The Ghana Gold Board has phased out the traditional water density test, announcing that X-Ray Fluorescence assay will become the mandatory nationwide benchmark for gold purity determination starting September 1, 2026.
The directive, issued under the regulatory powers of the Ghana Gold Board Act of 2025, requires all licensed aggregators, sub-aggregators, and local buying agents to deploy modern spectroscopic devices across their operations.
Under the new regime, the long-standing water density technique will no longer serve as a legal basis for settling transaction values across the domestic market.
Water Density Phased Out with Compulsory Discounts
Regulators made it clear that while field testing using water displacement is discouraged, buyers caught without functional XRF machines due to genuine operational bottlenecks must penalize transactions upfront.
Where operators are compelled to rely on the older method, the board ordered that the purity recorded should be treated as indicative only.
In those instances, buyers must apply an automatic deduction of at least 0.5% against the measured grade. The gold doré must then undergo formal laboratory reassessment at the GoldBod desk, where the subsequent spectroscopic readout will dictate the final financial settlement.
The board warned that licensed buyers should treat the acquisition of certified testing devices as an urgent operational priority to avoid losses arising from indicative valuations.
Equipment Mandate for Aggregators and Field Buyers
To prevent supply chain bottlenecks at remote mining hubs, primary aggregators have been instructed to purchase and distribute compliant equipment directly to their tier one and tier two sub-aggregators.
The directive places strict quality control obligations on license holders, requiring them to train field personnel thoroughly and maintain verifiable logs for every single buy.
The board also set a tight technical tolerance limit of plus or minus 0.05% between successive testing reports on the same parcel.
Any variation exceeding that boundary will automatically trigger mandatory dispute verification before the trade can close or register on official ledgers.
Licence Sanctions Under Act 1140
The regulatory notice forms an integral part of the operating conditions governing all gold trading permits in Ghana. The board cautioned that non-compliance after the September 1 deadline will be treated as an immediate breach of licensing terms.
Defaulters risk facing severe statutory sanctions and administrative enforcement actions provided under the Ghana Gold Board Act of 2025 (Act 1140), which empowers authorities to suspend licenses or shutter non-compliant trading posts.
GoldBod reiterated that all market participants must complete technical upgrades and ensure total field readiness ahead of the September rollout.
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