In March 2026, one of Ghana's own mining companies said it would invest about $1.2 billion in its operations at the Tarkwa and Damang gold mines. Both sit on the Ashanti belt, one of three narrow bands of ancient rock that carry almost all of Ghana's gold.

West Africa is in the middle of a gold run. In 2025 Ghana's output climbed more than 23 percent to a record 5.94 million ounces, holding its place as Africa's largest producer and now the sixth-largest in the world, and analysts expect the wider region to rebound about 8 percent in 2026.

Ghana is one of the world's most significant gold-producing countries, and in 2025 it remained the largest in Africa, with national output reaching about 6 million ounces. But the numbers are only the surface. Ghana's gold reaches back more than two billion years into the rock beneath it, shaped by ancient mountain-building forces and worked by human hands for well over a century.

When LONGi Green Energy, the world's largest solar module maker, told investors on January 5, 2026 that it would begin mass-producing base-metal solar cells in the second quarter, it put a number on a pressure the whole industry feels. Solar is the largest single application within silver's industrial demand, and as the metal ran to a record above $121 an ounce in January, rising silver costs pushed manufacturers to accelerate efforts to reduce the metal per cell.