The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Nigeria’s federal agency in charge of privatising public enterprises and liberalising key economic sectors, put five coal mining blocks up for sale last month. This signals the Nigerian government’s plan to revive industrial coal exploration after it ended years ago, with President-elect Bola Tinubu a supporter of clean coal.
The five coal mining blocks are the remaining ones out of nine made available after the federal government deregulated coal mining in 1999 to increase private sector participation. Three blocks were immediately acquired and one has been adopted by the federal government for its coal-to-power pilot programme.