Nigeria is blessed with abundant mineral resources and most of these remain untapped. The country is so blessed with solid minerals and in large quantities too. Due to presence of oil in the country as well the government has not devoted enough time to the solid mineral sector although it has started by declaring its intention to support investors in this sector. This it has done by streamlining the process of acquisition of mining title and setting aside solid mineral support fund for investors in the sector. One of such mineral that Nigeria has in abundance is Gold
Gold is the most valuable resource in Nigeria apart from oil and gas. With a large deposit of both alluvial and primary deposits and proven reserves spread across several parts of the schist belts in North-west and South-west of Nigeria and a number of smaller occurrences beyond the highlighted areas.
It should be noted that Gold production in Africa alone accounts for approximately 21% of the World total, and Nigeria seeks to join this market. As the most familiar metal to most people, Gold is commonly used for jewellery, dentistry; it is used for scientific and electronic instruments, computers circuitry, as an electrolyte in the electroplating industry, and also in many applications in the aerospace/ defence industry and as well as a host of other applications.
Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au (from Latin: aurum) and atomic number 79, making it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum) and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides).
Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, which forms a soluble tetrachloroaurate anion. Gold is insoluble in nitric acid, which dissolves silver and base metals, a property that has long been used to refine gold and to confirm the presence of gold in metallic objects, giving rise to the term acid test. Gold also dissolves in alkaline solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction.
A relatively rare element, gold is a precious metal that has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. In the past, a gold standard was often implemented as a monetary policy, but gold coins ceased to be minted as a circulating currency in the 1930s, and the world gold standard was abandoned for a fiat currency system after 1976.
A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold exists above ground, as of 2015. The world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold’s high malleability, ductility, resistance to corrosion and most other chemical reactions, and conductivity of electricity have led to its continued use in corrosion resistant electrical connectors in all types of computerized devices (its chief industrial use). Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, and tooth restoration. Certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine.
PRODUCTION
The World Gold Council states that as of the end of 2017, “there were 187,200 tonnes of stocks in existence above ground”. This can be represented by a cube with an edge length of about 21 meters. At $1,349 per troy ounce, 187,200 metric tonnes of gold would have a value of $8.9 trillion. As of 2017, the world’s largest gold producer by far was China with 455 tonnes. The second-largest producer, Australia, mined 270 tonnes in the same year, followed by Russia with 250 tonnes.
APPILICATION AND USES
Medicinal uses
Medicinal applications of gold and its complexes have a long history dating back thousands of years. Several gold complexes have been applied to treat rheumatoid arthritis, the most frequently used are: aurothiomalate, aurothioglucose, and auranofin. Both gold (I) and gold (III) compounds have been have been investigated as possible anti-cancer drugs. For gold (III) complexes, reduction to gold (0/I) under physiological conditions has to be considered. Stable complexes can be generated using different types of bi-, tri-, and tetradentate ligand systems and their high efficacy has been demonstrated in vitro and in vivo.
Extraction and refining
Gold extraction is most economical in large, easily mined deposits. Ore grades as little as 0.5 parts per million (ppm) can be economical. Typical ore grades in open-pit mines are 1–5 ppm; ore grades in underground or hard rock mines are usually at least 3 ppm. Because ore grades of 30 ppm are usually needed before gold is visible to the naked eye, in most gold mines the gold is invisible.
The average gold mining and extraction costs were about $317 per troy ounce in 2007, but these can vary widely depending on mining type and ore quality; global mine production amounted to 2,471.1 tonnes.
After initial production, gold is often subsequently refined industrially by the Wohlwill process which is based on electrolysis or by the Miller process that is chlorination in the melt. The Wohlwill process results in higher purity, but is more complex and is only applied in small-scale installations. Other methods of assaying and purifying smaller amounts of gold include parting and inquartation as well as cupellation, or refining methods based on the dissolution of gold in aqua regia.
Consumption
The consumption of gold produced in the world is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. According to World Gold Council, China is the world’s largest single consumer of gold in 2013 and toppled India for the first time with Chinese consumption increasing by 32 percent in a year, while that of India only rose by 13 percent and world consumption rose by 21 percent. Unlike India where gold is mainly used for jewelry, China uses gold for manufacturing and retail
APPILICATION
Jewelry
Because of the softness of pure (24k) gold, it is usually alloyed with base metals for use in jewelry, altering its hardness and ductility, melting point, color and other properties. Alloys with lower karat rating, typically 22k, 18k, 14k or 10k, contain higher percentages of copper or other base metals or silver or palladium in the alloy. Palladium-gold alloys are more expensive than those using nickel. High-karat white gold alloys are more resistant to corrosion than are either pure silver or sterling silver. The Japanese craft of Mokume-gane exploits the color contrasts between laminated colored gold alloys to produce decorative wood-grain effects.
By 2014, the gold jewelry industry was escalating despite a dip in gold prices. Demand in the first quarter of 2014 pushed turnover to $23.7 billion according to a World Gold Council report.
Gold solder is used for joining the components of gold jewelry by high-temperature hard soldering or brazing. If the work is to be of hallmarking quality, the gold solder alloy must match the fineness (purity) of the work, and alloy formulas are manufactured to color-match yellow and white gold. Gold solder is usually made in at least three melting-point ranges referred to as Easy, Medium and Hard. By using the hard, high-melting point solder first, followed by solders with progressively lower melting points, goldsmiths can assemble complex items with several separate soldered joints. Gold can also be made into thread and used in embroidery.
