Africa’s oil producers are investing more in critical minerals

Nigeria’s discovery of a major new critical minerals province reflects a broader shift as Africa’s leading oil producers invest in mining to diversify their resource economies.

The strategy aims to reduce dependence on a single commodity by expanding exploration, attracting mining investment and building new value chains around minerals expected to drive the global energy transition.

Nigeria’s latest announcement illustrates that transition. Officials say the newly identified polymetallic mineral province in Kaduna State contains platinum group metals, gold, nickel, copper, lithium and rare earth elements, while Steron Mining separately announced an estimated 3.3 million metric tonnes of lithium reserves near Abuja.

“Recent exploration breakthroughs verified by the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency have unveiled a world-class polymetallic mineral province,” Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, said while announcing the discoveries at the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit.

The discoveries strengthen Nigeria’s ambition to become a major supplier of critical minerals at a time when governments and manufacturers compete to secure supplies for electric vehicles, battery storage systems, renewable energy infrastructure and advanced technologies.

The discoveries support Nigeria’s efforts to rebalance an economy that has long relied on crude oil exports.

The West African nation has maintained its position as Africa’s leading crude oil producer, with output recently ranging between 1.38 million and 1.6 million barrels per day, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Oil nevertheless continues to dominate export earnings and government revenues.

However, fluctuating oil prices and the global shift towards cleaner energy have reinforced the need to develop new sources of export earnings.

The recent discoveries are the result of a broader government strategy centred on geological exploration, tighter sector oversight and policies promoting domestic mineral processing instead of raw mineral exports.

The Nigerian Geological Survey Agency has intensified geological mapping and verification of mineral deposits, while the government has revoked more than 3,000 dormant mineral licences to encourage fresh exploration and investment. New mining leases increasingly require investors to outline plans for domestic processing, reinforcing efforts to build value chains around critical minerals before they leave the country.

Those reforms are beginning to attract investment. In October 2025, Chinese companies including Jiuling Lithium and Canmax Technologies committed more than US$1.3 billion towards lithium processing facilities in Nigeria, signalling growing confidence in the country’s ambition to build an integrated critical minerals industry.

Nigeria is not alone in pursuing that strategy

Across Africa’s major petroleum producers, governments are increasingly treating mining as a second pillar of resource-led growth. Rather than replacing hydrocarbons, they are expanding exploration, attracting new mining investment and positioning themselves within global supply chains for strategic minerals.

Angola offers one of the clearest examples. Africa’s second-largest oil producer has accelerated geological exploration, revived large-scale copper projects and introduced investment incentives as part of a broader programme to diversify beyond petroleum.

The country’s exploration drive has gathered momentum in 2026. Canadian miner Ivanhoe Mines is advancing one of Angola’s largest greenfield copper exploration programmes across about 22,000 square kilometres in the Moxico and Cuando Cubango provinces, where drilling has followed extensive airborne geophysical surveys and geochemical sampling.

The programme is targeting sediment-hosted copper deposits along the extension of the Central African Copperbelt, reinforcing Angola’s ambition to unlock new mineral provinces beyond its established oil industry.

Lithium exploration is also attracting fresh investment. In July, Australian-listed Tyranna Resources agreed to sell its Namibe lithium and caesium project to China’s Sinomine Resource Group following four years of exploration that identified spodumene and pollucite mineralisation.

Tyranna said it would redirect exploration funding towards its newly acquired Chinguar gold project, where geologists are preparing geochemical surveys, soil sampling and drilling across multiple prospects, highlighting continued investor confidence in Angola’s largely underexplored mineral potential.

Diversification extends beyond battery minerals. According to diamond industry analyst Paul Zimnisky, writing in Mining Weekly, Angola emerged as Africa’s second-largest diamond producer by value in 2024 after generating US$1.41 billion in output, driven by increased production from the Catoca and Luele mines.

He attributes the country’s rise to post-war reforms, increased foreign investment and infrastructure development, while noting that state-owned Endiama’s bid for a 20% to 30% stake in De Beers reflects Angola’s ambition to strengthen its position across the global diamond value chain.

Gabon is also pursuing a similar strategy through manganese and iron ore. Alongside efforts to expand production, authorities have encouraged greater domestic processing to capture more value before minerals enter international markets.

The country’s wider exploration agenda has also accelerated. ReconAfrica this year began geological and seismic studies on the offshore Ngulu block under a multi-year exploration programme designed to improve understanding of Gabon’s resource potential, reflecting broader efforts to strengthen geological knowledge while diversifying its extractive economy.

South Africa demonstrates another dimension of the transition. Rather than focusing solely on extraction, the country recently produced high-purity mixed rare earth products through a partnership between Steenkampskraal Monazite Mine and Mintek, marking Africa’s first demonstration of domestic rare earth beneficiation and highlighting the continent’s growing focus on downstream mineral processing.

Taken together, these developments point to a broader change in Africa’s resource economy. Governments are investing not only in discovering new deposits but also in geological knowledge, exploration capacity, processing infrastructure and industrial policies needed to compete in global critical minerals supply chains.

By 2040, lithium demand is projected to grow by up to 353%, while graphite demand may rise by 131%, according to the June 2026 edition of the UN Trade and Development Global Trade Update.