Seven firms licensed to mine gold, coal and other solid minerals e.g., Tin, Columbite, Iron ore, Zinc and Lead in different parts of Nigeria (including Plateau state) are set to commence operation, an official has said.

The Director-General of the Nigeria Mining Cadastre Office, Mohammed Amate, said the seven mining firms were at the moment mobilising the required financing from the capital market to undertake full-scale gold, coal, iron-ore and lead/zinc mining this year.

Apart from Dangote Group, the other six firms include Kogi Mines Limited, Segilola Nigeria Limited, Mines Geotechniques Nigeria Limited, Northern Numero Resources Limited, West African Polaris Investment Limited and Tongyi Allied and Mineral Services Limited.

Kogi Mines, which is an an Australian mining firm, would mine iron ore at Agbaja area of Kogi State, while Segilola Nigeria Limited would mine gold at the Iperindo axis of the IIesha gold schist belt in Osun State.

Similarly, Geotechniques Nigeria Limited and Northern Numero Resources Limited, which are both Australian companies, would mine gold in Kebbi State, while Dangote Group would mine coal in Kogi and Benue states.

The West African Polaris Investment Limited, which a Chinese firm, would mine tin and columbite in Nasarawa State and the Tongyi Allied and Mineral Services Limited, another Chinese company, would mine lead/zinc in Wase Local Government Area of Plateau State.

Mr. Amate said in view of the capital intensive nature of projects in the the solid minerals sector, the firms were determined to explore whatever opportunities are there in the capital market to help raise the funding needed for their mining activity.

The firms, which the Director General said have since obtained the relevant mining licences to mine gold and other minerals in the country, have completed their exploration mapping programmes to delineate the mineral deposits prior to the actual commencement of mining operations.

The commencement of the mining programme by the firms, he explained, had to be delayed till now as no financial institution was ready to commit funding to the development of mining sector until adequate bankable feasibility studies were carried out under the auspices of the internationally recognised Joint Ore Reserve Committee specifications.

About the Company (Tongyi Allied Services) that will be mining in Wase LGA, Plateau State

Tongyi Allied Mining Ltd. was established in 1997. It was headquartered in Romania, and its subsidiaries are throughout Europe, Asia and Africa. In Europe, It has subsidiaries in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Italy, and Poland. Their subsidiaries mainly include Tongyi Allied Logistics, Modeco Trading Co., Xianglong Hotel Co., Ltd., Dolaly Hardware and Building Materials Wholesale Market Property Management Co., Ltd., Starwood Industrial Group etc.

Since 2008, Tongyi has integrated its business in Europe and switched to mining gradually so as to keep on developing. The company has invested more than 200 million US dollars in Nigeria and established Nigeria Tongyi Allied Mining Ltd. which specializes in mining development in 2011 according to modern enterprise system in Africa, and which is a modern mining company mainly focused on prospecting, mining, milling, metallurgy, deep processing and marketing of nonferrous metals and other mineral resources.

At present, Tongyi Allied Mining Ltd. is headquartered in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, and sets up offices in the States of Lagos, Bauchi, Plateau, Zamfara, Ogun and Ebonyi. The mining sites of the company are distributed mainly in the States of Zamfara, Katsina, Bauchi, Plateau, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Niger, Nasarawa and Taraba.

Tongyi Mining pays much attention on talent cultivation and construction of technical team to properly sustain technology talented person for the company to make sure its production and management and sustainable development via various methods. The company has founded its own professional technical teams for laboratories, geological survey, geological prospecting and geological mining design and has teams consisted of large-scale mining rigs and professional experts. Now its company has developed 2 rock gold deposits, 2 sand gold deposits, one stannary covering nearly 80 square kilometers and one lead-zinc-silver deposit with a reserve of about 3 million tons of metal. After over 3-year survey, the company has already discovered about 80 mining sites of gold, silver, cooper, tin, molybdenum, tungsten, beryllium, lead, zinc, crystal etc., with an estimated reserve of 20 million tons. Now the company’s business has spread into most states of Nigeria and has a certain influence in Nigeria.

The company has a 5 year mining lease to extract zinc and lead from Wase LGA. And preliminary investigations by ViewPointNigeria suggests that several Plateau politicians may be working closely or have minority, non-controlling stakes in this Chinese firm. We shall bring more information as we receive it.

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Chinese firm and Dangote to commence mining operations in Plateau & Middlebelt