Bala Wunti Urges Africa to Avoid Oil Mistakes with Minerals

At the 2026 Concordia Annual Summit in New York, Bala Wunti cautioned that Africa's emerging mineral wealth, including lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements, risks repeating the mistakes of its crude oil era. Wunti, who has three decades of experience in Nigeria's upstream oil sector, served as Chief Upstream Investment Officer of NUIMS, managing director of NAPIMS, and the Petroleum Products Marketing Company.

He successfully renegotiated Nigeria's Deep Offshore Production Sharing Contracts, securing a larger government share of offshore revenue. Wunti argued that exporting crude while importing refined petroleum fosters poverty, and Africa must avoid this pattern with its critical minerals.

He stated that energy pricing will shift from barrels to kilograms of battery minerals, emphasizing the importance of processing capacity over raw deposits. Wunti described the permanent export of unrefined minerals as colonial economics and noted Nigeria's identification of 44 critical minerals, although geological indications lack proven reserves backed by internationally recognized data.