resurgent2019:


Are you so easy to deceive? What kinda citizens do we have in this country?

There is no Niomco, blast furnace or efficient railway system to make Ajaokuta work. Why are Muslims always excited about anything that concerns Buhari? Is he an Islamic cleric?

One thing I give to this Government is its propaganda department headed by Lai Mohammed. They know how to capture the attention of the millions of illiterates in Nigeria. I just pray for God to bless me so I can leave this country. No country with 20 million or more Muslims ever prospers.

You just dey sound like broken records talking dust and smelling fouls like LAWMA. Na who do you like this , it's a pity you are mentally messed up. Read through that your comment again and again and tell me what is not dusty in every words of the statement. Receive sense by the mighty name of Jesus.

TonyeBarcanista:
I hope this is not another APC propaganda? Just the way you guys "started" Ogoni clean up since August 2015 yet NOTHING has been done 3 years after...

the problem with Ogoni clean up is that the leaders want the money paid to them instead. they are refusing to cooperate.

do we actually have a bucket excavator in this country , cause i just saw one lying useless in that video

Paperwhite:
This will be a commendable development of the APC government if Ajaokuta can not only roar back to life but recommended steel production.
This project have been a haven of monumental corruption all along.

Well come back to the world of reality

Many beautiful projects will follow suit

Gullible folks. You guys have forgotten second Niger bridge is 60% percent complete. So they said. Govt of "to start", " to plan", "I shall", " we will". This is just an elephant project if I isn't privatised shekina .

What happen to Delta steel Ovwian Aladja?

Okoroawusa:

You are among the people that think that Buhari is a magician


Keep your votes. Buhari doesn't need it to win 2019 election

Noted

Guy if you like send me 20 maids wey go dey clean my nyash after I go toilet... U no dey are that seat again.... Na naw pole don die Finnish una don carry electoral propaganda come again.... Thunder fire una... Come 2019 u are going to daura

Amen o. It would take some time though and meanwhile we shall continue to remind those who couldn't make Ajaokuta work in 16 years that they have no right to ask PMB why he hasn't done it in 2 days,4 years or 24 hours. God bless Nigeria.

OMEGA009:
No Nigerian can visit Ajaokuta Steel Company ASC, see investments of more than $8b rotting in the African sun and not cry. i went there, I cried. what exactly is the problem? if I have written severally on this topic, but today let me do a comprehensive post.

Ajaokuta Steel Company is massive, she has 68km road network, 24 housing estates on the project. Some of the estates have over 1,000 homes, a seaport, a 110mw power generation plant, there are 43 separate plants in Ajaokuta alone. It is estimated that if Ajaokuta becomes operational, it will create 500,000 jobs.

There is no industrialized nation on earth that does not have a steel sector it’s that simple. A report by the Central Bank of Nigeria shows that Nigeria currently imports steel, aluminum products and associated derivatives of approximately 25 metric tonnes per annum estimated at $4.5bn, this figure will continue to rise, and the Nigerian economy continues to expand. Ajaokuta is an integrated steel company, it was designed by the Russian to be self-sufficient to get all its inputs from Nigeria and make steel. Ajaokuta strength is also its weakness, Ajaokuta can only work with all inputs available.



this will be a slightly technical post, but please try and follow.



Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon amongst other things, iron is the base metal in steel, to make steel, you need Iron Ore, Coke from Coal, Limestone as main components. these components are mixed in a blast furnace to produce liquid steel which can be long steel for rail lines or flat steel for automobile making etc

To give a simple example, look at steel as making jollof rice, iron ore is the rice, the limestone and coke are the pepper and salt the pot is the blast furnace. At a steel plane the blast furnace is ONLY turned on when the steel company is ready to make steel. Blast furnaces operate continuously and are never shut down. The raw material to be fed into the furnace is divided into several small charges that are introduced into the furnace at 10- to 15-min intervals. this means everything must be in place BEFORE the blast furnace is turned on, the iron ore, the coal, the limestone, everything, why? Because you do not switch off a blast furnace for another 10 years or however its campaign life is.



Nigeria has blessed with all the major raw materials needed to produce steel including iron ore in Kogi, coal and limestone in Enugu.

Nigerian iron has very low iron concentration. Agbaja has the largest iron ore deposit in Nigeria with about 2 billion tonnes but the Agbaja iron ore has a high phosphate content. Phosphate can cause brittleness in steel making it to fracture, thus Agbaga was abandoned for Itakpe. Itakpe iron ore has no issues with phosphate but has low iron content, thus to make steel with Nigeria iron ore, a process called “beneficiation” has to be done to process the Itakpe ores to raise its iron content to meet the required standard for steel production.

