Overview#
Adamawa is a mineral province more than a hydrocarbon one: bentonite, magnesite, gypsum, kaolin and bauxite occur across the Upper Benue Trough and the Adamawa Plateau, alongside the country's largest concentration of uranium anomalies (Mika, Michika, Madagali). The Yola sub-basin holds proven natural-gas shows but no commercial oil discovery to date.
Geology & Deposits#
Bentonite & gypsum (Upper Benue Trough). Cretaceous mudstone and gypsiferous beds outcrop continuously from Numan southwards into Demsa and Lamurde LGAs. The bentonite reserves at Lamurde are among the largest in West Africa (estimated >500 million tonnes), drilling-grade. Magnesite & talc. Lode magnesite at Mubi-South and Madagali; talc at Toungo. Uranium. Mika, Michika and Madagali anomalies were mapped by the French CEA and the Nigerian Geological Survey in the 1970s; the Nigerian Uranium Mining Company (NUMCO) prospected from 1979 but the deposits were never declared economically extractable. Coal. Lignitic seams at Lamurde-Numan; not exploited. Hydrocarbons. The Yola sub-basin (part of the Upper Benue Inland Basin) returned gas shows in NNPC's 1981–1985 stratigraphic wells (Kolmani-1) but no oil; the Kolmani River-II well drilled in 2019 by NNPC-NEPL is on the Bauchi side of the basin.
Operators & Output#
- Dangote Cement quarries limestone at Yandev (Benue) and bentonite at Lamurde for drilling-mud use in Niger Delta operations. - Pan-African Mining (Talc) Ltd — small-scale Toungo talc. - Nigerian Uranium Mining Company (NUMCO) — dormant since 1989.
Industrial output: essentially zero apart from artisanal bentonite trucked out to Port Harcourt and Warri for the oilfield-services market.
Host-Community & Revenue#
Solid-mineral royalties under the Nigerian Minerals & Mining Act 2007 are paid to the Federation Account; the host community in theory receives a share via the Mining Cadastre's community-development agreements, but enforcement in Adamawa has been weak. Insecurity in the northern LGAs (Michika, Madagali, Mubi) since the 2014–2015 Boko Haram occupation drove all formal mining exploration out of the region.
Current Status#
Producing (artisanal): Lamurde bentonite, Toungo talc, gypsum quarries near Numan. Dormant: all uranium prospects, Lamurde lignite. Frontier: Yola sub-basin gas — NNPC's 2022 declaration of a 1 tcf find in the Kolmani area lies just over the Adamawa boundary in Bauchi, raising the prospect that the Yola side will be re-licensed.
References
Sources#
- Nigerian Geological Survey Agency — Upper Benue Trough sheets.
- NNPC 2022 Kolmani River-II declaration of commerciality.
- Nigerian Minerals & Mining Act 2007.