Nigerian Coal Mining Company Advocates Railway Infrastructure For Solid Minerals Transportation

The CEO, Mosra Energy, Mr. Kayode Ramos made the call during an interview with Voice of Nigeria.

Mr. Ramos emphasised the urgent need for the Nigerian government to develop the rail system to attract both local and international investors into the country’s coal mining sector.

“Currently if you look at the major manufacturers including BUA, Dangote and all of them. They move their raw materials and as well as their finished products via trailers, all via through the roads, even tankers to move their petroleum products is via the roads and that’s why Nigerian roads break down a lot because the Nigerian Roads are designed to carry 51.1 metric tonnes of materials that is the weight they are designed to carry.

“The trailers that we use to move materials in Nigeria are over 85 metric tonnes. So every time, every second that the trailer moves on the roads, they pound the roads and they destroy the roads and that’s why it’s very important that the Nigerian Government faces what we call the mine-port project via rail way system so that we can be able to move our materials, our coal, Iron-ore, lithium, every solid mineral to be able to move them via rail to the port,” he stated.

Expanding on his remarks, Mr. Ramos added “Aside from the railway, we also need bulk cargo terminals that can handle bulk cargo. Say for instance, most of the ports are designed to handle containers and where we have to export raw materials like coal we need bulk handling terminals. If we are able to get those two sorted out, the railway infrastructure and the bulk terminals, we should be fine.”

He provided an explanation of his company’s operations “We supply and mine coal to BUA, Dangote and a host of other industrial users in Nigeria. We mine in two major areas, we have a mine site in Kogi State North-Central Nigeria called Odele and then also we have another mine site in Delta State Ugbogba, Southern Nigeria. We also mine Iron Ore in Koton karfe, Kogi State.”

Speaking on the state of Coal Mining in Nigeria, he said:

“We are mining to supply the Industrial Local users. Most of the local users we supply to are the cement companies like Dangote, BUA, Mangal cement, the ethanol companies as well as the ceramic companies. In addition to the local market, there’s a huge potential market abroad for coal. Unfortunately, because of the logistics problem that we have, Nigeria is not able to tap into the export market. Because to move bulk materials like coal we need the railway to work and at this point there is no freight railway service in Nigeria, that’s why it is very hard for us to export”.

He further discussed how the Nigerian Coal Corporation successfully exported coal in the 1960s and 70s.

“The Nigerian Coal Coporation at that time was moving the coal from Ankpa Odelle area to Otukpo by road and then from Otukpo there was a rail service that moves straight to Port Harcourt. So the Nigerian Rail Coporation had a bulk terminal from Port Harcourt that they use for coal export in the 60’s and 70’s and that’s why in those years the Solid Minerals was able to contribute 5 to 6 percent to the Nigerian GDP. Today the Solid Minerals contribute less than 1 percent to the GDP because we are not able to export.

“The export we do is to Neighboring countries like Niger, Togo by road are all via trailers. We have the resources and adequate reserves for bulk export but we are not able to do it because of the lack of rail service. Look at the petroleum industry, the crude oil they have dedicated pipes that move the crude oil from the production area straight to the port, they have the escravos line, several lines.

“Nobody moves crude oil by tanker, its all conveyed via pipe and all over the world its only us and some other countries that move  coal and some other bulk materials via trailers. To make it efficient you move it via rail. A trailer caries about 40 tonnes of materials whereas a train locomotive will pull about 50-70 wagons each one of them carrying 60-70 tonnes. The same amount of diesel that the trailer will use the locomotive will consume twice for the same distance. So, it is pertinent that for us to be able to generate adequate forex from the mineral resources that we have then we need to make the freight service work.”

Discussing the potential of coal in Nigeria, Mr Ramos further said there are:

“Huge potentials. South Africa every year exports over 70 billion dollars worth of coal, Australia, maybe about 200 billion dollars worth of coal, United Staes of America another 100 billion dollars worth of coal. Nigeria has well over eighty billion tons of coal reserve. These coal could be a money making foreign exchange for the federal government. All we just need and I keep saying it is to sort out this haulage problem. If we can move our coal from the mines to the ports at an inexpensive rate in an efficient manner, Nigeria will earn lot of foreign exchange from coal.”

