On 28 August, 2025 West African Resources Ltd (ASX:WAF) shares went into a trading halt and haven’t traded since.
The trading halt was requested pending the release of an announcement regarding a request from the government of Burkina Faso to acquire, for valuable paid consideration, an additional 35% of the Company’s subsidiary Kiaka SA.
Kiaka SA owns the flagship Kiaka Gold Project in Burkina Faso and the government is seeking to increase its stake in Kiaka SA from 15% to 50%.
Naturally, this is bad news for WAF equity holders and a known risk of investing in jurisdictions such as Africa. While the company’s shares haven’t had a chance to trade and reflect this news, trading will also need to reflect a decent move upwards in the price of gold.
Gold was trading at around US$3,415/oz on the day WAF shares halted and has only gone one direction since, up. At around US$4,000/oz there is a 17% commodity price win there that should offset some of the pain. Importantly, the company is unhedged.
In today’s quarterly the only update on the matter was that “The Company continues to engage in discussions with the Burkina Faso Government regarding this matter.”
During the September quarter, WAF produced 92,721 ounces at an AISC of US$1,532 per ounce from its Sanbrado and Kiaka gold operations in Burkina Faso.
In early August 2025, the company released a 10-year production outlook that detailed ~300,000 ounces of recovered gold during 2025 moving to nearly 500,000 ounces in 2026.
With the company producing 174,070 ounces of gold year-to-date, it would require ~125,000 ounces of gold to be produced during the December quarter to meet its recently published company guidance for the 2025 calendar year.
