₦airaland Forum

Russian engineers begin extensive assessment of Ajaokuta Steel Plant
BusinessdayAug 19, 2024 1:45 PM

A team of 23 Russian engineers who arrived at Ajaokuta Steel Company last Tuesday as part of efforts to revive the moribund industrial hub have commenced extensive assessment of the facility after years of neglect.

The team working alongside local engineers is tasked with identifying areas for improvement and upgrading outdated equipment to ensure effective operations the NTA reported.

Businessday efforts to get further information have remained unanswered. In a WhatsApp message to the minister of Steel Development, Audu Shuaibu, the Minister referred our reporter to his assistant. Whatsapp messages sent since Saturday to the PA have remained unanswered.

Messages and calls to the Sole Administrator (SOLAD) of Ajaokuta, Sumaila Abdul-Akaba have also remained unanswered

However, a staff of Ajaokuta who spoke to BusinessDay on grounds of anonymity said the failure of the SOLAD to respond to our reporters’ findings, could be because the Ministry of Steel Development was responsible for driving the process, while the ASCL were just facilitators, and the SOLAD was being careful not to speak.

“But the truth is that I saw them and I was there. The First Lady came, they came in on Tuesday and had the first project meeting on that same Tuesday and as early as 8 am this morning, they were already at the site.

“They have visited the power plant, the oxygen plant, the Lime plant, wide Rod mill, light section mill and afterwards have conducted another project assessment meeting.”

He further informed me that the Russians will be around till the end of the week or hopefully till the coming week to complete their assessment of the facility.


Meanwhile, BusinessDay findings indicated that the over 30-year moribund Ajaokuta Steel Complex was set to begin production in the Light Mill Furnace of the Complex.

This is even as the minister of Steel, Audu Shuaibu had exclusively revealed to BusinessDay that the ministry, in line with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is on the verge of restarting the Light Steel Mill of the Ajaokuta Steel Complex for the production of iron rods.

BUSINESSDAY recalls that the minister had on Friday, April 26, 2024, informed Nigerians that he had, engaged a consortium led by the original developers of Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited (ASCL), Tyamzhpromexport (TPE), to revive the steel plant.

The minister, who had met with the consortium comprising a team from Russia’s TPE/Rostec, Novostal, and Nigeria’s Proforce in his office on Thursday, 25th April 2024 in Abuja, urged them to put together a blueprint for the revival of the Steel Plant within the shortest possible time.

Meanwhile the Minister, in this exclusive report had informed that “following the approval of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Ministry of Steel Development is on the final stages of getting funds to the tune of 35 billion naira from private financiers to restart the Light Steel Mill Section of the Ajaokuta Steel Plant to begin production of iron rods which would be used to build National infrastructure”.

He also informed that the ministry had entered a partnership with the federal Ministry of Works

According to Shuaibu “The Ministry of Steel Development has entered into a partnership with the Federal Ministry of Works under the leadership of, Senator David Umahi. The Ministry of Works would be the off-takers of the iron rods which would be used for road constructions across the country and building of other infrastructure”

He also revealed that the Ministry of Steel Development has also entered into an MoU with the Ministry of Defence to restart the Engineering Workshop of Ajaokuta Steel Plant for the production of Military hardware which would also help in the nation’s fight against insecurity

Meanwhile, the minister had again reiterated that while thirty-five billion naira (N35b) is required to revive the light-steel Mill Section of the Ajaokuta Steel Plan, between two to five billion dollars ($2-5b) is required to revitalize the entire Ajaokuta Steel Plant

Reacting to the potential of getting the Light Steel Mill up and running, Umar A. Hassan, Ph.D, president, of the Nigerian Society of Mining Engineers, and Vice President, of the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society said the light mill furnace has a production capacity of 400,000 tonnes of steel products.

According to Hassan “The proposed plan to operationalise the Light Section Mill will facilitate the addition of 400,000 tonnes of production capacity of Round, Square, Hexagonal and Angle Steel products valued about N400trillion. Even if 50% of this capacity is utilized, the plant will be in a position to produce steel products worth about N200 trillion, create jobs and other economic activities associated with the production of these products, as well as conserve foreign exchange that would have been used to import these products.

Hassan who is the immediate past director general of the National Steel Materials Exploration Agency, Kaduna, said operationalization of some of the units will also catalyse local production of steel raw materials and the establishment of Modula Steel plants for local liquid steel production needed to produce steel billets required by the light Section of Ajaokuta Steel Plant.

