As part of the federal government’s bold mining sector reforms, the World Bank-assisted Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification Project (MinDiver) in the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development has designed a roadmap for the development of industrial minerals in Nigeria.
The roadmap will help to boost Nigeria’s industrial minerals to meet the needs of the manufacturing, industrial, and construction industry, while as the same time significantly reducing import dependency.
The minister of mines and steel development, Arc Olamilekan Adegbite, who spoke about the roadmap recently at a Stakeholders Forum on Local Barite Development in Nigeria, said it was in line with the objectives of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) for a more diversified, inclusive, sustainable and globally competitive economy.
The Road Map, he disclosed, identified seven key minerals for quick development of which barite is one, adding that the roadmap will not only strengthen the capacity of local miners but also facilitate the realisation of the economic diversification agenda by creating jobs and wealth along the industrial minerals value chain.
Adegbite expressed worry that Nigeria spends millions of hard earned Dollars annually on importation of barite, a mineral with which Nigeria is richly endowed, especially in the northern part of the country.
“With each import of barite, we are shipping thousands of jobs from our country to other countries. This is why I am inspired to initiate a road map for the development of barite that would reverse this trend,” he said,
Project coordinator, MINDIVER Project, Engr Salim Salaam, who disclosed the details of the roadmap to journalists, said it identified strategic pathways to guide the accelerated development of prioritised industrial minerals, which will in turn enhance the upstream development of industrial minerals along with the critical process of value addition at the downstream stage.
He explained that the development of the roadmap was in line with the critical mandate of the MINDIVER Project: to strengthen key institutions in the mining sector so that they could contribute to the diversification of the Nigerian economy and wean the nation off its over-dependence on the oil sector for government revenue.
According to him, the roadmap, which has been adopted by the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, aligns with the Africa mining vision policy framework created in 2009 to ensure that Africa utilises its mineral resources strategically for broad-based inclusive development, as part of Africa’s response to tackling the paradox of great mineral wealth alongside pervasive poverty.
LEADERSHIP Friday reports that Nigeria’s drive to diversify its economy by leveraging on the high potential of natural resources is a priority programme under the economic reforms of the Buhari administration.
Nigeria is richly endowed with over 30 industrial mineral types found in about 752 locations. These findings are at different stages of development, from exploration to mining. Key participants in the industrial minerals sub-sector are artisanal and small-scale operators who exploit feldspar, trona, kaolin, talc, silica sand and dolomite for the chemical polymer and pharmaceutical industries.
Others are quarry operators that mine and process granites, limestone, and marble as aggregates for the construction industry, cement, and lime production. Also included are barite and mica for mud drilling in the oil industry and phosphates for fertiliser production and soil liming.
Generally, the local production of industrial minerals has steadily grown from 43,725,070 tonnes in 2016 to 78 454,628 tonnes in 2021. Even at this level of progress, Nigeria currently imports over 80 per cent of its industrial minerals for the local industries, with government determined to develop the available industrial minerals to stimulate industrial growth further and for import substitution.
According to the roadmap, its main goal is to create and implement a strategy to promote the domestic supply of mineral raw materials for local industries and reduce Nigeria’s import dependence on industrial minerals.
The most relevant industrial minerals identified in the roadmap as being exploited in Nigeria are minerals used in the construction industry: limestone, laterite, sand, clay, shale, dolomite, marble and granite. A second relevant group includes minerals used by industrial chains such as calcium carbonate and lime for water treatment, manganese and dolomite for steel making and iron cast. Others are kaolin and feldspar for the ceramics industry, and mica for the electrical and painting industries.
But despite her rich natural endowments, Nigeria is highly dependent on imports of some industrial minerals. For example, the roadmap identified that Nigeria in 2016 imported more than 51,000 tonnes of calcium carbonate and lime, alongside substantial imports of these minerals exceeding $28 million, 60 per cent of industrial minerals.
Three strategic pathways to guide the implementation of the roadmap include: addressing the needs of the construction industry, which includes providing housing and transport infrastructure; providing industrial minerals to sectors considered vital to the Nigerian industry – the oil and gas industry, the steel industry, the water treatment industry, and agriculture which consumes phosphates and carbonates, and maximising the wealth created by the sustainable mining of first-class mineral deposits, for example, kaolin and mica, which requires low investment efforts to create value-added products fitting the global market’s needs.
The roadmap document identifies three flagship initiatives to achieve transformative results in the industrial minerals sector and to further deepen the linkages with the three strategic pathways that steer the sector development include initiatives on calcium carbonate, dimension stones and mica kaolin and barite.
The flagship initiatives bring together the different cooperation agendas and actions, sharing a unifying goal and an ambitious implementation schedule that will boost the overall implementation of the roadmap.
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