A group of indigenous mineral explorers have discovered 196mn metric tonnes of coal in western Nigeria’s Edo State
The 35 km-long reserve has a generation capacity of 1,200MW for the next 50 years, which could sufficiently mitigate the west African nation’s ongoing power problems, said members of the technical team Jidet Nigeria, which revealed the findings. Head of the company’s technical team Olujide Pocon Tajudeen-Alan stated that the construction of power generation facilities could cost around US$1.5bn.
Special adviser on renewable energy to the Nigerian power ministry Albert Okorogu said that the discovery of coal was wonderful, especially since Edo State was conventionally not known to possess coal reserves. “The Ministry will do all it can in ensuring that they move from mining coal to using it to generate power,” he added.
Jidet Nigeria has met with the power ministry in Abuja to discuss the best ways to attract technical partners and financiers with a view to actualise the project.
“We want to commence the application and processing of licenses to officially enter the power sector. We are also soliciting the support of experts in the Ministry to guide us because primarily, we are into mineral exploration,” said the company.