On the advocacy for a global shift from coal to greener energy by 2050, he noted:

“These guys they talk a lot. Historically, go back to the 17^th century when coal started to become a source of energy, a source of industrialisation, it was from Europe and Britain was a poster boy of coal at that time. They developed all the machineries and they mined the coal. Most of them have exhausted their coal but meanwhile look at Germany, this year 2024, Germany allowed a coal mine to completely eradicate a village.

“You can check online the story is there. Germany is still actively mining coal, even Britian, the UK Prime Minister about 2-3 months ago recently approved new coal mines, so you cannot completely eradicate a source of energy. Look at the Russia-Ukraine war when it started the price of coal jumped to 500 dollars per metric tonne even far more than the price of crude oil because everybody was scrambling to find coal.

“They came to Nigeria to look for coal, Poland, Germany, all of them. The then Minister of Solid Minerals, Olamilekan Adegbite and I travelled a lot of places to get customers and we couldn’t deliver because we couldn’t move the coal from the port to the Mine. China mines about 3. 5bilion tonnes of coal in a year. The Europe still import another 500 million tonnes making four billion tones. France two years ago when they were about to shut down their coal power plant the French government told them not to shut down. They are still working. Even US, Canada, all of them use coal.”

Social Responsibility

Mr. Ramos further said Landowners are compensated prior to mining, and the company fulfills corporate social responsibilities through CDA agreements overseen by the Ministry in local communities.

Discussing the impact of coal on the Nigerian Economy, he noted:

“In the past about 10 years ago or so Dangote, BUA, Lafarge were importing coal into Nigeria from South Africa to run their cement clinkers, now the importation for the past two three years they don’t import coal anymore. We the local miners satisfy that demand.”

Discussing the motivation behind choosing to become a Coal Miner, Ramos said:

“It’s to sort out Nigeria’s electricity Problems. Which we are working on. We have a lot of gas plants and as you see they under capacity, 30, 40, 50 percent and Nigeria has these coal reserves and we are working on setting up what we call Mine Mount power plant in the places we are we are working.’’

Also, while discussing the Nigerian government’s role in contributing to Coal Mining, he added:

“The government has done a fantastic Job in creating an enabling environment for investors.  The Ministry of Solid Minerals Development have worked really hard to promote Nigeria as a mining hub and they are still trying to do their best every day through their blood, sweat and tears and personally I can’t ask them to do more than what they are doing now.

“The Mining Cadastre Office, MCO,  is issuing licenses at will to investors,If you have an area that you want to get a license you go to MCO, you apply within days, 2 to 3 weeks you get your license so I don’t see anything that we can ask the government to do again except to sort out these transportation problems and sorting out these transportation problems is not just for coal.”

On Investments in the sector, Mr Ramos said:

“There is a huge demand of coal in Nigeria and overseas investors should come in especially for us to collaborate so that we can set up coal power plants in Nigeria because if you research the cheapest source of electricity in the world it is still coal and it will forever be coal. Because coal is the cheapest to mine. Gas is far more expensive to mine than Coal, that’s why the cost of Gas will always be higher than the cost of coal and Nigerian regulators have done all their best to ensure that we have a level playing field for everybody.” He said.

He further called for collaborations with Mosra Energy, “We are actively looking for investors for our coal power plant, we are also looking for investors for our Iron-Ore to Steel project because one of the major problems we have in Nigeria is we do not have steel production locally. We import 90% of our steel consumption.

“That’s expensive, that’s why development is low because steel is the major components that drives development, whether you are looking at railway, cars, sky scrapers, boats, ships, name it. They are all dependent on the steel industry and one of the key things that we must do as a nation, the private sector is to establish viable steel plants in Nigeria and as well as cheap source of electricity which is via coal.” Mr. Ramos added.