*Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake.
Nigeria and the United States are set to deepen cooperation in the mining sector, with both countries targeting the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on mining cooperation.
This was contained in a statement issued on Sunday by the Special Assistant on Media to the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Lara Owoeye-Wise.
According to the statement, the proposed agreement followed a meeting between the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, and the United States Embassy’s Chargé d’Affaires, Keith Heffern, in Abuja.
The statement said the meeting was a follow-up to a high-level engagement earlier this year in Washington, D.C., where Alake led a delegation of the Nigeria Solid Minerals Company to the White House for discussions with David Copley, Special Assistant to the US President and Senior Director for Global Supply Chain at the National Security Council.
It said the engagement focused on expanding Nigeria-US cooperation across the critical minerals value chain, including geological exploration, mining, processing, value addition and refining, while strengthening secure and resilient mineral supply chains critical to the global energy transition.
According to the statement, Alake briefed the US delegation on ongoing reforms in Nigeria’s mining sector, including efforts to digitise the country’s geological data to provide investors with accessible and reliable information on mineral occurrences.
The minister said the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency had made significant progress in mapping and cataloguing the country’s mineral resources, describing the digital platform as a major tool for de-risking investment decisions..
