Description

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 simulate 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 over its neighbors in this area.

In fact , it can be said that the more a nations mining industry grows , the more they prosper economically and examples can be seen across the world from Canada to Australia, India ,they all have a vibrant mining industry.
One of the minerals that can be found in the country is copper ore.

Copper (Cu): There are between 150 and 180 copper minerals. Of these, the commonest and the most important form mined are native copper (Cu); oxides of copper: cuprite (Cu2O); tenorite (CuO); and a variety of copper sulphides such as bornite (Cu5FeS4); chalcocite (Cu2S); tetrahedrite [(CuFe) 12Sb4S13] and chalcopyrite (Cu2Fe2S4).

It is estimated that Nigeria has over 10,000,000 tons of Copper ore deposit. Copper is an element, reddish brown in color, having atomic number 29 and pertaining to the scientific symbol ‘Cu’. Coming from the same family of silver and gold, this element shares numerous common characteristics with those precious metals.

This element is a highly ductile and malleable element and a very good conductor of electricity. That is why it is highly used in the electrical appliances as a thermal and electrical conductor and in building wires.

This report seeks to examine the financial viability or otherwise of mining copper ore in Nigeria.