COMMODITY trading house Trafigura Group has agreed to purchase 700,000 ounces of gold doré from Ghana’s Heath Goldfields and provide $65m in debt, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday.
The agreement is aimed at financing the restart of oxide ore operations at the Heath Goldfields’s Bogoso-Prestea mine.
Under the arrangement, Trafigura will offtake gold doré produced at the Bogoso-Prestea processing facility, with deliveries expected to begin later this year, said Bloomberg News. The financing will fund the resumption of mining at the site.
Trafigura, the world’s largest nonferrous metals trader, moved into precious metals in 2025 as bullion prices surged, and is understood to be building a dedicated desk trading gold and silver doré — semi-processed bars that refineries convert into standard commodity-grade products. Late last year the company joined a lending group that agreed to back Sierra Leone’s first large-scale commercial gold mine.
Heath is among a number of Ghanaian companies seeking to expand as the government pursues greater local ownership of the country’s gold mining sector. The firm recently bid for the Damang operation, which Gold Fields will transfer to the state later this month, though that tender was won by Engineers and Planners Co., a mining services contractor run by a brother of President John Mahama.
The Bogoso-Prestea asset is also caught up in international arbitration proceedings brought against the Ghanaian government last year by Blue Gold Ltd., which claims to hold the rightful title to the mining rights.
Commodity trading groups have increasingly used substantial cash reserves to diversify into new markets, securing supply deals and structured financing arrangements with a broader range of clients.
