Nigeria is to receive another $80m loan from World Bank for additional financing of the country’s mining sector by July this year.

World Bank Senior Mining Specialist, Sustainable Energy Department Oil, Gas and Mining Unit, Mrs. Ekaterina Mikhaylova made this known yesterday in Abuja.

Speaking with journalists shortly after a courtesy call on the Minister of Mines and Steel Development Arch. Musa Muhammad Sada, Mikhaylova said the amount as discussed is “$80m and if everything goes smoothly the fund can be available June/July this year.”

She said she would want to have the legal documents from the Federal Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice for the project agreement, adding that the organization would want to agree on the next step, which is the negotiation.

She however explained that the additional funding is to sustain the projects already implemented by the World Bank’s $120m secured in 2005.

“We are looking at the development of the steel sector not just steel but metal. The industry will be developed and there will be some legal framework and we are also going to do assessment to the project. We will make an assessment of the steel sector and the data,” Mikhaylova said.

Earlier, the minister said the ministry last week held stakeholders’ workshop on the review of the mining regulation draft.

The draft, said Sada, would still be presented at the Mining Indaba in Cape Town South Africa next week and later in Canada for international inputs.