Nigeria has made significant strides to become one of the leading global players in the clean energy supply chain by commissioning West Africa’s largest lithium processing plant in Nasarawa State, which is likely to boost investments, employment and value addition in the country’s mining industry.
Diamond New Energy, a Chinese group, has built the 6,000-metric ton-per-day lithium processing plant in partnership with the Nasarawa State Government, an investment of some 250 million dollars.
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The successful processing of the lithium ore is expected to now be done locally, supporting Nigeria’s policy of promoting beneficiation of raw mineral.
The president, represented by the Vice President, Mr Kashim Shettima, cited the project as a testament to Nigeria’s new global investors and President Mohammadu Murtala Mohammed’s government’s policy reforms.
The facility, he said, identifies a readiness of Nigeria to join the ever growing global minerals market competitively, and stimulates employment, technical skills and industries.
The President stated that Nigeria’s rich mineral resources should create shared prosperity via responsible investment and rather than continued reliance in exporting raw minerals. The lithium industry offers potential for an economy to diversify because battery mineral demand climbs around the world with electric vehicles, advanced manufacturing and renewable energy storage solutions, he said.
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The commissioning strengthens the high reputation of Nasarawa State as one of the premier solid minerals source for Nigeria.
The state has a major lithium deposit and has progressed to gradual liberalization of foreign capital investment that has come into the country after the State government made it mandatory for the mining companies to set up their own processing plants before permitting exports of minerals.
The country’s mineral resources will potentially generate a lot of benefits, technology transfer and job creation, industry experts believe, largely because of the policy.
The event is also a step towards a country’s strategy of diversifying its economic base from crude oil to value-added solid minerals sector, driven by a policy to establish an industrialized solid mineral sector through global cooperation and partnerships.
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It was also an occasion for another milestone in the process of extricating the country from crude oil revenues and investing in the potential of solid mineral resources through industrial scale processing and international cooperation.
