Nigeria’s efforts to persuade investors that it could become a mining destination for metals is receiving a boost from a small Canadian company joining a rush for gold in West Africa. The western tip of the continent is seen as a new frontier as gold miners face a dearth of new discoveries globally.
Africa’s largest oil producer has sizeable untapped deposits of metals including iron ore, gold, zinc and lead but almost all extraction is done on a small-scale or manual basis, said Nigeria’s minister of mines and steel development, Olamilekan Adegbite.
“These are people who hardly pay any revenue to government,” Adegbite said at a conference in Abuja. Now the country could be on the cusp of getting its first industrial-scale gold mine from Thor Explorations Ltd., which is developing a project capable of producing 80,000 ounces per year in southwest Nigeria and aiming to start operations in early 2021.
Africa Finance Corporation is investing in the Thor project through a $78 million debt-equity financing package.
Vancouver-based Thor is “the low-hanging fruit to prove to the Nigerian government and the international financing community that mining can be a viable proposition in Nigeria,” Osam Iyahen, AFC’s head of natural resources said. Lagos-based AFC is backed by Nigeria’s central bank and a group of local commercial banks.
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