The country Nigeria is blessed beyond measure by mother nature with abundant natural and mineral resources. One can’t but wonder why this so endowed nation is still poor: no good road, no light, no job, lack of standard infrastructure, unplanned dirty cities, insecurity, and so on.
But for this article, I will rest on one of the mineral resources[b] “IRON ORE”[/b]. I am going elaborate on how this mineral resources affects the Nigerian economy.
Iron ore are available in commercial quantities in Itakpe, Ajaokuta, Jebba, lokoja. Ore from these areas are supposed to provide raw materials for the National Iron and steel Industry of Nigeria: DSC Aladja in Delta State and Ajaokuta steel mill in Kogi State but the state of these steel mills as it stands left nothing to be desire.
Extraction of iron from the iron ore involves some chemical reactions in a blast furnace.we get 3 types of iron:
1. Pig iron
2. Cast iron
3. Wrought iron
Wrought iron is the purest form of iron. I don’t want to bore you with the chemistry involve in obtaining these iron from the iron ore.
Steel is the backbone of any industrialized nations in the world today. It’s importance cannot be overemphasized and its uses are endless, from oil industries to construction, the list is never exhausted. What actually is this steel that its uses are so numerous that every country needs it for her industrialization.
Steel is just an alloy of iron and carbon, that iron that we have in abundance and a little proportion of carbon with accurate heat treatment. The word “carbon” should not intimidate you like its some scares commodity like fuel is to Nigeria. Your charcoal is a form of carbon.
The chemistry of adding carbon to iron with appropriate heat treatment (temperature) is simple but let’s not bother ourselves with that.
Steel : iron + carbon (0.1-1.5%)
Stainless steel : iron + carbon +chromium + nickel
Hopefully for Nigeria, we have iron ore, which iron is extracted from, we have carbon, chromium and nickel. Frustratingly, all the steel and iron related products are imported into the country either from china, indian, USA etc.
Iron rods for building and construction
Steel pipe for oil industries (drilling, casing and construction of pipelines)
Steel for railway construction etc.

Oil producing companies: Shell, Chevron,Total, ExxonMobil, Agip, name them, spend at least $50 million to drill a well, I stand to be corrected. More than 40% of the cost is on the “casing”. What actually is this casing “ordinary steel pipes”. Mind you the cost of drilling this well is charge back to NNPC. So if Nigeria drills 50 oil wells a year, do the math on how much we spend on importing ordinary steel pipes that we can actually produce. All these wells are channel to a flow station via oil pipelines.
Oil pipelines you hear about today in Nigeria were all import steel pipes- what a waste of forex. Imagine the pipelines that ran from Niger Delta to kaduna refinery, thousands of kilometres, the pipeline are all made of steel and they were all imported.

Dangote today is building a refinery and he is also going to run pipelines from Niger delta to Lagos. He needs federal government to assist him with forex, part which is to import steel and steel related products.
Before I drop my pen, imagine the oil installations we have in this country, from land locations, swamp and deep offshore, all the pipelines and steel related products are all imported. Let’s leave the oil industry, imagine the number of houses, hospitals, schools, bridges, roads that are built every year in Nigeria, most of the iron rods are imported. Do the mathematics, you will be amazed at how much we spend each year importing iron rods and steel into this country.

We cannot throw away the baby with the bath water,is never too late to start all over, if we can harness this abundant mineral resource “iron ore” that we have, imagine the job opportunities for our teaming youth, imagine steel depending industries that we spring up. Nigeria will not only be self sufficient in steel but export to other African countries. The dependence on oil for the country survival will reduce, cost of production per barrel will reduce drastically also. Our two steel mills should be revamp and upgraded to meet international standards. I could still remember some people left Shell to work for DSC aladja. I think if Nigeria could produce her own steel and steel related products, we will not be begging any country for bail out but will be marching to become an industrialized and developed nation.

source: http://www.naijarex.com/2016/04/26/nigerias-road-to-industrialization/

Mynd44 do the needful

Well done Op.
Good write up.
But the problem is,,,will the government listen?
Things like this don't cross their minds.
It's embezzlement of public funds they know how best to do.

OP very intelligent writeup.

But Our current President/APC is more concerned about blaming GEJ/PDP..

Thanks OP
Imagine the boost our economy ll have if truly we utilise our steel considering the amount of steel been used in Nigeria especially the oil industry.