside China and already runs major bauxite operations in Guinea. The Ghana ventures were announced as President Vladimir Putin hosted delegations from 48 African countries in Moscow; the ownership split beyond Rusal's majority stakes, the investment amount and a construction timeline have not yet been published, so the projects remain agreements to develop, not production already under way.

Source: Reuters via TradingView