The Director-General of the National Steel Raw Materials Exploration Agency, Engr. Umar Albarka Hassan has revealed that the agency is focusing its searchlight on four states across Nigeria with huge potentials for quality silica sand resources.
Speaking during a recent interview in his office at the agency’s headquarters in Kaduna, Engr. Hassan observed that apart from Ondo state where silica sand evaluation has been carried out, Cross River, Niger, Katsina and Ogun are four promising states with great potential in the country.
The DG noted that this is part of the agency’s holistic approach in the search for steel and ferro-alloy raw materials across the country in addition to its participation in the National Integrated Mineral Exploration Project (NIMEP).
“We’ve been carrying out exploration on other steel raw materials, specifically bauxite in the Mambilla Plateau as well as in Ekiti state, and Silica sand evaluation in Ondo State. We’ve also been engaged in exploration activities for ferro-alloy materials, specifically for manganese and chromite in Zamfara state.
“For Zamfara specifically, we’ve been trying to establish occurrences using desktop studies and airborne geo-magnetic survey data pending when the security situation will allow us go in there to carry out ground-truthing and detailed exploration activities.
He added that the agency has been involved in detailed exploration activities for almost five decades, leading to groundbreaking discoveries in several parts of the country like Obajana and Itakpe, to mention a few.
