The Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) is planning to invest in Ghana’s industrial salt sector, aligning with its mineral investment diversification strategy. According to MIIF’s CEO, Mr. Edward Nana Yaw Koranteng, salt is poised to become one of Ghana’s major foreign exchange earners by 2026 and a leading industrial earner by 2030, provided the Ada Songhor Salt project’s revitalization plan progresses as planned.
Mr. Koranteng’s statement follows a one-day working visit to the project site. He emphasized that MIIF is strategically focusing on the salt sector, with the potential to generate significant economic benefits and create over 10,000 direct and indirect jobs in the next five years.
The CEO highlighted that MIIF is developing a classification strategy for high-priority minerals, including lithium, limestone, granite, diamond, and salt. By classifying salt as a high-priority mineral, MIIF aims to invest in the mineral’s value chain development, mitigate funding risks, and facilitate the acquisition of relevant technology to revitalize the industry.
Ghana, alongside Senegal, is one of the few countries in West Africa with the potential for large-scale industrial salt production. Despite this potential, Mr. Koranteng noted that Nigeria, with significant salt demand, imports 80 percent of its industrial salt needs from Brazil, while Ghana’s Songhor salt pans alone could produce over one million tons at just 60 percent capacity.
Salt has a wide range of industrial uses, particularly in the chemical industry for producing various chemicals like chlorine, caustic soda, soda ash, sodium sulphate, and more. It is also used in detergents, de-icing, textiles, fertilizers, and extensively in oil and gas processing.
The global salt market was valued at approximately $28.5 billion in 2020, with China being a significant player, controlling 22.48 percent of the world’s production. Africa’s leading salt-producing countries include Egypt, Tunisia, Namibia, Morocco, and South Africa.
Ghana’s Ada Songhor Pans, a 41,000-acre salt project, is currently being revived by Electrochem, a wholly Ghanaian-owned company. The project, which has been dormant since 1982, has the potential to become Africa’s largest salt-producing area, with over 1.75 million MT capacity. It has already created employment for 2,800 people directly and indirectly, and Electrochem has implemented a community salt mining scheme in partnership with the local community.
Source : ghanaiantimes