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Rose Ndong, President of the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS), tells ENN for its women’s voices series that lithium processing is Nigeria’s most investable opportunity now that unprocessed minerals can no longer be exported, and sets out how a single approval window could move projects from licence to construction faster.

Wale Shonibare, Director of Energy Financial Solutions, Policy and Regulations at the African Development Bank, tells ENN that much of the money for Nigerian power is already in the country, and sets out where the 16 states running their own electricity markets are opening to investors ahead of Nigeria NOW! in Abuja.

Lagos has signed power purchase agreements for up to 400MW of new generation this year, and its regulator has licensed 14 new operators. Writing for ENN, Richard Walker of FirstWord Media looks at the investment now reaching Nigeria’s biggest electricity market and the licensing questions operators still face.

Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, says procurement has begun on a $2bn East-West Super Grid with capacity for at least 19,000MW, alongside repairs that have taken supply to the Lagos complex past 1,000MW and a technical audit of power assets, some of them more than 50 years old.

ENN’s Women’s Voices series puts the same three questions to women making the decisions in Nigerian energy and mining. Felicia Dairo, Executive Director of the Nigerian Indigenous Women in Mining and Natural Resource Organisation (NIWIMNRO), tells ENN where investors should look as Nigeria pushes to process its own minerals, and how women are organising to negotiate.

Mainstream South Africa has reached financial close on a 27MW second phase at Ilikwa Solar in the Free State, with Investec again holding 30%, and the extension will take the plant to 77MW for businesses buying on five to 10-year contracts when it starts operating in late 2027.

John McLaughlin of Storegga argues that the near-term case for carbon capture and storage in Africa rests on exporters facing the EU’s carbon border, with North African stores for southern European emissions and credits for carbon removal as later possibilities, and sets out what governments can do now to prepare.

Guinea is building three alumina refineries on a grid of about 1,000MW, and as NJ Ayuk takes up the question Elias Pungong asks in Mining the Future, whether Africa keeps exporting raw ore or builds the industries it could power, governments and financiers are putting reliable power at the centre of processing at home.