Exclusive interview with Luis Pizano, Project Manager at Beak Consultants GmbH, a returning gold sponsors at Nigeria Mining Week.
Can we start with the background of the company and your offering? Hello from Freiberg in Germany. I am currently a project manager at Beak Consultants. Some background about Beak Consultants: it is a company that was founded in 1994 with only five scientists. After many years of working abroad in Germany, in Europe, we are now proud to say that we have more than 50 scientific and technical staff. We offer many services in the field of applied geology, environmental management, such as hydrogeology, risk assessment, impact studies, closure studies and GIS information. We have also developed our own advangeo® software portfolio, which includes several packages for field data capture, data management, distribution and processing, using artificial neural networks or artificial intelligence, as it is more commonly known.
Our story in Africa started around the 2000s, and we have been working in Nigeria since 2019. So, it has been quite an interesting experience where we have successfully implemented projects in many, many countries.
How important is the mining sector for the future of Nigeria’s economy in your view?
I can identify several key aspects that are quite important. If you compare the GDP of many countries that are highly dependent on mining, the GDP or let’s say the participation of mining is around 10% or even in some cases more. In Nigeria, it is sometimes barely 1% or 2%, which indicates that there is still a huge step for Nigeria to take to increase its GDP and the revenue generated by the mining industry. In addition, there is a huge number of direct and indirect jobs that can be generated by this industry, which are currently not available. However, there are already a few interesting developments happening, more about that later in this interview. But let’s concentrate more on the importance of mining in the country’s economy. So, not only jobs but also infrastructure can be developed by the mining industry. We have already seen that in certain places in Nigeria, for example, the new gold mine from Segilola: roads are being built. This will eventually lead to more options, not only for the development of ports but also airports and the energy transmission grid. This is all infrastructure that the mining industry depends on, and this will then directly benefit the country. In addition, international or multinational companies are more interested in Nigeria if the industry shows potential and development, which means that there’s a lot of money that will come into Nigeria, either by investment, either by, let’s say, an inflow of cash, which means, again, jobs, better paid jobs. So, by improving the mining industry in Nigeria, we are already seeing that there are several sectors that will benefit.
Regarding the diversification of the industry, Nigeria has been highly dependent on the oil and gas industries for many, many years. This dependency shows that only certain areas in Nigeria have been, in a way, highly developed and benefited from this industry. But there are large areas in Nigeria that have been not impacted by this industry, whereas by mining, we are now seeing the country as a whole, which means that all this development, all of this inflow of cash that can be expected to have a broader impact on
the country. So this is quite beneficial. Following this idea, we can see that there will eventually be a huge need to develop the human resources inside the country, which means that the country will have more funds or even can ask these mining companies to develop the education system, for example, building schools, universities, and also preparing local people to be able to work in these industries. So, we are now seeing a much broader diversification of the industries that are either directly or indirectly dependent on the industry. Therefore, it’s a very important industry to develop.
Knowing that there is a huge potential for the development of a variety of minerals to be found and extracted from Nigeria, this is a golden opportunity for this industry to be developed.
What are the particular challenges of doing business in Nigeria and the region? One of the challenges that I have seen so far, having working in a country for a few years already, sometimes is the lack of transparency. And this can be interpreted in many ways, but what I mean is that when a company comes to Nigeria, what are the conditions, for example, where do they look for the information? What laws applies to them? Who can help them to find this information, to enlighten their own information? Who can show them the way, the way, the path for them to be able to settle down in the country? So, the point is, in the last couple of months or even years, this has been improving and there are increasingly more platforms or sources of information that can help with this information, but there’s still information lacking. And there’s still some clarity needed, at least from my perspective, on what would be the best way of doing this or settling in for a company in Nigeria for mining exploration, for extraction, where to take the raw materials if you want to export them; this is still not clear. Along with this are also the policies and the regulations currently implemented in Nigeria. It is interesting that the most recent policies implemented are not that old, but since this is an industry that is rapidly changing right now in Nigeria, because there’s a huge interest from the government, companies and external actors, these policies should be updated every year. And there does not seem to be an interest in developing or improving these policies every year, checking them, looking at how they can be improved and be more attractive. So, there is still a hesitancy, let’s call it that, to update these regulations.
There also needs to be better support for the financial situation of new companies in the industry. For those that are already settled in Nigeria, it may be a little bit easier. However, Nigeria should be interested in bringing in more external actors that eventually will bring more money and investment into these projects.
In addition, there’s still some disorganisation in the industry. There needs to be more cooperation, not only between the entities within the government, so state entities, let’s say the NGSA (Nigeria Geological Survey Agency) or the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development. There needs to be more communication to develop new and more modern geological information, capturing of new data to indicate anomalous areas and cooperate to be able to, for example, even select certain areas that can offer certain actors certain critical components or facts; but also to develop these facts further if they see that there’s still some hesitance from external actors to come into the country.
What else could the Nigerian government do to attract investment and exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth?
