A Nigerian-developed exploration technology can map mineral deposits across entire countries in months rather than years, with up to 85% accuracy and at half the cost of conventional methods, the CEO of OilDynamix Limited said on Wednesday.
Dr. Vincent Amu spoke to some journalists on the sidelines of the 5th African Natural Resources and Energy Investments Summit (AFNIS) in Abuja.
He said “The greatest takeaway from this AFNIS is that we’ve got a technology that can unlock all the vast potentials of minerals in Africa, in Nigeria within a few months,” Amu said. “We’re not talking of years but few months, and very, very accurate — 85% accurate and 100% success rate.”
He explained that “success rate” means every job done by the company has located the minerals predicted, with no client complaints.
Amu said high costs and unreliable data keep many investors out of mining. While others may charge $100,000 for a project, OilDynamix charges about $50,000.
“It’s not because it’s cheap — it’s just because we want exploration to be less costly these days,” he said. “What is making a lot of people not to go into mining is the cost, and also unreliability of the data they get.”
Because the technology is 85% to 95% accurate and cheaper, Amu said, it will “open up the mining industry.”
The company has deployed the technology in several countries and is already active in Nigeria. Amu cited ongoing work in Cross River State and discussions with Nasarawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Benue and Kogi states.
He added that OilDynamix is set to map the entire country of Botswana within one to two months. “Other companies will take about 10 years, but our own, we are talking months,” he said.
Clients receive results showing the quality, quantity, and exact GPS coordinates of deposits. “You go and pick your result,” Amu said.
The system, called Thermovision Tomography, has been in Nigeria since 2019, Amu said. It does not use electrical signals or sound waves like seismic methods.
“_Termo_ in Latin means heat. It relies on the heat emanating from the minerals, which comes out to the surface,” he explained. U.S. satellites Landsat and MODIS pick up the data, which is then processed with patented methods.
Amu advised miners to “use accurate information for your mining,” saying many lose money due to inaccurate data. “If you have good accurate information, your recovery rate will be high, your yield will be high.”
Commenting on a tour to a lithium site during the summit, Amu said operators were still using “crude methods” that are time-consuming, unreliable and costly.
He said he spoke with the site’s managing director about using OilDynamix’ technology to map the whole area in one day. “If it’s going to take others 2 years to map out, we’ll do it within one day and use about 3 months to produce the result,” he said. “Time is money. If you save time, you have saved money.”
Amu stressed accuracy as critical, noting that many companies avoid mining after being told deposits exist but finding nothing or far less than predicted. “Our own is what we say is what you get,” he said. “We used to say if you don’t get what we say is there, don’t pay us.”
On indigenous participation in mining, Amu said the sector remains dominated by foreign expatriates. He urged government to incentivize local miners by making mining equipment duty-free, citing Congo DRC as an example.
“Import duties can really increase the cost of mining. If they can give such discount, that will help,” he said. He also called for reduced bureaucracy in licensing and zero tax for new miners for 2 to 3 years.
Amu said newer technologies make exploration safer and cheaper because they do not require bulldozers, tractors, or large teams in the field. “I can stay in Lagos and map out South Africa or Sudan. We can do it here,” he said. “You don’t want your employees to be kidnapped.”
