Sudan Tops Arab Gold Producers
A report issued by the World Gold Council revealed that Sudan is the leading Arab producer of gold, with mining operations concentrated in the states of River Nile, Northern, and Red Sea, which form the backbone of the country’s gold production.
According to a report titled “Gold and the War in Sudan”, prepared by Chatham House, the gold trade is closely linked to the ongoing conflict in Sudan and has become one of the main sources of war financing since the conflict erupted in 2023.
Before the war, Sudan’s official gold output consistently exceeded 80 tons annually, but production plummeted to about 2 tons between April and August 2023, within five months of the conflict’s outbreak. Output later rebounded to 73.8 tons in 2024, according to World Gold Council data.
The Sudanese Mineral Resources Company announced that gold production reached 37.3 tons during the first half of 2025, marking a notable increase compared with recent years — despite the ongoing war and its economic and social repercussions.
Production remains concentrated in the River Nile, Northern, and Red Sea states, while new company offices are being opened in South Kordofan, raising the number of gold-producing states to seven, compared to fourteen before the war, according to the Divan Research Center.
Reports from the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) and Chatham House indicate that a significant portion of gold production remains unrecorded due to smuggling and unregulated mining — meaning that official figures likely underestimate the country’s true output.
