Minister of State for Mines and Steel Development, Abubakar Bawa Bwari has said that the federal government is not resting on its oars as it has commenced the biggest exploration activity in the mining sector.
The exploration project which will cost the federal government N15 billion was aimed at creating readily available geoscience data bank and attracting investors.
The minister stated that the project which is domiciled in the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency (NGSA) and supervised by the ministry is funded from the Natural Resources Fund as part of the National Integrated Mineral Exploration Project which is costing federal government N15 billion, making it the biggest exploration activity of its kind ever embarked upon by the ministry.
The minister said this while inspecting the mineral exploration project at Kuchiko Camp in Niger state last week.
The exploration is being handled by AG Vision Ltd.
“This is the first phase of the exploration work, and based on what we have seen here today, the results are quite encouraging.
“The platinum group that they have seen so far is of higher quality than that of South Africa which is the world’s largest producer of the platinum group, and that goes to show that Nigeria is highly endowed in this mineral, but what we are looking at is commercial quantity and value.
“I think by this exploration we are building a stronger foundation for the Nigerian mining industry and creating investors’ confidence whereby they would want to invest, having known what is on ground,” he said.
The managing director of A. G. Vision, Fadi Abou Ghazale, said they had run more than 3, 000 samples that had been sent to internationally- recognised labs and all the results showed that there were high anomalous zones of gold, lead and zinc, nickel, chromium, bromite, and cobalt.
