The governing board of the Volta Aluminum Company Limited (VALCO), led by Ambassador Horace Nii Ayi Ankrah, has held its first strategic engagement meeting with company management to address operational challenges and chart a course for the smelter’s revival.
The meeting, held recently in Accra, provided an opportunity for the board to engage management on key operational, administrative and strategic matters aimed at strengthening VALCO’s performance and advancing its mandate within Ghana’s industrial and manufacturing sector.
During the engagement, the board reaffirmed its commitment to providing strong leadership, policy direction and effective oversight to support management in repositioning VALCO as a critical driver of value addition, job creation and economic growth.
Management briefed the board on ongoing operations, prevailing challenges and strategic plans for the future. The engagement underscores a shared commitment by both parties to work collaboratively towards ensuring long term operational excellence and sustainable growth at VALCO.
VALCO currently operates at roughly 40 percent capacity, producing approximately 40,000 tonnes of aluminum annually against its nameplate capacity of 200,000 tonnes. The company employs about 750 workers at its Tema facility.
The smelter has struggled with high production costs, outdated machinery inherited from previous owners Kaiser Aluminum and Alcoa, and frequent shutdowns due to energy supply issues. The plant has been operating with the same dated technology for decades, resulting in one of the highest production costs per tonne of aluminum globally.
Government acquired Kaiser’s 90 percent stake in VALCO in 2004 for 18 million dollars and purchased the remaining 10 percent from Alcoa four years later for two million dollars, making it a wholly Ghanaian owned company under the Ghana Integrated Aluminum Development Corporation (GIADEC).
VALCO was established in 1967 as a joint venture between the Government of Ghana and Kaiser and Reynolds of the United States, forming a key component of Ghana’s industrialization strategy linked to the Volta River Project and Akosombo Dam. Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah, identified the Integrated Aluminum Industry (IAI) as the starting point for the country’s industrialization agenda.
The company initially began operations with three cell lines, producing 120,000 metric tonnes of aluminum annually. Significant expansions in 1970 and 1974 increased capacity to 200,000 metric tonnes per year, solidifying VALCO’s position as a key player in Sub-Saharan Africa’s primary aluminum production.
VALCO has gone through turbulent phases including a series of shutdowns largely due to lack of investment, repairs and maintenance. Since 2011, the smelter has resumed operations albeit at reduced capacity.
The government established GIADEC in 2018 with a mandate to develop and promote Ghana’s Integrated Aluminum Industry. GIADEC has developed a comprehensive strategy and master plan to utilize Ghana’s 900 million metric tonnes of bauxite deposits, existing aluminum smelter and related assets, with a key focus on value addition and job creation.
The modernization and retrofitting of VALCO is estimated to require 600 million dollars. The project aims to increase the plant’s current production to 300,000 tonnes annually, representing a 650 percent capacity increase. After retrofitting and modernizing the plant, the smelter is expected to create thousands of high paying direct and indirect jobs for Ghanaians.
Government inaugurated an investor selection committee in November 2025 to evaluate proposals from prospective investors and recommend the most suitable partner who brings capital, technology, technical expertise, local capacity building, environmentally responsible practices and a shared commitment to Ghana’s long term prosperity.
The absence of a domestic alumina refinery has long been the missing link in achieving full integration of Ghana’s aluminum industry. Currently, VALCO continues to import alumina from countries such as Jamaica to feed its production process.
Plans for the Integrated Aluminum Industry include building an in country alumina refinery to ensure a stable and cost effective supply of alumina to VALCO, reducing reliance on imports. The refinery project, Ghana’s first of its kind, will enable the country to refine its own bauxite into higher value alumina that will feed a modernized VALCO smelter.
GIADEC requires more than six billion dollars to fully develop Ghana’s aluminum value chain, including both the refinery and smelter modernization projects. The corporation has been actively engaging investors with the financial capability and industry expertise to support the IAI’s development.
The African Selection Group (ASG) has expressed strong interest in Ghana’s aluminum value chain, particularly in retrofitting and modernizing the VALCO smelter and constructing an alumina refinery. The company aims to enhance the smelter’s efficiency and production capacity from its current level to over 300,000 metric tonnes annually.
For almost six decades, VALCO has been a cornerstone in Ghana’s journey toward developing a robust and integrated aluminum industry. Using VALCO as the anchor of the IAI project, Ghana aims to add value to its over 700 million metric tonnes of bauxite deposits at Kibi and Nyinahin, potentially generating over 1.05 trillion dollars and creating approximately 2.3 million sustainable jobs.