Coal? Most of the coal found in Nigeria is non-coking, thus, unsuitable for steel production. coal deposits in Enugu, have no impurities but are non-coking. The good news? Nigeria has abundant deposit of limestone and we have natural gas to provide power

So back to Ajaokuta, what really happened? why can Nigeria not make steel anytime soon? let’s link up the elements

Policy Failure: The Ajaokuta contract was signed between the Nigerian government and the Soviet state-owned company, Tiajpromexport (TPE) the company was scheduled for completion in 1986. In 2012, the Federal Government launched her backward integration policy. Going forward import licenses for steel products was only granted to companies producing steel locally. TPE to ensure they could import steel parts for Ajaokuta simply went ahead and built the rolling mills in Ajaokuta before the actual steel plant was completed, they imported billet from Ukraine to accomplish this. Thus, Ajaokuta was producing steel before the actual steel plant was started. Thus, amazingly Ajaokuta has a functional rolling mills but no operational blast furnace, Ajaokuta cannot produce steel from basic iron ore found in Nigeria in her blast furnace.…this is the definition of cart before the horse.

NIOMCO Factor: The iron ore in Nigeria earmarked for Ajaokuta is from Itakpe, it has low iron content thus the FG built National Iron Ore Mining Company (NIOMCO) a 2.15 metric tonnes beneficiation plant designed to process the low-quality iron ore from Itakpe to iron ore suitable for Ajaokuta Steel. Simply put, if NIOMCO does not operate, Ajaokuta CANNOT operate (unless Ajaokuta uses imported iron ore.) as at today, June 17th 2018, NIOMCO is not operational

Railway: 15m tonnes of iron ore cannot be moved by road, as it will destroy the roads, thus a railway was to be built from Itakpe to Ajaokuta to take iron ore from the beneficiation plan in Itakpe to the Ajaokuta. The. Itakpe to Ajaokuta by rail is just 52km, the rail line was to be delivered by March 2019, but the Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi revised the delivery date to June 2018 and converted the purely commercial railway to also carry human passengers. These changes meant the cost of the project and delivery dates had to change as passenger wagons and train stations had to be built. To achieve this, 12 new passenger stations and 12 access roads had to be designed and built. The Itakpe to Ajaokuta (IA) has two stations. As at June 2018, The station IA1 – Eganyi to Itakpe, is still under design. Station AW1 – Ajaokuta (standard station) (zero per cent work done). Thus the railways are not functional


Blast Furnace: The furnace in Ajaokuta is the heart of Ajaokuta, it is the pot where the jollof rice will be cooked, however it has never been turned on, why? because there has never been any time Ajaokuta has had raw materials available to ensure continuous day in day out production for 5 years. Why has there never been materials? Because there is no rail way to take iron ore from Itakpe to Ajaokuta. Why is there no railway from Itakpe to Ajaokuta? Because NIOMCO in Itakpe is moribund and no functional and cannot convert Nigeria iron ore to high grade ore for the furnace in

So, it follows that for Ajaokuta to work, we MUST have three key critical paths

NIOMCO must be functional
Itakpe to Ajaokuta Railway line must be functional
Blast Furnace operational
All three are not functional, so its clear Nigeria cannot make steel in Ajaokuta. Nothing however stops a corrupt government official from importing billets and running them in the rolling mills to deceive tax payers. So, when anyone tells you Ajaokuta will soon work ask them, can a steel plant work without NIOMCO, railways and a blast furnace?

All is not gloom, Kayode Fayemi as Minister was able to secure an out of court about Ajaokuta, we must build on this

In closing, Ajaokuta is the only steel plant in the world built by the USSR, sold to Americans, then to Indians, all these teams have come and gone with their own technical style, there have even been accusations of asset stripping by the Indians.

So why this post? because I am a patriot, I will not sit by and watch scarce resources be wasted in a grand deceit. Probably some corrupt folks have told Mr President that Ajaokuta can produce economically viable steel if “small” dollars are spent. You can already see how the critical rail line delivery dates was moved back to ensure it is done in time for 2019 elections, yet it is still in design stage. Ajaokuta is Nigeria and probably Africa biggest failure. It has failed. Can it be made to work yes but the cost to integrate Ajaokuta with her mines and rails can be used to build new smaller modern turn key functional steel mills. The government should get out of Ajaokuta, sell the place and allows the private sector capital and expertise restructure and own it.

If you want to make jollof rice and there is no rice the solution is not to keep boiling water without rice but to go and get rice.

I read articles of interest on Nairaland but I rarely respond to most. You clearly a Met&Mat Engineer from a Nigeria university and probably had your thesis on ASCL. The long write up is factual but not the truth. The plant is actually in some ways operational and have been producing iron products. The forges are working.

Pls read beyond what you are taught by your lecturers that are terribly non-innovative. Suppose the plant is put in operation with imported ores to satisfy the local markets. Won’t the revenue saved, and the market spur work on Itakpe? From where are Japanese and a Korea steel plant getting their raw materials? Internally?

