Council urges Nigeria to process critical minerals before export

Nigeria should process its critical minerals domestically rather than repeat the economic pattern associated with exporting crude oil and importing refined products, World Energy Council Nigeria chief executive Bala Wunti has said. Wunti made the call while participating in a panel on critical minerals at the 2026 Concordia Annual Summit in New York. He said exporting unprocessed deposits while importing expensive finished goods would not create broad national prosperity.

He identified lithium, rare earth elements, nickel and cobalt among Nigeria’s estimated 44 critical mineral types. These resources, he said, should be developed into local manufacturing and industrial value chains. Wunti said Nigeria’s experience with crude oil showed the risks of leaving raw materials undeveloped.

He argued that the country had suffered poverty, capital flight and economic vulnerability despite exporting crude for decades and importing refined petroleum products. He said the mining sector’s main obstacle was not a lack of geological potential but the absence of reliable, standardised and bankable geological data. International investors, he said, financed commercially structured projects rather than unverified indications of deposits.

Wunti added that turning deposits into investable assets would require dependable geological surveys, stable regulation, host-community security, electricity infrastructure and clear access to international markets. He described the newly established Nigerian Solid Minerals Company as a potential state-backed vehicle for addressing the problem. The company, he said, could help convert geological information into de-risked equity opportunities for private investors and support domestic processing.