The mining of minerals accounts for only 0.3% of the Gross Domestic Product {GDP} in Nigeria, due to the influence of its vast oil resources. The domestic mining industry is underdeveloped, leading to Nigeria having to import minerals that it could produce domestically, such as salt or iron ore.
The mining industry is easily recognized as one of the most valuable sectors of an industrialized economy because of its linkage to other sectors of development and its enormous capacity to support and stimulate growth in virtually all sectors of the economy.
As Nigeria strives to achieve vision 20:2020 which is to be amongst the top 20 economies by the year 2020, it is important that government pay attention to the development of the various minerals deposits in the country because of the nations comparatively advantage in this sector.
About 34 industrial minerals deposits have been identified in Nigeria and one of such is Lead ore. It is estimated that Nigeria has over 10,000,000 tons of lead ore deposit.
Lead is a main group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb {Latin: plumbum} and atomic number 18. Lead is soft, malleable metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals.
In the raw form, there are two grades of lead, high and low. The low grade is usually from 10%- 40% and high grade from 50%-90%.
Efforts to promote the export non-oil product have often resulted in a situation where our commodities are sold in the raw form without any form of value addition hence leading to loss of revenue.
Lead ingot, the product gotten from the processing of lead ore, is a major constituent of Lead- Acid battery. Lead is used as a coloring element in ceramic glazes, notably in the colors red and yellow. Lead is used as projectiles for firearms and fishing sinkers because of its density. Lead is also used in high voltage power cables as sheathing material to prevent water diffusion into insulation.
The international standard specification of lead ingot 99.99 % is given below
| ITEM VALUE (%) |
| Pb ≥99.994 |
| Ag ≤0.0008 |
| Cu ≤0.001 |
| Bi ≤0.004 |
| As ≤0.0005 |
| Sb ≤0.0008 |
| Sn ≤0.0005 |
| Zn ≤0.0004 |
| Fe ≤0.0005 |
| TOTAL ≤0.006 |
The market for lead ingot is both local and international with china as the largest importer of lead ingot in the world. With the global lead ingot supply and demand balance converting the deficit in 2007 to a surplus in 2008, lead price retreated gradually in 2008 after rocketing greatly in 2007.
Impacted by the worsening global financial crisis, which was triggered by the US subprime lending crisis, the global economy turned down. Amid the depressed condition, the already weak base metals plunged greatly in the fourth quarter of 2008. After touching $ 3,470/t on LME {London Metal Exchange early March, 2008, the highest price since November 15, 2007, lead price began heading down gradually. The metal even hit $850/t in mid December 2008, the lowest level since June 2004.
The prospect of global economy is promising, so the automotive market, which is closely related to the lead market, is witnessing growth thereby creating more demands for the product.
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