A reasonable approach is to as many as the units into operation and gradually work the plant into full operation.

That is the approach every country in the world adopted for the automotive industry. TKD and assembly first then manufacturing.

Is the rail line overgrown with weeds part of that life?

Babacele:
Amen o. It would take some time though and meanwhile we shall continue to remind those who couldn't make Ajaokuta work in 16 years that they have no right to ask PMB why he hasn't done it in 2 days,4 years or 24 hours. God bless Nigeria.

Who are the those who couldn't make ajaokuta work?

Is it the masses asking for better governance from buhari ?
Or is it the SE/SS people that will never vote for him that have no right to ask?


All these Yoruba people sef.

..

But N-ASS have tweaked the budget.

seguno2:


Looks like you have allowed yourself to be scammed by Lienus Mohammed, Buhari and APC liars.
Redeem yourself quickly please.

Emi ke?
No brother man.Giving them a benefit of a doubt knowing them as the chronic liars that they are.We're still in it together.Thanks dear.

CSTR1003:

Who are the those who couldn't make ajaokuta work?

Is it the masses asking for better governance from buhari ?
Or is it the SE/SS people that will never vote for him that have no right to ask?


All these Yoruba people sef.

PDP sir. Any ordinary Nigeria has the right to ask any question. I hope it is clear. And who says SE/SS never votes for Buhari? Are u aware of the bribery of Inec officials by Alison and co not to talk of the intimidation and assassination of supposed obstacles in 2015? That Won't happen in 2019. And for your info , I'm a Nigerian ,don't know about you.

TonyeBarcanista:
I hope this is not another APC propaganda? Just the way you guys "started" Ogoni clean up since August 2015 yet NOTHING has been done 3 years after...

Ogoni clean up is a process expected to span well over 20 years. So, if you expect a 20 year process to start "showing" at the 3rd year, then something definitely must be wrong somewhere with your analytical mind. Just thinking aloud...

mankand:
False story, nothing of such is happening. Follow Natasha Akpoti in Facebook and twitter to see for yourself that it's all propaganda. I wonder why the regime come so low q by playing politics on this

So Al Jazeera lies too? It's no longer Lai Mohammed

zaltman:


And you think Al-Jazeera will identify with such? wake up man pls

Mumu it's all propaganda, why didn't any local TV station air a documentary on the activities currently going on on the mill? FYI last month was a public hearing at the senate in ajaokuta steel factory deliberating the way forward.

There is much power tussle and politics which is why it isn't coming to life in the near future.

Ajaokuta is not yet in operation, wake up and stop been a sheep. You have been fooled

U mean playing with a lathe machine is now bring our steel plant back to life.we have engineers in the house make ups no play with my 5years labour.

The problem is that,
any steel produced here will
be costlier than imported ones....

Anything produced locally is
unaffordable to the citizens.

Which kind economic model be that??

I think the equipments are obsolete

FriendNG:


https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/06/nigeria-steel-factory-open-40-years-180616102446497.html

PMB Must come back 2019 ... for more significant project and achievement like this... Continuity 2019!

yes, he did not. the plant was built in 1979, he only went there for opening of a section in the plant, which was already being built before he came to power, or you want to tell me he built the plant in 20 months, because that is how long he stayed in power then. study your history

diebuhari1:
Why not wait till it starts production?
Only a Yoruba muslim will take this rubbish you wrote seriously.

You can keep insulting Yoruba moslem but have you noticed that the Ajaokuta steel millnis located in Yoruba land?

Ntorrrr....

Are you a born liar or you are just learning how to lie?
Our refineries work but not optimally (praying you know the meaning)

showafrica:


Nothing works here.. Apc said our refineries are back but up till now have not refined any product.

Prove this to us with a video.

darqly:
Blast Furnace in Ajaokuta is not operational, how the hell is the factory back to life biko? It's wrong for this admin to lie so blatantly when people can easily verify claims in real-time.

Sai Baba

buhariguy:
But the legislootors want to be an obstacle to the progress. you are now reasoning like human being .

Many failed to understand that legislature has become the wall of Jericho in front of Nigeria journey to greatness.

somehow:
Prove this to us with a video.

Don't mind the lost tribe of Judah.

somehow:
Prove this to us with a video.

Don't mind the lost tribe of Judah,abi Ethiopians.

TonyeBarcanista:
I hope this is not another APC propaganda? Just the way you guys "started" Ogoni clean up since August 2015 yet NOTHING has been done 3 years after...

Try to research more on why the Ogoni clean-up has not been effected. Not the government but some elements within our system. It was rumoured that the Chinese company was asked for a 50% kickback of the total sum of money voted for the project. So, they withdrew. Even if the government is sincere and committed, some individuals are not ready to let go of the old ways