CAPE TOWN – Burkina Faso's gold production probably fell slightly last year due partly to security problems and attacks targeting industrial miners, the country's mines minister said on Tuesday.
Oumarou Idani told Reuters that he expected the West African country's gold production to total 50 t in 2019, down from 53 t in 2018.
He was speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the Mining Indaba conference in Cape Town.
Burkina Faso has been battling a rising insurgency which has killed 1 000 people since 2016 and driven nearly 500 000 from their homes. In this time, there have been dozens of attacks on industrial and small-scale mining operations.
Industrial-scale miners with operations in Burkina Faso include Endeavour Mining, Teranga Gold, Roxgold, and IAMGOLD.