He listed the benefits of the operationalization of some of the completed Units of Ajaokuts Steel plants including ensuring productivity in the Ajaokuta steel plant against the non-utilisation of these units to produce steel products as well as making the Ajaokuta Steelworkers earn their salaries instead of being paid for just maintaining units that could be made to produce needed steel products.

Meanwhile, Mohammed B Attah, national coordinator, of CSO Coalition for The Revival of Ajaokuta, also confirmed the sectional revival, stating that “In recent times civil society has been engaging with government to ensure that the original builders of Ajaokuta, the Russians are returned and the government is already working in that direction.

“We are aware that they have had series of meetings with the Russians and we are also aware that the Russians have come to Nigeria and have done a lot to see to the reviving that place so that is in place and we are in touch with some people in authority and know that, production will start very soon”

He stated that the section that will be producing rods is the light Mill Furnace. This was active in the 80s when ASC was alive and working
The Rod production in Ajaokuta will help greatly in reducing the high cost of building materials, road construction, bridges and several economic conditions. It will be a good turnaround for Nigeria’s economic challenges in terms of the availability of heavy and light-duty building needs.

“As a group of CSOs advocating for the revival of the steel company, this is one development that will excite the members and Nigerians in general. The expectations have been long and any such development now will be a good boost for the Nigeria economy” Attah said

Also, exclusive information glimpsed from a Document Tagged “CONTRIBUTIONS OF AJAOKUTA STEEL COMPANY LIMITED TO KEY DELIVERABLES OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT BOLA AHMED TINUBU GCFR” assessed by BusinessDay, informed that the development of the plant is still in the first phase even though some of the facilities for common services for the three phases are in place.

“The present phase is estimated to be over 98% technically ready as of 1994; that is by the weight of equipment and Steel Structures as per the original design have been erected before the Global Contract with TPE was determined in 1996”.

Up Yoruba Land..up Nigeria

23 Russian Engineers have to come to Nigeria

How many Professors in the Engineering field do we have in Nigeria today?

How many Engineering graduates do we have all over the country?

How many Engineering students are in Nigerian universities today?

How many Engineering aspirants?


I'm just asking questions ooo 🤷

Fingers crossed! 45 years no be joke!

Foto opportunities. This one might turn another Dangote refinery

Sirmwill:
23 Russian Engineers have to come to Nigeria

How many Professors in the Engineering field do we have in Nigeria today?

How many Engineering graduates do we have all over the country?

How many Engineering students are in Nigerian universities today?

How many Engineering aspirants?


I'm just asking questions ooo 🤷

Didn't you read the part that said with local Engineers?
So you want Nigerian Engineers to go and tamper with A complex facility not built by them?
I even heard the controls and equipment were labeled in Russian..
Abeg don't start..let the people that built the plant oversee it's revival and local Engineers can learn from it and take over after a few years.

Sirmwill:
23 Russian Engineers have to come to Nigeria

How many Professors in the Engineering field do we have in Nigeria today?

How many Engineering graduates do we have all over the country?

How many Engineering students are in Nigerian universities today?

How many Engineering aspirants?


I'm just asking questions ooo 🤷

Nigeria don't have the right environment to build anything. My concern is the distraction from the port harcourt refinery and nnpc as a whole. The main objective is to make sure Nigeria don't grow to compete with the west which I see as a huge problem. Also the introduction of tribalism by this current administration will worsen Nigeria situation and make it very difficult to have a collective impact in the country. A good government that think high of its people should find a way to eradicate any issues around the country but they left it to keep gaining momentum which has convinced me beyond any doubt that Nigeria is in danger.

HenryWilliams:
Didn't you read the part that said with local Engineers?
So you want Nigerian Engineers to go and tamper with A complex facility not built by them?
I even heard the controls and equipment were labeled in Russian..
Abeg don't start..let the people that built the plant oversee it's revival and local Engineers can learn from it and take over after a few years.

Then all these years
What have they (Nigerian Engineers) been studying?
If the Russian equipments we're labelled in Russian that's really smart of them tbh.
Can all those Nigerian Professors not build new equipment labelled in Nigerian languages?
If not, what are the Professors teaching?

I'm just still asking questions 🤷🤷

Funkyswagzz:
Nigeria don't have the right environment to build anything. My concern is the distraction from the port harcourt refinery and nnpc as a whole. The main objective is to make sure Nigeria don't grow to compete with the west which I see as a huge problem. Also the introduction of tribalism by this current administration will worsen Nigeria situation and make it very difficult to have a collective impact in the country. A good government that think high of its people should find a way to eradicate any issues around the country but they left it to keep gaining momentum which has convinced me beyond any doubt that Nigeria is in danger.

