Nigeria’s robust lithium deposit has a place in the Chinese/Europe flourishing bike business discussed on these pages. We must therefore quickly tap into it.
We are told there is a widespread adoption of e-bikes. E-bikes (electronically power-assisted cycles or EPACs) are equipped with a battery-powered motor that supports the rider but is capped at a maximum speed of 25 km/h. We are also told that “As a still comparatively new and very popular product in the bike market, demand has held steadier, and in 2023 e-bike imports had decreased by around 27 percent from their peak, compared to 40 percent for conventional bikes.”
One thing is certain, lithium is required for the manufacture of batteries for e-bikes. It is good news that for Nigeria, it is no longer business as usual in respect of solid mineral mining. According to reports, Nigeria is tightening rules around mining its lithium minerals countrywide following the rush for it by foreign mining companies. Government’s stand is that no company would be allowed to mine and export raw lithium unless they set up processing and refining plants in Nigeria. We must add value to lithium ore before selling it.
Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Materials, told DW that the government would “do everything possible to discourage the carting away of our solid minerals without value addition.”
Lithium is currently mined in Nassarawa, Kogi, Kwara, Ekiti, and Cross River States.
Alake said that the move is critical to help create jobs. “I am glad to mention that such an initiative is already on stream as some companies have already commenced operations in Nigeria.”
Ganfeng Lithium Industry Ltd., a Chinese company, is building a lithium processing plant in the central Nasarawa state. The plant is to process about 18,000 tons of lithium ore per day to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles. The government said this is an example of the desired type of investment.
Minister of Solid Materials Alake said the mining industry is being modernized and that the government is investing more than $19.6 million (€18.6) over seven years to generate data on the mining sector through the National Integrated Mineral Exploration Project (NIMEP).
“The preliminary reports from this project have unraveled massive discoveries which have literally put Nigeria on the world map of lithium-rich countries,” Alake told the gathering at the Nigeria Mining Week event recently.
For example, a country can become a bigger force in the global cocoa industry by prioritizing value addition. This is because around 80 percent of the global cocoa industry’s annual wealth of between US$130billion and US$150billion is generated during secondary processing (cocoa paste manufacturing), which continues to be non-existent in the country.
Intrinsically, with limited processing capacity producers like Ghana receive peanuts from exporting raw cocoa beans. For instance, Ghana and Ivory Coast – which produce 65 percent of the world’s cocoa, earn around a paltry 4 percent of the industry’s wealth of about US$150billion, because the majority of their beans are exported in a raw state.
Against this backdrop, a Principal Public Affairs Officer at Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), Benjamin Larweh, has said the only way to change this narrative is to invest in processing capacity.
If done on an industrial scale, he said, value addition carries much higher economic value and could help to transform the entire value chain and the economy at large.
Value addition pays. Ghana for instance produces an average of 800,000 tonnes of cocoa beans annually, with a processing capacity of about 40 percent. The domestic industry sector regulator, Ghana Cocoa Board, has meanwhile set a target of 50 percent processing within the three years – along with plans to promote local cocoa consumption to back it.
“The more value you add to the cocoa, the more income it brings you. For instance, if you are looking at the chocolate industry worldwide we are talking about between US$130 to US$150billion. That is what the chocolate industry gives us every year; but the money that comes to the producers like Ghana which export in raw form is just about 6.6 percent. This explains why government has made it a policy to ensure that we add value to a minimum of 50 percent for the cocoa produced here – whether semi-finished or finished products – for consumption locally and exports to the international market.”
Mr. Larweh disclosed that the campaign for local value addition and consumption saw a 50 percent increase in local consumption, from 0.5 percent in 2017 to 1 percent as at 2022.
So value addition it is for lithium, and other solid minerals of course. Good that FG is championing it. It must not end at policy level.