What else can the Nigerian government do? A lot more marketing should be done. What do I mean by this? There are very important events that the government should be attending to be able to contact investment companies that have the money to push mining projects forward. It should also be in regular with the mining companies to understand what they require. So right now, the last project that was developed by the ministry in cooperation with the World Bank was to develop and capture new data but also to identify certain commodities that would be of interest to the mining industry. So, the idea is to identify the companies looking for those commodities and what these companies need to be brought into Nigeria. I have seen some more engagement recently with companies and that has been a good step forward. However, there should still be more of an aggressive, let’s say, communication or participation in events and meetings with all these companies to really show them that the environment has changed for the positive, that they can participate in this country and benefit from it.
There’s also a lot of work that needs to be done, for example, to understand the need for negotiations. It’s not just about showing that country has potential, No, they actually have to identify if this company wants to come in, provide financial incentives. Also, they must show what the policies are, in which case, they can have some leverage in certain cases. So this will provide such companies with more knowledge about what is happening in the mining industry right now. Australia and other big mining countries were like Nigeria at one time. Therefore, now is the time for Nigeria to develop the potential of its mining industry and hopefully do it in an organised way.
Embracing technological modernisation, the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development has created a centralised platform for the visualisation of all available and newly acquired geoscientific data, a step forward to development and transparency. Access the following link to get up-to-date with the most recent data (soon available for download): NMRDSS Nigeria (minesandsteel.gov.ng)
You have been a regular partner of Nigeria Mining Week for the last few years. What made you decide to return as a sponsor again this year? What has been your experience over the years?
We have decided to come back because we have seen that the Nigerian environment, the geology and the potential for the mining industry are huge but still underdeveloped. There is a need for a company that can provide mining and exploration companies with the support, either by doing exploration, interpreting data, by assisting in the decision making and identifying potential areas. That is how we identify ourselves: that through all the knowledge that we have gathered the last couple of years, either working directly with the ministry but also working with some private companies, we are certain that our knowledge can be of high relevance to many companies that are interested in doing exploration or eventually mining.
And they need a very strong local actor, because we also have a local representative that will aid them in this process. We identified Nigeria Money Week as a great event for meeting people, not only local that are not sure what they have and what they can do, but also as a meeting point for all other external actors. So we have met people from, for example, India, England and even Argentina who are interested in doing exploration. So, this is the perfect place to share our knowledge, to share what we have, not only for personal gain, but also to showcase Nigeria in the sense that we are certain that this country has a lot of potential, has new data, and is very interesting for investors. It’s still like a greenfield, which means that there are a lot of areas that are unexplored, where almost nothing has been done so far, but they have a lot of potential.
That’s why we see Nigerian Mining Week as a great event, and that’s why we are also sponsoring this event, to attract more people, to make it more relevant, because we are also sure that hopefully in the next five years, this event will be even comparable to the Mining Indaba in South Africa, because Nigeria is one of the biggest countries in Africa, financially-wise and population-wise, and it should be the central focus point for developing mining in the region. That’s why, for example, a lot of people know about Lagos as the financial hub, but hopefully we can eventually talk about Abuja as the mining hub.
How important is this event on the regional mining calendar in your view?
Following my previous explanation and keeping in mind that Nigerian Mining Week takes place in November, sometimes in October. If you compare that to other events that take place, for example, Mining Indaba in February and PDAC in March, Nigeria Mining Week is very well located, because it not only allows, for example, for the opportunity to analyse projects that were presented in the other regional and world events, but also to follow these projects that were presented there and know how far they have developed or if there’s new data. So it also presents an opportunity to catch up on what new projects there are? Have there been any new discoveries? Instead of waiting a whole year to be able to present these new discoveries and findings, this now helps as an intermediate step to present a new project and then bring it up to PDAC and Mining Indaba or this Future Minerals Forum in Saudi Arabia. So this is a great opportunity as an in-between event and brings more continuity to projects that have been developing in Nigeria and regionally. And that’s why this event should be marketed more so that more external actors and foreign companies can be brought in. So yes, it adds to the continuity of the development in the mining industry and the acquisition of investment, and so on.
Anything you would like to add?
I would like to invite anyone who is interested in the mining industry to attend this event. It is growing exponentially every time and it presents an amazing opportunity to know what is happening in Nigeria. And I have also starting to see some regional companies participating. This is also the platform to understand that Nigeria has a huge potential, to understand the new regulatory and policies, because a lot of politicians are also attending Nigeria Mining Week. So, it’s an amazing opportunity to connect with them and eventually develop relationships that allow for better communication with the government to be able to not only enter Nigeria, but also benefit from the policies. There are plenty of areas that still need to be explored and I’m pretty sure that in the following five years, the number of new projects, mines or potential mines will be growing exponentially, because sometimes the development of a mine can take some years. But the potential is there and already there are several actors that we have been working with on very interesting things. I can assure you that there is a lot of great potential for critical materials, which are quite relevant right now for the world and for new technologies. So what are you waiting for to participate in this event?
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