It's disheartening

Sir, you don't talk to people like this on this forum. They are meant to be bitter at every good news happen to Nigeria.
I'm sure the guy was among those that criticised Buhari govt for bringing those India engineers that first attended to the plant back then.

HenryWilliams:
Didn't you read the part that said with local Engineers?
So you want Nigerian Engineers to go and tamper with A complex facility not built by them?
I even heard the controls and equipment were labeled in Russian..
Abeg don't start..let the people that built the plant oversee it's revival and local Engineers can learn from it and take over after a few years.

If this were a 1979 car we were trying to revive, someone would tell me its a vanity job, done for show, and there's no way it could perform like a 2024 car though the cost of revival might likely be enough to buy a 2024 car. But I'm expected to believe a steel plant built in 1979 would be productive today and produce steel cheaper than can be imported from China.

Thankfully, those we are taking loans to come revive it for us know we have presidential jets they can confiscate if we don't pay up.

In 2002, the Nigerian government under Olusegun Obasanjo concessioned the project to Japanese Kobe Steel in an attempt at revitalization, however without much success. In 2004, the project was again transferred, this time to Ispat Industries. The deal was financed by Global Infrastructure Holdings Limited (GIHL) (now Global Steel Holdings Limited, GSHL), which is chaired by Indian steel magnate Pramod Mittal. The concession ended in 2008 after the government accused GIHL of asset-stripping. GIHL then sued Nigeria at International Chamber of Commerce.[6] The dispute was initially resolved in 2016, with Nigeria regaining control of the Ajaokuta Steel Mill in exchange for GIHL retaining the Nigerian Iron Ore Mining Company (NIOMCO) operating at Itakpe.[7][8] In 2022, the Nigerian government paid $496 million to GSHL to settle the claims.[9]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajaokuta_Steel_Mill

The below is dated Friday, 5 Jan 2024 1:20:50.

The Nigerian government has commenced discussions with renowned Chinese Company, Luan Steel Holding Group to build a new Steel Plant in Nigeria and commence the building of military hardwares in Ajaokuta Steel Plant.

The Minister of Steel Development, Prince Shuaibu Abubakar Audu, disclosed this Thursday after his tour alongside Minister of Defense, Badaru Abubakar at Luan Steel Holding Group in Hefei and Guangzhou region of China, as part of an effort to industrialize Nigeria.

https://dailytrust.com/fg-china-to-build-steel-plant-military-hardware-in-ajaokuta-minister/

Another APC story...

HenryWilliams:
Didn't you read the part that said with local Engineers?
So you want Nigerian Engineers to go and tamper with A complex facility not built by them?
I even heard the controls and equipment were labeled in Russian..
Abeg don't start..let the people that built the plant oversee it's revival and local Engineers can learn from it and take over after a few years.

Don't mind him, they always see fault. Why did our local engineers over the years not fix it. Russia engineers built it and it is logical for them to fix it and also in the process further train our engineers. That is how Dangote is doing currently in his refinery. He don't want to praise the effort of the government to resuscitate the steel company. Enemies of Nigeria.

HenryWilliams:
∆ Didn't you read the part that said with local Engineers?
So you want Nigerian Engineers to go and tamper with A complex facility not built by them?
I even heard the controls and equipment were labeled in Russian..
Abeg don't start..let the people that built the plant oversee it's revival and local Engineers can learn from it and take over after a few years.

Shame should catch you abeg when you dey say this thing. Shame supposed catch all of us that for 45 years we were never able to figure out a way to get that steel factory working on our own. It was about 98% complete so Nigerians only has about 2% to figure out yet no go. Na shame abeg!

COMRADES, will all these assessments see light at the end of the day?

Odua4life:
Up Yoruba Land..up Nigeria

Land grabber!

Kogi state is not Yorubaland.

[color=#1986BC] Scrap the entire complex for iron condemn people....You will make more money like that. [/color]

Nice!!

iichidodo:
[color=#1986BC] Scrap the entire complex for iron condemn people....You will make more money like that. [/color]

That would be some fking out-of-this-world expensive iron abeg!

kedeojo:
Don't mind him, they always see fault. Why did our local engineers over the years not fix it. Russia engineers built it and it is logical for them to fix it and also in the process further train our engineers. That is how Dangote is doing currently in his refinery. He don't want to praise the effort of the government to resuscitate the steel company. Enemies of Nigeria.

