The Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) generated revenue exceeding $120 million in 2025, its highest in recent years, as the state-owned smelter presses ahead with a turnaround strategy anchored on expanding production capacity and moving beyond raw aluminium exports into finished products.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Dr. Robert Makila Sambian disclosed the figure during a February 26, 2026 visit to the company’s Tema facility by Labour, Jobs and Employment Minister Dr. Rashid Pelpuo, who met separately with management and the company’s local workers union to assess operational conditions and identify where government support is needed.
The revenue milestone arrives as VALCO operates 122 of its 200 available smelting cells and works to re-energise the remaining 78, a push that management says will allow its two potlines to run at full capacity for the first time in more than two decades. The company currently employs 800 workers. Dr. Sambian has previously outlined plans that could push annual revenues beyond $1 billion and create approximately 5,000 direct jobs if the full integrated aluminium vision, encompassing bauxite mining, refining, smelting, and value-added manufacturing, is realised by 2035.
A key milestone in that direction was reached in August 2025, when VALCO completed installation of a value-addition production line and began test runs of electrical conductor grade aluminium rods, the first time the company will have manufactured finished products rather than simply exporting primary metal since the 1960s. Test samples have been sent to Europe for certification.
Pelpuo framed his visit as part of a wider government effort to understand conditions at state enterprises and align policy support with operational realities. He said the difference between a company growing and shrinking often comes down to whether government intervenes effectively or not, citing an unnamed enterprise where poor policy had reduced the workforce from 2,000 to 1,200 workers.
The minister placed VALCO’s progress within Ghana’s broader economic recovery, noting that improved governance had moved Ghana from tenth to eighth among Africa’s largest economies within a year. He also reflected on the fate of state enterprises built under Ghana’s first president, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, including textile factories, an iron and steel plant, a domestic car assembly company, and Ghana Airways, most of which no longer operate.
VALCO itself is a Nkrumah-era institution. Construction began in 1964, commercial production started in March 1967, and the plant originally produced 120,000 metric tonnes of aluminium annually before expansions in 1970 and 1974 raised nameplate capacity to 200,000 metric tonnes. The Government of Ghana acquired full ownership in 2008 after Kaiser Aluminum, which held a founding stake, exited amid financial difficulties. The company has operated at roughly 40,000 metric tonnes per year since 2011, constrained primarily by power supply challenges.
Management targets reaching 150 active cells by the end of 2025 and full 200-cell deployment by 2027, at which point Dr. Sambian has said operations will be fully self-sustaining on power and input costs.
