Nigeria to grant mining licences only to locally processing firms

A view shows the Bonny oil terminal in the Niger delta in Port Harcourt, Nigeria on August 1, 2018. PHOTO | REUTERS

Nigeria will only grant new mining licences to companies that present a plan on how minerals would be processed locally, under new guidelines being developed, a government spokesperson confirmed on Thursday.

This signals a shift from Nigeria's decades-old policy of exporting raw materials as African governments take steps to extract more value from their solid mineral deposits.