Every year, there's an item in the local government budget of the Orolu Kingdom for the tarring of Janta-Jamodo, except there's no road in the Orolu Kingdom called Janta-Jamodo.

There's Palace Road that does go between Janta and Jamodo but that's not the road, they'd tell you, since Palace Road is already tarred and doesn't need retarring except when it does and is budgeted for separately. Janta-Jamodo however does need tarring, and is budgeted for every year and the contract is awarded and paid for.

We would want to praise the effort of the Orolu Local government for the continued annual tarring of Janta-Jamodo, but attempts to find out who the contract was awarded to is as elusive as the elusive Janta-Jamodo they claim was tarred, annually.

They've been dragging the revival of this plant for Soo long...walai, Nigeria is blessed but na we dey f up

Melagros:
COMRADES, will all these assessments see light at the end of the day?

For where? Audio government....lazy arses

Sirmwill:
23 Russian Engineers have to come to Nigeria

How many Professors in the Engineering field do we have in Nigeria today?

How many Engineering graduates do we have all over the country?

How many Engineering students are in Nigerian universities today?

How many Engineering aspirants?


I'm just asking questions ooo 🤷

Nigeria education is a slave trap. We pray we escape one day

Asebaba1:
↪Nigeria education is a slave trap. We pray we escape one day

Ajaokuta steel na Nigerian shame abeg! The thing wey vex me pass be say even the children of those who work there, children who grew up around the steel mill, were not able to, in 45 years, figure out and maybe even own just the two percent left to get that complex working.

Odua4life:
Up Yoruba Land..up Nigeria

omo werey, kogi no be yoruba land.. no talk that thing anywhere again make thunder no divide your bald head

Some things in this country are just there as a means of stealing for whoever is in power. Ajaokuta steel, NNPC and it's refineries and most power generating projects are just means of stealing the little resources we have.

Kobojunkieee:
Ajaokuta steel na Nigerian shame abeg! The thing wey vex me pass be say even the children of those who work there, children who grew up around the steel mill, were not able to, in 45 years, figure out and maybe even own just the two percent left to get that complex working.

[color=#006600][/color]

There was one steel plant they built in Delta state that was working effectively.
But due to the dirty politics that encourages neglect of industries in the southern part of the country, the company was ran down.
Its a massive industry that is capable of manufacturing various steel products.
Why can't they revive that one? Since it was the major successful steel plant in the country?
That's the same way they have been looking endlessly for crude oil in the north wasting scarce resources.
As such they can't even think of ways of making other oil refinery work.
You guys should make a research about the steel plant in Delta state called; Delta steel company.

Odua4life:
Up Yoruba Land..up Nigeria

Ajaokuta is Ebira land

9japride:
↪ There was one steel plant they built in Delta state that was working effectively. But due to the dirty politics that encourages neglect of industries in the southern part of the country, the company was ran down. Its a massive industry that is capable of manufacturing various steel products. Why can't they revive that one? Since it was the major successful steel plant in the country? That's the same way they have been looking endlessly for crude oil in the north wasting scarce resources. As such they can't even think of ways of making other oil refinery work. You guys should make a research about the steel plant in Delta state called; Delta steel company.

Delta Steel was privatized in 2005 when it was handed over to Global Infrastructure Nigeria Limited and then to Premium Steel & Mine Limited some years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYPM5uZhuu8

Sirmwill:
23 Russian Engineers have to come to Nigeria
How many Professors in the Engineering field do we have in Nigeria today?
How many Engineering graduates do we have all over the country?
How many Engineering students are in Nigerian universities today?
How many Engineering aspirants?
I'm just asking questions ooo 🤷

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B2SRn7Tg8s?si=lc6hD0yMk0lZVhAt

Kobojunkieee:
Delta Steel was privatized in 2005 when it was handed over to Global Infrastructure Nigeria Limited and then to Premium Steel & Mine Limited some years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYPM5uZhuu8

[color=#006600][/color]

It was already messed up badly before the privatization.
And it was privatized by OBJ. They didn't hand over it to Europeans who could have revived it.
It was the Indians that eventually took over.
The company had high prospects. But as I said dirty politics killed it.

9japride:
It was already messed up badly before the privatization. And it was privatized by OBJ. They didn't hand over it to Europeans who could have revived it. It was the Indians that eventually took over. The company had high prospects. But as I said dirty politics killed it.

Yeah! Nigeria's matter get life of im own.