NMDC seeks partnership with Malaysian Smelting Corporation

The management of the National Metallurgical Development Centre (NMDC), Jos, Plateau State, has expressed the Research Institute’s desire to partner with the Malaysian Smelting Corporation (MSC), to advance Research and Development activities in Nigeria’s solid minerals sector.

The Centre’s Acting Director-General and Chief Executive, Emmanuel Mbaya, dropped the hint when the Nigerian Tin Corporation (NTC), and the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, visited him on Tueday.

Mbaya said: “NMDC is desirous of exploring the partnership opportunities to upgrade the centre’s machines and equipment, including human capacity development through in-plant training.”

In addition, he said the NMDC with its expensive processing and storage facilities could serve as a major Tin supplier to the Malaysia Smelting Corporation and other related institutions in Malaysia, under the envisaged partnership programme.

He observed with regret that Nigeria, like Malaysia, was richly endowed with solid and industrial minerals, which had mostly over the years, been mined and sold by artisanal and small-scale miners in their crude form. The development has robbed the local miners and the country at large of the huge benefits from associated minerals contained in the ores.

Mbaya listed some of the centre’s achievements to include: “Successful evaluation and beneficiation of all major iron ore deposits in Nigeria, studies on Nigerian coals with a view to increasing their utilisation in blends for metallurgical coke production. It has also developed and produced on Laboratory scale enamel frits from 100% raw materials, and completed detailed characterisation and documentation of foundry moulding sand from various deposits in the country.”

Responding, the leader of the team, Dato’ Lee Chung Han, said he was impressed with the high grade of facilities in NMDC, and hoped for a rewarding partnership between the MSC, NTC, and the centre, while looking forward to more and regular working visits among the institutions.

The Promethean Resource Ltd., a Jos based company, which is at the centre of the proposed partnership programme was fully represented on the occasion.