By Bankole Shakirudeen Adesina and Bernard Daniel/TheMiners
Etazuma Mining and Industry, a subsidiary of the Etazuma Group, has emerged as Nigeria’s largest coal mining company, championing a renaissance in a sector long overlooked despite the country’s immense deposits.
Eta-Zuma Group is a conglomerate of eight separate companies with exploration licenses covering diverse solid minerals like iron ore, gold, tantalite, coal, limestone/marble, etc. In April 2009, these eight companies were acquired by Energy and Metal Industries Limited to form the Eta-Zuma Group Limited.
The firms under this wholly indigenous Group of Companies include:
1. ZUMA STEEL WEST AFRICA LIMITED
2. ZUMA METAL & ENERGY RESOURCES 3. FCO
4. ETA-ZUMA GROUP
5. ZUMA ENERGY NIGERIA LIMITED
6. ENERGY & METAL INDUSTRIES LIMITED (EMI).
The acquisitions, spurred by the economic reason to consolidate the diverse licenses into a balanced portfolio that will reduce risk and position the emerging company to exploit emerging market opportunities in a global commodities market that is on a rebound, increased the size of the company more than five-fold.
The Group has since invested over $10million in proving reserves of especially marble and opening up new coal reserves and in new plant and machinery. The headquarters at Abuja coordinates mainly exploration activities at all exploration sites especially in the Kogi block now in partnership with the technical partners EMI and the Geological Institute of Ukraine.
These activities are projected to see Eta-Zuma-group with a projected minimum turnover of $1bn with management, production, sale and distribution of coal and other minerals supporting thousands more jobs in businesses involved in the supply of equipment, goods and services.
The group projects that over 50% of all the coal mined in Nigeria will be produced by it, mainly via surface mine sites principally located in the Kogi and Enugu blocks. Most of the proposed coal to be mined will be used for the generation of electricity.
The Group also has plans to process output from its lignite deposits in the Delta block into briquettes and other domestic power fuels for use mainly in the northern parts of Nigeria in keeping with her environmental protection initiatives.
Acording to Dr Innocent Ezuma, the visionary Executive Chairman/CEO of the Etazuma, Etazuma sees itself not just as a business entity but as a national builder, focused on supporting local manufacturing utilities and long-term transformation rather than short-term global recognition.
In this wide-ranging interview, Dr Ezuma shares his thoughts on the industry and the mining sector at large. Excerpts:
Despite the enormous deposit of coal in Nigeria, the country is not one of those utilizing this for economic prosperity. Why do you think this is so?
At this time, coal mining in Nigeria is a new business. And we – Etazuma Mining and Industry (Etazuma Group) are the pioneers of the modern-day coal mining in Nigeria. So, it takes some time to ramp up. Of course, Nigeria today is using coal locally but not exporting yet. So, it’s a thing of time.
Etazuma is the largest coal mining company in Nigeria. Who are your primary customers and what percentage of your products are sold locally to the Nigerian people?
We sell 100% coal mined by us locally. We are very patriotic about that. We don’t want to start selling this important resource outside the country when we have not fully satisfied the in-country requirements. Though it is going to be more profitable selling outside the country, but we feel that we have to first satisfy the requirements in Nigeria by various industries. Our customers include: The Dangote Group, its Cement Factory; BUA, the Lafarge, Paper Mills, Cassava Processing Plants, Tin Mills, among others. They all require coal as their primary source of energy. What we mine here in Nigeria is thermal coal. It is an energy coal.
Technology has made coal a clean source of energy. But it is quite expensive to run. How does your company go around this challenge?
I believe coal has always been clean. It is a clean source of energy. It is just that the West have mined the coal to develop their economy, they are still using coal, but are telling us it is no more clean! There are many industries in their own countries mining coal for more than 100 years or more and there are still people living in these countries. Their economy has developed as a result of this, but they are telling us don’t mine because it is dirty. I feel that it is not dirty. And even if it is dirty, let us leverage on it a little bit and develop our economy and thereafter agree with them that it is dirty.
What is the motivating factor for you to have invested this heavily in the coal mining sector, with the prevalent and associated risks?
Well, something difficult is going to be done by a man. I am a man. And I feel that we, at Etazuma, must contribute our quota to the socio-economic development of the country. We have a huge resource. The human, mineral and environmental resources (land) are meant for our prosperity.
We feel these are resources that are not adequately utilized and we decided to step in and do something differently. We just don’t want to trade and import poverty into our country. We want to look inward, develop what we have in this country. We want to develop our human resources – the capability of our people – so that we can use these enormous resources that nature has placed in this part of our world for the good of all Nigerians.
In all honesty, would you say this big risk you have taken has been worth it?
Well, business itself is called risk. So, we will continue to take risk. This is so because we are happy with what we do.
Would you say that you are surprised that several developed nations who previously dumped coal have now gone back to it to power their economies?
As I am talking to you now, more coal-fire-powered projects are being developed in the world. Because I don’t think the world has told us the truth in the first place that coal is a dirty fuel. It is not the truth. Nature has the capacity to take care of itself. So, if anything is dirty, nature will take care of it. Just like no matter how dirty your hands are, the moment you wash it with water, it becomes clean again. That is how nature it. You can’t say that what nature has created is dirty. It is actually a sin, an aberration.
An industry analyst told us that your company is among the few to likely break into international reckoning as a major player in coal mining?
We don’t want to be recognized internationally. We want to create and make serious input into our country. We want to be National Champions in developing our economy. Let’s do it first here before we start spreading to regional, continental and probably global thereafter. For now, we are not looking at international highlight but local impact first.
Would you attribute the previous abandonment of this resource by the country to lack of knowledge, or what?
