The Managing Director, Double Dee Industrial Services, a mining company, Mrs. Anobo Ann Ajoku, has identified lack of requisite equipment as one of the major drawbacks to the growth of the mining sector. She believes that the Federal Government’s intervention through the provision of equipment for lease to miners at subsidised rates will accelerate the sector’s growth, reports AMBROSE NNAJI.
Lack of geophysical survey equipment is the bane of mining and the quest to drive the industry towads growth, the Managing Director, Double Dee Industrial Services, a mining company, Mrs. Ann Anobo Ajoku, has said.
Mrs. Ajoku lamented the absence of equipment and obsolescence of geophysical surveys, saying some of them were carried out by colonial masters.
She argued that the government would only be paying lip service to the development of the mining sector, adding that even with the various interventions by the government to develop the mining business, without the necessary equipment, the sector will not attain the expected growth.
According to her, if the government can provide the necessary equipment for leasing at subsidised rates, it will quicken the growth of the sector.
For miners to get materials any mineral, whether gold, barite or any extractive mineral, there should be proper geophysical survey. Mrs Ajoku noted that the geophysical surveys presumed to be already in place were not actually what are needed but rather what obtains when one goes to the subsurface.
The impact of mining goes beyond mineral extraction and processing. Mining is interrelated to many other industries and sectors in the economy, including transportation, construction, equipment manufacturing, environmental management, geological services, education and research.
As part of its benefits, mining supplies raw materials for construction of roads and hospitals or manufacturing of products, such as automobiles, employment creation, source of income, and foreign exchange. Mined substances are used to build houses and make computers and satellites.
Mining of minerals accounts for only 0.3percent of the country’s gross domestic products (GDP) due to the influence of its huge petroleum resources. The domestic mining industry is underdeveloped, leading to Nigeria having to import minerals that it could produce domestically, such as salt and iron ore.
She said the government apart from ensuring that the environment is conducive for miners to operate, should build modern geophysical survey equipment to make mining sites accessible. She added that a such step would help to drive the expected growth in the sector.
Mrs Ajoku, a geologist, said geophysical survey equipment are needed to know the depth of the mineral in the ground and that a good geophysical survey could tell the grade of a mineral. “You need a proper geophysical survey to know what you have in the ground and the extent to which it goes,” she stated.
Mrs Ajoku, specialist in Barites production, sells gravel/powder grinding machines, gemstones, ore beneficiation equipment, and leases mining equipment.
A member of Miners Association of Nigeria (MAN), she noted that Nigeria is one of the African countries that could boast of vast deposits of barite.
According to her, Cross River State has the highest quality and quantity of barite. Other states include Benue and Plateau.
She said barite is used in the petroleum industry for formulating drilling mud and it increases the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling mud, allowing it to compensate for high-pressure zones experienced during drilling.
It is important in the manufacture of paper and rubber. Barite, she added, is also used in radiology for x-rays of the digestive system. When crushed, it is added to mud to form barium mud, which is poured into oil wells during drilling.
“Before I went into mining business, I went to the mining cadastral in Cross River site, I got the list where to get various grades, but I was misled because I later discovered that what they had were what those colonial masters surveyed. That’s what most of them still have in their archives and they tell you they have this or that grade, but by the time you go there to do your survey, you find out it’s a different thing all together,” she said. So, most of the time we do the little we can and get to work, she stated.
She said some countries have very high grade barite and and their governments had assisted in geophysical survey, thereby reducing the cost of mining.
“Mining is highly capital intensive. It’s not anything an individual can just get in and get all right easily, it takes a lot of money.
“There are international companies that are doing it very well, whatever they tell you is underground that’s the correct thing but it’s expensive. During our interactions with the government, we emphasised the challenges miners face and advised the government to get domiciled geophysical survey equipment in Nigeria; maybe partner with some international companies. They should come here and run it for three to four years and then hand over to Nigeria,” she said.
But the government has to fund that and be at the forefront because what we have now is not the real thing. The companies here are not doing it well, she added, but advised operators in the industry to go into partnerships so as to be able to offset some of the financial challenges in the sector.
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