How Nigeria can attract foreign direct investment to mining sector – Ghazale

Mr. Fadi Abou Ghazale is the Chief Executive Officer of Titan Minerals Nigeria, a frontline JORC-compliant mineral exploration company with projects in Nigeria and around the world.

In this interview conducted at the exhibition booth of the company during the 2024 edition of the Nigeria Mining Week, Ghazale says the company has strengthened its frontline position by acquiring world class mining equipment and ancillary, while strengthening the professional capacity of personnel for efficient project execution and service delivery.

Ghazale hinted on ongoing projects of Titan Minerals and its relationship with some listed companies.

He revealed what Nigeria needs to do to attract Foreign Direct Investment to the minerals sector and become a global mining destination, among other issues.

Excerpts.

Kindly discuss ongoing mineral exploration projects of your organization, the Titan Minerals.

We have been doing a lot in recent time. We have been working with companies listed on the AIM market, and the Toronto Stock Exchange. The projects are focused mostly around lithium, gold and tin. We are currently executing very large exploration on tin around Jos in Plateau state.

There are also several lithium pegmatite projects that we are successfully executing in the Nasarawa, Oyo, and Ekiti axis. These projects are still at early stage because Nigeria is still a Greenfield in terms of lithium exploration. So, mainly, we are carrying out geochemical sampling, some geological mapping, geophysics acquisition and some other activities which are all at the early stage.

We hope to begin executing some projects within the Suleja region, Niger State, soon. They are gold projects with very high prospectivity. So, we are supporting the clients to drive these projects to production in Nigeria.

We are also carrying out very intensive drilling on lithium pegmatites between Oyo, Ekiti and some other states in the South West.

What solid minerals are the most sought after in the world today?

We all know that gold recently hit the all time high. We can say that we are in a kind of super cycle as it relates to the mineral and metal price all over the world. So, gold is currently the most attractive because it is exceeding expectations. We believe that the trend will continue for a couple of years to come.

How can Nigeria take advantage of this prospect?

I am happy that you can tell that there is great prospect. Well, it offers a great opportunity for Nigeria. Nigeria should try to attract some foreign investments to develop both Greenfield and Brownfield mineral resources.

In terms of global preference, what mineral is next to gold?

Lithum. We believe that lithium is here to stay and Nigeria has a lot of potential in this regard because there is a lot of traction for international companies to look into some lithium projects.

Historically, tin has always been at the forefront of the Nigerian mineral industry. There is a lot of traction with regard to tin. Nigeria has very high potential for the development of tin. We all know that Gold, Lithium and Tin are the minerals of the future, and most of the companies and governments are interested in them. Governments want to drive the green transition into more environmentally friendly products like electric cars, wind turbines and solar panels among others.

Titan Minerals has brought its heavy duty mining equipment on display. Tell us about your equipment stock.
At Titan Minerals, acquisition of mining equipment is continuous because as you know the market is evolving daily and we go for the best in order to stay abreast of development.
We provide drilling service in Nigeria and like I said, we must be abreast of development.

There are new exhibition rigs branded Titan Minerals, and they are out there on display. Tell us about your equipment.
We are ahead in the industry even in terms of equipment and machinery. We currently have six drilling rigs in Nigeria and they are in use at our various project locations across the country.

We offer latest technology in drilling that provides both capabilities, diamond drilling and reverse circulation technology.

Very importantly, we have the ancillary equipment which is used to support the kind of drilling rigs I discussed earlier. The ancillary equipment includes air compressor, air boosters, transport vehicles and all the drilling tools that are required for efficient operation in mining. We currently entail a very large stock of the drilling tools and they are available here in Nigeria.

How has the acquisition of these equipment helped the company?

It has made it possible for Titan Minerals to arrive at eminence in terms of quality of project delivery, and we are able to efficiently deliver all projects in set time. Time is very important to clients and it is also very important to us.

What geophysical equipment does Titan Minerals have?

We have a variety of geophysical equipment. There are ground magnetic equipment, electromagnetic equipment and induced polarization equipment.

Our teams of experts are trained by some of the best trainers in the industry, and we are very fulfilled in the outcome on site. They are able to do the proper data interpretation, make the right decisions and execute instructions satisfactorily.

Titan Minerals now has a laboratory.
Yes, we developed an interim mineral laboratory by which we fast track some results on our exploration programs. Here in Abuja, we have a preparation facility and we use an XRF and Libs Analyzer to analyze lithium in a very fast and efficient way.
These equipment are limited, they results they give may not be compared to the actual laboratory analysis, but they can form a tool in channeling efficiently an exploration project by cutting down the laboratory turnaround time.

Tell us about your development collaborations.
Of course we are partnering with several accredited international laboratories in order to arrive at an accurate resource and reserve estimation.

How can the Nigerian mining sector reposition to benefit from the globally sought after minerals?

We all know that Nigeria is currently trying to position itself as a mining destination. We equally believe that such a dream will not come true unless some serious junior exploration companies are attracted to the country to drive the development of mineral assets to the next stage.

Obviously, Nigeria has most of the minerals that are currently highly desired around the world.

I conducted a research on the trend of exploration financing and I discovered that a larger part of mineral exploration funding is coming into West Africa.

Whether you believe it or not, it is obvious that Nigerias neighboring countries are facing serious security challenges which make it difficult for them to attract global investments in mining even though they may be highly endowed with mineral deposits. I am talking about Chad, Niger and Burkin Faso. So Nigeria is relatively stable and I call on Nigerian to take advantage of its stability and do what it should do to attract FDI to the mineral sector, and then compete with other jurisdictions like Ghana, Cote divoire and Cameroon among others.