China’s Biggest Gold Buy Since 2023 Has Investors Watching Africa

Gold just finished its worst quarter in thirteen years. China’s central bank responded by buying more gold than it has in two and a half years.

The People’s Bank of China added 480,000 troy ounces in June, roughly 14.93 tonnes, its largest single-month purchase since October 2023 and the twentieth consecutive month of accumulation. Official holdings now stand at 75.44 million ounces, about 2,346 tonnes. The streak is the longest since the PBoC began publishing regular monthly reserve data in 2015.

The timing is the story. Spot gold fell more than 11% in June, its sharpest monthly decline since October 2008, and traded below $4,000 an ounce for the first time since November 2025. Western institutional investors cut positions as a resurgent dollar and a hawkish Federal Reserve under new Chair Kevin Warsh reset rate expectations. Sovereign buyers went the other way, and they accelerated. Monthly PBoC purchasesclimbed from 160,000 ounces in March to 260,000 in April, 320,000 in May, and 480,000 in June.

Context matters on the drawdown. Gold rose 65% in 2025, its sharpest annual gain since 1979, a year in which the metal gained more than 130%. Spot went on to peak near $5,600 an ounce on January 29. Comparisons that extreme are rare by definition, and so is the vertical move that produced that print. What followed in the second quarter was a repricing of positioning, not a repricing of ounces in the ground. Even after the decline, gold at $4,067 trades roughly 56% above where it began 2025.

Nothing in the development pipeline was underwritten at January’s highs. TRX Gold’s (TSX: TRX) (NYSE American: TRX) May 2025 preliminary economic assessment at Buckreef runs its economics at life-of-mine gold prices of US$4,000 to US$5,000. Development-stage peers are more conservative still, with some using assumptions of $3,250 an ounce or lower in feasibility work. Goldman Sachs cut its year-end 2026 target to $4,900 from $5,400 on June 19 after removing all 2026 Fed cuts from its forecast, with analysts Lina Thomas and Daan Struyven describing their view as structurally constructive but tactically cautious. Even the reduced target sits above spot.

The structural argument sits in one number. Gold accounts for roughly 8.8% of China’s official reserves. The European Central Bank’s June 2026 review of the international role of the euro found gold now makes up about 27% of global reserve assets against 22% for US Treasuries, the first time since 1996 that gold’s share has exceeded Treasuries. That gap has fueled persistent speculation that Beijing is positioning for a monetary system less dependent on the U.S. dollar, including recurring talk of a gold-backed settlement currency or a gold-backed yuan. Neither has ever been announced as policy, and no credible source establishes the accumulation is being conducted for that purpose. Reserve diversification away from dollar assets is the documented rationale, and it is enough. The buying has continued at every price from the mid-$2,000s through today without a single monthly pause. The World Gold Council’s 2026 survey of 76 central banks found 89%expect global official gold holdings to rise over the next twelve months, with a record 45% planning increases at their own institutions.

China is also buying the ounces in the ground

Bullion is only half of it. Chinese capital has moved aggressively into African gold production while Western investors debate the tape.

Zijin Mining (OTC: ZIJMF) agreed in January to acquire Toronto-listed Allied Gold for C$5.5 billion, roughly $4 billion, at C$44 per share, bringing producing mines in Mali and Côte d’Ivoire plus the Kurmuk development project in Ethiopia under Chinese control. Kurmuk is scheduled to start production in mid-2026 as Ethiopia’s first large-scale commercial gold mine, targeting approximately 290,000 ounces annually over its first five years at an all-in sustaining cost near $950 per ounce. The acquired assets produced about 400,000 ounces in 2025 and are expected to reach roughly 800,000 ounces per year by 2029. Zijin already accounts for more than 8% of Africa’s mining output.

It is not an isolated move. In December, Norin Mining, a subsidiary of Chinese defense group Norinco, raised its stake in Sudan’s Gabgaba gold project from 45% to 80% for $420 million.

The capital is arriving as the discovery pipeline thins. S&P Global’s World Exploration Trends 2026 reportfound that grassroots exploration fell 8% to $2.57 billion last year, the lowest level in its dataset, while spending at and around existing mines rose 13% to a record $5.63 billion, or 45% of global budgets, the highest share on record. Money went to brownfield, not discovery. Africa was one of the regions to buck the trend, with exploration budgets climbing 11% to $1.44 billion, while funds raised by junior and intermediate companies more than doubled to $21.43 billion, the second-highest annual total on record.

The World Gold Council notes that based on major miners’ annual reports, the 2026 production outlook is generally cautious, with most forecasting declines against 2025, even as global mined output reached a record 3,672 tonnes last year. Its own conclusion is that a structural shortage is unlikely and that production will plateau rather than collapse. The nearer-term constraint is not the metal in the crust. It is the number of operators who can permit, fund, and build.

Lake Victoria Gold

Lake Victoria Gold (OTCQB: LVGLF) (TSXV: LVG) (FSE: E1K) has spent the drawdown quarter moving people and equipment onto site.

On July 8, the company confirmed that Charl Coetzee of Sutton Consulting International mobilized to its fully permitted Imwelo Gold Project in northwestern Tanzania as Project Manager. Coetzee brings approximately 30 years of experience building, commissioning, and operating gold and minerals-processing plants across Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Guinea, and South Africa.