Electronics
Only 10% of the world consumption of new gold produced goes to industry, but by far the most important industrial use for new gold is in fabrication of corrosion-free electrical connectors in computers and other electrical devices. For example, according to the World Gold Council, a typical cell phone may contain 50 mg of gold, worth about 50 cents. But since nearly one billion cell phones are produced each year, a gold value of 50 cents in each phone adds to $500 million in gold from just this application.
Though gold is attacked by free chlorine, its good conductivity and general resistance to oxidation and corrosion in other environments (including resistance to non-chlorinated acids) has led to its widespread industrial use in the electronic era as a thin-layer coating on electrical connectors, thereby ensuring good connection. For example, gold is used in the connectors of the more expensive electronics cables, such as audio, video and USB cables. The benefit of using gold over other connector metals such as tin in these applications has been debated; gold connectors are often criticized by audio-visual experts as unnecessary for most consumers and seen as simply a marketing ploy. However, the use of gold in other applications in electronic sliding contacts in highly humid or corrosive atmospheres, and in use for contacts with a very high failure cost (certain computers, communications equipment, spacecraft, jet aircraft engines) remains very common.
Besides sliding electrical contacts, gold is also used in electrical contacts because of its resistance to corrosion, electrical conductivity, ductility and lack of toxicity. Switch contacts are generally subjected to more intense corrosion stress than are sliding contacts. Fine gold wires are used to connect semiconductor devices to their packages through a process known as wire bonding.
The concentration of free electrons in gold metal is 5.91×1022 cm3. Gold is highly conductive to electricity, and has been used for electrical wiring in some high-energy applications (only silver and copper are more conductive per volume, but gold has the advantage of corrosion resistance
Medicine
Metallic and gold compounds have long been used for medicinal purposes. Although with the level of technology now Only salts and radioisotopes of gold are of pharmacological value, since elemental (metallic) gold is inert to all chemicals it encounters inside the body (i.e., ingested gold cannot be attacked by stomach acid). Some gold salts do have anti-inflammatory properties and at present two are still used as pharmaceuticals in the treatment of arthritis and other similar conditions in the US (sodium aurothiomalate and auranofin). These drugs have been explored as a means to help to reduce the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis, and also (historically) against tuberculosis and some parasites.
Gold alloys are used in restorative dentistry, especially in tooth restorations, such as crowns and permanent bridges. The gold alloys’ slight malleability facilitates the creation of a superior molar mating surface with other teeth and produces results that are generally more satisfactory than those produced by the creation of porcelain crowns. The use of gold crowns in more prominent teeth such as incisors is favored in some cultures and discouraged in others.
Gold, or alloys of gold and palladium, are applied as conductive coating to biological specimens and other non-conducting materials such as plastics and glass to be viewed in a scanning electron microscope. The coating, which is usually applied by sputtering with an argon plasma, has a triple role in this application. Gold’s very high electrical conductivity drains electrical charge to earth, and it’s very high density provides stopping power for electrons in the electron beam, helping to limit the depth to which the electron beam penetrates the specimen. This improves definition of the position and topography of the specimen surface and increases the spatial resolution of the image. Gold also produces a high output of secondary electrons when irradiated by an electron beam, and these low-energy electrons are the most commonly used signal source used in the scanning electron microscope.
The isotope gold-198 (half-life 2.7 days) is used, in nuclear medicine, in some cancer treatments and for treating other diseases
EXPORT OF GOLD
Gold is a precious metal and is found is small quantities and is therefore sold in small quantities compare to other base metals so its price is quoted. The market for Gold is enormous as it is considered and used to store wealth because of its resistance to inflation.
REQUIREMENT AND CONDITIONS FOR MINING IN NIGERIA
There are two options available to a company or an individual to enter into the mining industry in Nigeria.
- Through the acquisition of an existing mining Lease from the original owner. Approval must be obtained from the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development for such a purchase.
- Fresh mining lease
Procedure for Mineral Title Licences/Leases and Permits:
Duly completed application form
Coordinates of the area of application
Certificate of incorporation
Attestation
Letter of consent from landowner(s)/occupier(s)
Types of minerals
Work programme/pre-feasibility report
Evidence of payment
Technical capability
Financial capability
In order to encourage investment in the solid minerals industry in Nigeria, Government is offering the following incentives
- 3-5 years Tax Holiday
- Deferred royalty payments
- Possible capitalization of expenditure on exploration and surveys
- Extension of infrastructure such as roads and electricity to mining sites, and provision of 100% foreign ownership of mining concerns.
The mining industry in Nigeria is regulated by the Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act of 2007, National Minerals and Metals Policy 2008 and Nigerian Minerals and Mining Regulations 2011.
CONCLUSION
Business Advisory Network ‘BAN’ will work with you and assist you to process mining lease from the federal government. We will help you source for a site with rich mineral content. Mining is a technical field although the financial reward is enormous; therefore to succeed you need experts to guide you to avoid fatal mistakes that will erode your capital.
Other things BAN can do for you include but are not limited to helping you to determine the grade of Gold at the site, source market for your mined minerals, both locally and internationally. BAN will also help you arrange security at your mining sites.