Sudan is pushing to verify 2,000 tonnes of gold reserves and redirect its exports from Dubai to Riyadh, in a strategic pivot that could redraw the map of African gold trade. The country produced a record 70 tonnes in 2025 despite an ongoing civil war, but analysts estimate that smuggling costs the formal economy billions of dollars every year.
The geological case is credible. Sudan’s Geological Research Authority has confirmed 533 tonnes of gold reserves, with a further 1,100 tonnes under evaluation giving a plausible pathway to the 2,000-tonne target. Production has recovered sharply since the war began in April 2023, rising from 34.5 tonnes in 2022 to 65 tonnes in 2024 and 70 tonnes in 2025, as artisanal miners displaced from other sectors entered the formal market and the government cut taxes and fees to encourage registration. The Sudanese Mineral Resources Company recorded revenues of more than 1 trillion Sudanese pounds roughly $426 million in 2025, exceeding its own target by 132 percent.
The more consequential shift is geopolitical. At January’s Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh, Sudan’s Ministry of Mines and Saudi Arabia’s Gold Refinery Company struck an operational agreement for direct gold purchases, a deal analysts describe as a deliberate challenge to Dubai’s decades-long dominance as the primary clearing hub for African gold. The UAE imported 748 tonnes of gold from Africa in 2024 alone, and Sudan has been a major contributor both officially and through smuggling routes that SWISSAID estimates at 200 tonnes between 2012 and 2023. By routing exports through Riyadh, Khartoum gains a buyer less entangled in the RSF conflict allegations that have strained UAE-Sudan relations, while Saudi Arabia advances its Vision 2030 strategy to build a minerals processing hub.
The gap between potential and reality remains enormous. Only around 20 of Sudan’s 70 tonnes produced in 2025 moved through official export channels; the rest was smuggled or processed in informal refineries. Economic analyst Abdul-Azim Awad has argued that curbing smuggling alone could lift annual gold revenues to $7 billion. Sudan employs more than 2 million people in traditional mining, making sudden regulatory overhauls politically risky despite the financial case for formalisation.
The Bigger Picture Sudan’s play is part of a broader African reckoning with gold sovereignty. Ghana’s GoldBod model centralised licensing, formalised artisanal mining, domestic refining rebuilt reserves above $10 billion and drove a 41 percent appreciation in the cedi in 2025. Sudan is attempting something similar from a far more difficult starting point: active civil war, parallel governance structures, and export routes controlled by armed factions. The 2,000-tonne target signals ambition. Whether the Port Sudan government can capture the value its geology promises depends on whether it can end a conflict that is simultaneously destroying livelihoods and, paradoxically, driving more Sudanese into gold mining to survive.
Source: The National, Africa News Agency, Mining.com
