Tycoon Segun Adebutu's Romulus Mining plans to triple Nigeria investment from $50 million to $150 million

Romulus Mining, the mining arm of Nigerian billionaire Segun Adebutu's Romulus Group, has unveiled plans to triple its investments in Nigeria's mining sector, growing its commitment from approximately $50 million to $150 million over the next three years.

The investment projection was disclosed as Romulus Mining was announced as title sponsor of the fifth anniversary edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit, branded AFNIS 2026 Powered by Romulus Mining. The summit is scheduled to run from June 23 to 25 at the State House Conference Centre in Abuja, under the theme "One Africa. One Resource Vision."

Organisers said the sponsorship reflects the growing role of indigenous mining companies as strategic drivers of Africa's economic transformation and resource development agenda. The title sponsorship is also being read as an endorsement of ongoing reforms in Nigeria's mining sector championed by the Minister of Solid Minerals Development, Dele Alake, who serves as Chief Host of AFNIS.

Romulus Mining currently operates across eleven mineral-rich Nigerian states, including Osun, Nasarawa, Ekiti, Kaduna, Kwara, Plateau, Kebbi, Cross River, Ondo, Ebonyi and Kogi, with interests spanning gold, silver, lithium, graphite, tin, columbite, iron ore, lead, zinc, manganese and beryl. Its Ifewara gold project in Osun State sits along the Ifewara-Zungeru shear zone, an area that has already recorded visible gold occurrences from artisanal workings, with drilling and geophysical assessments now underway. The company's Ijero lithium project in Ekiti State is positioned to serve rising international demand for spodumene and battery-related minerals, placing Romulus within a segment of the global mining economy that has drawn increasing strategic interest as electric vehicle and battery supply chains expand.

"The scale of Romulus' ambitions in the sector is very clear with plans to expand Nigerian mining investments from approximately $50 million to $150 million over the next three years," organisers said in a statement. "One of the more significant undercurrents behind the Romulus Mining sponsorship is the growing visibility of African-owned mining capital within the continent's strategic minerals ecosystem. Historically, large-scale mining investment conversations in Africa have been dominated by multinational corporations. However, a new generation of African operators is beginning to emerge with broader ambitions, integrating mining with infrastructure, logistics, energy, and industrial development."

Romulus Mining sits within the wider Romulus Group, a diversified conglomerate spanning energy, telecommunications, media, financial services and industrial sectors that Adebutu founded and chairs. That diversification underpins much of the company's pitch to investors and policymakers, with stakeholders noting that the future competitiveness of Africa's mining sector depends not only on extraction capacity but on the ability to connect mineral development with infrastructure systems, local processing, energy access and regional trade corridors, capabilities a multi-sector conglomerate like Romulus is positioned to offer in ways a single-purpose mining company cannot.

Adebutu built his fortune starting in 2004, when he began trading oil and gas products as a small-scale distributor supplying generators across Nigerian homes and businesses. He founded Petrolex Oil and Gas in 2007, growing it into one of Nigeria's leading indigenous integrated energy conglomerates and the developer of Mega Oil City, a planned $5 billion industrial complex in Ogun State that is set to house a 250,000 barrel-per-day refinery, a 100 megawatt power plant, a petrochemical plant, a lubricant plant and a gas processing facility once complete. He also chairs Bluebridge Marine and Bluebridge Minerals, and is the son of Kensington Adebutu, the founder of Premier Lotto, popularly known across Nigeria as Baba Ijebu.

Stakeholders at AFNIS noted that recent Nigerian government efforts to formalise mining activities, attract responsible investment and strengthen value-addition policies are gradually improving investor sentiment across the sector. Developed and managed by Core International with federal government support, AFNIS has positioned itself as one of Africa's leading platforms for dialogue on natural resources, energy investment and sustainable development. Organisers said Romulus Mining's participation as title sponsor for the summit's fifth edition signals growing confidence in Africa's critical minerals opportunity and the expanding role indigenous capital is playing in shaping the continent's mining future.