He arrives under a structure formalized a week earlier. On July 2, Lake Victoria Gold’s Tanzanian subsidiary appointed City Engineering Company Ltd. as primary Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management contractor, with Sutton providing international technical support. The Mining Commission approved the appointment on June 29, and the structure is built to comply with Tanzania’s Mining (Local Content) Regulations, 2018. Imwelo holds Mining Licence ML 538/2015.

In June, a 23-hole sterilization drilling program totaling 1,136 metres confirmed that the proposed process plant and accommodation footprints sit clear of known mineralization, with no significant gold values returned across either area. That clears civil works to advance on those footprints without building over potential ounces. Construction start is targeted for this quarter.

Imwelo sits 12 kilometres west of AngloGold Ashanti’s (NYSE: AU) Geita Gold Mine. The company’s second project, Tembo, is adjacent to Barrick’s (NYSE: B) (TSX: ABX) Bulyanhulu Mine and carries more than 50,000 metres of historical drilling. 

Barrick holds an equity position in Lake Victoria Gold. Tanzania’s Taifa Group, whose mining arm is contracted for civil works and contract mining at Imwelo, is a strategic partner. Management, directors, and strategic partners collectively hold more than 60% of shares outstanding.

Funding runs through an April 1 binding term sheet for a gold loan facility of up to 6,000 ounces of gold, approximately US$25 million, from Monetary Metals, repaid in gold ounces rather than cash, alongside a fully committed $3.0 million convertible debenture. On June 25, the company said it is advancing Bank of Tanzania registration and related regulatory workstreams required to implement the facility. Red Cloud analyst Alina Islam characterized the term sheet as a largely non-dilutive funding pathway. Atrium Research analyst Ben Pirie maintained a Buy rating and a C$0.50 target in a June 23 note. The facility remains subject to conditions and regulatory approvals.

Investors should note that Imwelo has been the subject of JORC-compliant PEA and pre-feasibility work, but those foreign-code studies are not current under NI 43-101. The company has not completed a feasibility study establishing mineral reserves under CIM Definition Standards. Any decision to commence production is therefore not based on a feasibility study of mineral reserves and carries uncertainty and risk of economic and technical failure.

TRX Gold

TRX Gold (NYSE American: TRX) (TSX: TRX) reported Q3 fiscal 2026 results, and the numbers show what a producing Tanzanian open pit looks like at current prices.

Buckreef Gold poured 7,426 ounces in the quarter, up 58% year over year, and sold 6,983 ounces, up 75%, at a record average realized price of $4,703 per ounce. Revenue reached $32.9 million with gross profit of $19.5 million, a 59% gross margin, and record adjusted EBITDA of $20.7 million. Record plant throughput hit 1,833 tonnes per day.

Year to date, TRX has poured 21,476 ounces against full-year guidance of 25,000 to 30,000 ounces, with revenue of $92.0 million. Over the trailing twelve months the company generated $115.5 million in revenue and $66.8 million in adjusted EBITDA while investing $46.4 million at Buckreef. It closed the quarter with $26.8 million in cash, undrawn credit lines, and essentially no debt.

The company is fast-tracking a 3,500-plus tonne-per-day SAG and ball mill circuit alongside upgrades to the existing 2,000 tpd plant. The May 2025 PEA outlines average production of 62,000 ounces annually over 17.6 years and a pre-tax NPV5% of US$1.9 billion to US$2.6 billion at life-of-mine gold prices of US$4,000 to US$5,000 per ounce. Buckreef sits in the Geita Region, the same belt hosting Imwelo.

Barrick Mining

Barrick Mining (NYSE: B) (TSX: ABX) operates the 20-million-ounce Bulyanhulu Mine in Tanzania and holds an equity position in Lake Victoria Gold. Further results from the Tembo Project are expected under the Barrick alliance.

AngloGold Ashanti

AngloGold Ashanti (NYSE: AU) runs the Geita Gold Mine in northwestern Tanzania, one of Africa’s largest producing gold operations. Geita’s presence explains why infrastructure, labor, and regulatory precedent already exist in the district rather than needing to be invented. Tanzania itself ranked 34th of 68 jurisdictions on the Fraser Institute’s 2025 Investment Attractiveness Index with a score of 68.04, up from 62.75 in 2024 and 46.38 in 2023.

Zijin Mining

Zijin Mining (OTC: ZIJMF) (SEHK: 2899) is the clearest listed proxy for Chinese capital moving into African gold. Beyond the Allied Gold transaction, the company established Zijin Gold International specifically to manage non-Chinese gold assets.

Harmony Gold (NYSE: HMY), Sibanye Stillwater (NYSE: SBSW), DRDGOLD (NYSE: DRD), Endeavour Mining (TSX: EDV), and IAMGOLD (NYSE: IAG) fill out the African gold complex traders are watching.Twenty months in, China’s buying has not paused for a price, a Fed cycle, or a 27% drawdown from the January peak. Whatever the bid is positioning for, the ounces it absorbs have to come out of the ground somewhere. An unusual share of what is left sits in Africa.