Nigeria plans to spend 15 billion naira ($42 million) over the next year to explore for minerals and attract investors into mining and reduce its dependence on oil, Solid Minerals Development Minister Kayode Fayemi said.

“Because we are starting from a low base, we want to have a portfolio of exploration activities in place that could whet the appetite of the average investor who wants to come in,” Fayemi said in an Oct. 18 interview in the capital, Abuja. They will be able to “drill down when they have that baseline information,” he said.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s government plans to support investments in the exploration of its priority minerals including gold, bitumen, iron, barite, limestone, lead and zinc, Fayemi said. The government is hoping to attract as much as 60 billion naira of private investment into mining, he said.

Tapping resources other than oil, Nigeria’s main export, is part of the government’s economic recovery and growth plan after the country went through its worst economic slump in 25 years as oil output and prices fell. Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer. The contribution of solid minerals to gross domestic product is expected to increase to more than 8 percent by 2020 from less than 1 percent year, according to the government.

Tax Holidays

To further encourage investors, incentives including tax holidays of as much as five years for new companies entering the market, duty free imports on mining equipment and mining licenses for 25 years have been put in place, the minister said.

Additional support for the industry is expected through a $600 million bond to be sold by the end of the year to raise more funds to provide required infrastructure and help accumulate data on minerals, according to the Haiha Fatima Shinkafi, executive secretary of the Solid Minerals Development Fund.

“Nigeria is one of the lowest spenders on exploration as far as mining activity is concerned,” Fayemi said. “This government is determined to turn the tide on that, because we’re quite convinced of the opportunities.”

Nigeria has at least 44 minerals that can be extracted in commercial quantities, according to the solid minerals ministry. Mining in the country is currently dominated by artisans, who produce gold, tin and others in small amounts.

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-19/nigeria-seeks-to-boost-mining-deposit-reserves-to-lure-investors

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a $600 million bond to be sold by the end of the year to raise more funds to provide required infrastructure and help accumulate data on minerals

Hmm another round of debt. Hopefully they make use of this cash. Im assuming infrastructure means power, roads and someway to value add minerals.

In the coming years, lithium will replace oil as the new money spinner.

Do we have lithium in Nigeria?

Jetleeee:
In the coming years, lithium will replace oil as the money spinner.

Do we have lithium in Nigeria?

That's very true lithium next hot commodity on the market because of batteries for electric cars. I don't think Nigeria has lithium. Most of big discoveries have been in Latin America.

Jetleeee:
In the coming years, lithium will replace oil as the money spinner.

Do we have lithium in Nigeria?

Yeah,

Exactly, seems like topnotch techprenuers are trying to push a paradigm, from silica as they are sorting after elements that can store more energy than the norm,

Lithium is the new ish,
Elon musk already contemplating it's possibility for electric storage,

Electric-car battery advancement,

Blue3k:


That's very true lithium next hot commodity on the market because of batteries for electric cars. I don't think Nigeria has lithium. Most of big discoveries have been in Latin America.

I thought there was a thread that made FP not too long ago about lithium being discovered somewhere in Northern Nigeria or was it another mineral?

Anyway, there is probably lithium in that part of the country. I don't understand the obsession with finding oil that has a gloomy future

@arinzeejikonye

Jetleeee:


I thought there was a thread that made FP not too long ago about lithium being discovered somewhere in Northern Nigeria or was it another mineral?

Anyway, there is probably lithium in that part of the country. I don't understand the obsession with finding oil that has a gloomy future

@arinzeejikonye

I remember it being nickel in Kaduna. Its possible to find lithium the government should just use that cash it borrowing for research like that. Nigeria has igneous rock somewhere.

Instead, lithium is usually extracted from lithium minerals that can be found in igneous rocks (chiefly spodumene) and from lithium chloride salts that can be found in brine pools.

All I see here is more of the same old lazy Nigerian thinking, a desperate search for natural resources on which to seek unearned rents, and what is more, one that is destined to fail given the lack of proper incentives, the terrible state of the national infrastructure, the inefficient and logjammed courts, the general lack of respect by politicians for private property rights and contractual obligations, and of course the insane "strong" Naira policy that imposes steep losses on any foreign investors gullible enough to bring their funds into the country.

I've said this before, but I think it really needs repeating: Nigeria is so terribly governed that had the British not discovered oil in Nigeria before granting independence, every last drop of said oil would still be in the ground right now, waiting for someone to come and start extracting it. Nigeria's political leaders are a toxic mix of incredibly stupid and impossibly greedy.