I have not analysed the development in this form. I think that people have different priorities. And some people want to make easy money. So they go for maybe crude oil or trading business, and things like that. But I feel that, yes, quick money is good, but for how long? Other nationalities go into our bushes, mine these natural resources and take it away out of this country, secretly, and we don’t get anything for it. They simply don’t pay royalties or taxes and they do a lot of crime. Whereas we the Nigerian people who live in this part of the world that has these minerals are just there fighting ourselves everyday over things that actually don’t not make sense, in my thinking.
Etazuma Group has acquired a license to construct a Power Plant in Egbema, Imo State, and as well as one in Itomi in Kogi State, how far have you gone with these projects?
Yes, we are developing our 1,200 megawatts Coal Fire Powered Project at Egbema and the 400 Megawatts Fired Power Gas Project in Kogi. These are the businesses taking our attention now. And in no distant time, you will be hearing from us.
This is a personal question. Who is Dr. Ezuma. And what are your personal values that you would say have helped you shape this company?
I am an industrialist who believes that things can be done differently. I believe if we use, judiciously, the resources that have been bestowed on this country, it would greatly help us in developing the economic capacity of our people.
There is no doubt that Etazuma Mining Company has positioned itself to deliver a long-term value to its investors. How would you evaluate the performance of your company in this area?
We are returning premium returns to our investors. However, some activities of illegal miners have been depressing the price and affecting the flow of the business. Quite fortunately however, the Minister of Solid Mineral Development has taken it upon himself to handle the sanitization of the sector, which will surely bring a lot of revenue to the country, eventually. This is because if all the minerals that are being stolen by the criminally minded expatriates and some unpatriotic citizens, if it was aggregated and plowed back into the Nigerian economy, and taxes and royalties are paid, I don’t think Nigeria would have any business with borrowing money from any foreign country whatsoever. We have enough. We need to harness it properly, invest in it adequately and use it to develop our economy.
In which ways do you think insecurity has affected the growth of this sector? And how have you been able to minimize the impact on your business?
Insecurity has no doubt affected everybody in the country. In some of our Mining Lease Areas – where we have gold in Zamfara and now somewhere in Kogi State – illegal miners are taking over. And they arm themselves very seriously that even we that we are the Mining Lease Owners can’t get to our mining site. I think the government is taking very serious steps on this. But I also think they should be fast with whatever decisions and actions they are taking. This is because otherwise, very soon, all of us will become illegal miners and bandits to protect ourselves. That would be a complete anarchy and would not augur well. We, the legal miners who want to do things legitimately, and legally, should be afforded the chance to do so.
All these impediments being constituted by illegal miners who are unscrupulous and unpatriotic people, in connivance with their foreign counterparts, should be removed as a matter of urgency. All these foreigners and their machineries entering our bushes to mine illegally, killing and disturbing our people is totally unacceptable. It is not the right way to go. I feel that the government have to take a serious stand in this area and do something differently.
Do you see yourself taking the company public anytime soon?
Going public is a thing that every company wants to do. So, definitely, we are looking at that. And our investors are very credible people. We are actually happy with our performance.
Sustainability is a major pillar in a business, as well as carrying along your host communities in your operations. How do you handle this?
Of course, mining is long-term. Because you need to make a huge investment. And sometimes, it would take you 15 years to recoup your investment. This is because you need high technical equipment. Sometimes, you need to build the roads, develop the communities and so on. This is because mining is done in the bush. And it takes you a long time to build it up, the infrastructure – the Mine Access Roads, buy the heavy duty equipment, install the processing plants and so on. It is a huge investment. And so is the recouping as well. Mining is something that you plan for 50 years and more. And the resources that we have today is enough for mining for the next 100 years.
So, yes, we are here for long term. That is why we want things to be done well. We want things to be legitimate. We want the country to benefit. We want our host communities as well to benefit. Because eventually, these children that we are giving scholarship today that are studying would come back and still work for the company. Maybe one of them would be the CEO tomorrow, I don’t know. But I would be happy to see that happen. And that is why we are putting in place everything. To make sure we train them and give them a new life.
How do you see the newly introduced reforms by the Ministry of Solid Mineral and Development?
The current atmosphere working with our Minister, Dr. Dele Alake, is a very good one. I think they are doing a good job. They are rolling out a lot of positive programmes for the industry. I think what I can say is that to let them just carry on. They are doing well. I must commend them for taking leadership of this initiative that we must come together to develop this sector.
Normally, this sector supposed to be the biggest employers of labour in the country, probably outside Agriculture. So, in our company, we have about a thousand people working daily. And we just started. By the time we grow our capacity to three million tonnage of coal a year, we would be talking about 2000 to 2,500 persons working directly in our mines activities, outside the transport, hotels, restaurants, and other attendant benefits.
The number is not including those at the coal factories. And again, the foreign exchange that we save for the country too. Otherwise, the country would have used dollars to go and buy coal somewhere else, or in alternative use petroleum products like gas, and diesel. Thereby, putting a lot of pressure on the diesel that we normally channel for other industrial use. So, these are the values we are bringing to our country, which we are very proud of and happy to do more also.
AI is changing how human work, some are even arguing it would disrupt manual labour, leading to mass retrenchment. Is your company positioning itself to align with the AI Revolution, especially to enhance it productivity?
Artificial Intelligence is a necessary evil. We are going to adopt it, as much as it would not disrupt our capacity to train, employ and deploy our people to useful use. We will teach our people to use AI to perform certain level of duties. However, those duties that should be done by human beings would be done by human beings.
What would you tell a younger person out there who is trying to find his or her footings in the mining sector?
Stop looking and start doing something already. Go and get Artisanal Mining License and start digging.
