May 11, (THEWILL) – The federal government has formally inaugurated a N1 billion barite processing plant in Ugaga Community in Yala LGA, Cross River State.
The plant is expected to save the country over $300 million annually, which is used to import processed barite for the oil sector.
The minister of mines and steel development, Arc Olamilekan Olagbite, inaugurated the plant on behalf of the government in Ugaga, where the natural resource is found in vast quantities.
The minister said before now, the country was exporting the raw barite ore, which would be processed abroad, and was, therefore, losing lots of values because it was not processed locally.
Justifying the investment in Ugaga, the minister said, “Vast quantities of Barite ore resource is found in parts of northern Cross River, especially in Yala LGA, which is the reason the Federal government decided to establish the processing plant in the state to help both artisan commercial miners process it for export and for the oil industry.
“He explained that the choice of Ugaga, as a location for the barite processing plant is predicated on its possession of rich deposits of barite among the South-South State and its closeness to Port Harcourt, Rivers State, where the processed barites are required for oil exploration in line with local content and value addition policy in Nigeria”, he said.
Permanent secretary in the ministry, Dr Oluwatoyin Akinlade, said the outcome of the Barite Ore Processing Plant here in Ugaga was part of the measures by the Buhari regime to address the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic.
He added that the facility will process barite to the International API standard for export to other parts of the world in other to generate foreign exchange.
Also speaking, Director of Artisanal and small scale department, Yunusa Mohammed, said artisan barite miners in parts of northern Cross River State in their clusters will now process the resource at the plant for greater wealth addition.
Traditional head of Ugaga kingdom, HRH Ogamode Ogar Ipuole, commended the federal government and requested for employment of his subjects in the plant to reduce high rate of unemployment.
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
