Nigeria, Saudi Arabia Strengthen Cooperation for Development of Solid Minerals

By: Ogunleye Oluwapelumi

In a bid to support the global transition towards cleaner energy, Nigeria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have announced plans to deepen their cooperation in the development of solid minerals.

The Minister of Solid Minerals Development in Nigeria, Dr. Dele Alake, and his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Bandar AlKhorayef, led delegations from both countries in a bilateral meeting held at the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh.

During the meeting, Minister Alake emphasized the need for collaboration, highlighting the abundance of critical minerals in Nigeria. He stressed the importance of investments in exploration, extraction, processing, and local value addition. Recognizing the historical affinity between Saudi Arabia and Nigeria, Alake expressed the desire to strengthen the partnership to maximize the utilization of natural resources for economic and infrastructural development.

Alake said: “We need a lot of investments in exploration, exploitation, extraction, processing, and local value addition. We realise that we must look at regions outside of Africa to collaborate, further consolidate, and enhance our capacity in exploring and exploiting the natural resources that we have. For us to maximally utilise, exploit, and derive maximum revenue for our own economic and infrastructural development, we need to have a very solid partnership with nations like Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia has always displayed good affinity to Nigeria, and it is historical. We have always been desirous of reciprocating this very positive gesture, and there is no better area to ensure that reciprocity than to ensure we consolidate on our partnerships in areas of economic development. We are willing and open to investments in Nigeria, especially in the mining sector.”