Nigeria has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with German mining technology company GEO-SCAN to search for accrued mineral resources across the country.
The Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, who made this known on Monday after the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting held at the Presidential Villa Abuja, revealed that the MOU was signed through the Solid Mineral Development Plan (SMDF) of the government.
He added that the MOU is to advance the course of Nigeria’s solid Minerals exploration, exploitation and judicious expenditure of the accruing revenue to the purse of the Nigerian government
The minister said that it will significantly move the nation forward.
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Alake also disclosed that Nigeria’s mineral resources are conservatively estimated at $700 billion underground, currently constituting about 0.02 percent of global mining.
“Currently, those to whom we grant licences without this added advantage end up discovering additional mineral deposits for us, and at that point, we can consider granting them mining licences.
“The Ministry of Solid Minerals broke a landmark record by signing an MOU with one of the top-notch geo-scientific technology companies in the world, which is Geo-scan GMDH, a German company through the Solid Mineral Development Plan, SMDF.”
Alake explained that the company plans to set up its plant and operate across the country; he stated that this will allow Nigeria to extensively tap into its diverse mineral resources.
The minister added that this would eventually provide opportunities for the federal government to quantify the full extent of Nigeria’s solid mineral resources.
He further stated that the MOU is at no cost to the Nigerian government, adding that it has been fully supported by the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz and the Nigerian President, Bola Tinubu
“Now that this technology is 80 percent cheaper than current processes in the world, it is three times faster to locate deposits down on the ground. With our mineral resources, which are conservatively estimated at $700 billion, under the ground, we constitute about 0.02 percent of the global mining budget.”
The Minister further emphasised that Nigeria will be at the advantage of critical minerals, often referred to as critical metals, which, according to him, are abundant in Nigeria.
“Considering the current worldwide focus on addressing climate change and transitioning to electric vehicles, batteries, electronic components, and various technological equipment, the demand for these minerals is on the rise.”
He added that the Geo-SCAN technology is 80percent cheaper than current processes in the world and also three times faster to locate deposits down
Alake further revealed that with Nigeria’s estimated solid minerals deposit, the country still have over 90 per cent of the entire landscape of Nigeria unexplored.
“And with this estimation of our solid Minerals deposit, we still have over 90 per cent of the entire landscape of Nigeria unexplored.”
Speaking on the gain of the company in turn, the Minister further mentioned that the company’s objective is to provide Nigeria with access to its top-notch technology, which, in turn, would have conserved significant resources that would otherwise have been spent on exploration.
He affirmed that Nigeria would, in turn, issue mining licences to the GEN SCAN mining company.
“After they discover more mineral resources to then we grant them licences to mine. Even if we are going to explore ourselves using their technology without this MOU, we will be paying 80 percent less than we currently pay for exploration.”
