Ajaokuta Steel Project, which way forward?

Ajaokuta Steel Project , known as ‘The Bedrock of Nigeria Industrialization ’ capable of direct and indirect job through its by product is yet to assume its full potentials despite many years of inception. The project, as proposed was to aggressively fill the gap of spare parts through fabrication thereby engage the youths in the host community mean fully. When would have been achieved, the spate of youths restiveness, and other social vices, would have addressed to the barest minimum.

I want to start from when Ajaokuta Steel Project (ASP) was contracted to turn around the total economic fortune of Kogi state, and indeed the entire Nigeria nation at large for good. The project formally kick started on 18th September, 1979, charged with the duty to construct and operate an integrated iron and steel plant at Ajaokuta, where the steel city that comprises the steel plant and township is located on a sprawling 24,000 hectares of land on the west bank of the River Niger, according to record.

The Ajaokuta Steel Plant is bounded to the south by Ajaokuta village ( from where the Company’s name was derived) and to the west by hills and 65 kilometres from Okene in Kwara state then, now in Kogi state for record purposes.

Ajaokuta Steel Complex known to be a global contract was awarded to Messrs V/O Tiajprmexport of USSR in july 1979 to start operation immediately. With regard to the Civil works, it was contracted to three multinational civil engineering construction firms viz: Dumez, Fougerolle,-Fougerolle (Nigeria) and Bilfinger + Berger. Contract for project management consultancy was awarded to a consortium; made up of Pan Africa Consultancy Services (Nigeria) Limited; and Metallurgical Engineering Consultants(India) Limited (PACS-MECON) respectively

It was estimated that the steel plant was to reach an ultimate capacity of 5.2 million tones per year of long and flat steel products, which includes various sizes of heavy, medium and light structural sections: rails, plates, pipes, and thin sheets to mention a few. It was planned to run in three phases concurrently with the first phase producing 1.3 million tones of crude steel per year to be finished into long products as detailed below:

130,000 tones of wire rods

400,000 tones of long products and light structural.

560,000 tones of rails and medium structural sections

Given by the statistics at my disposal, the plant production was supposed to yield additional 155,000 tones per year of cast pig iron and a wide variety of by-products to boost the sector. Real philosophy of implementation for the first phase of the plant is by backward integration purposes, which started with the rolling mills, to be the base on imported intermediate raw materials in the form of billets and blooms, pending the steel making sections proper. Adopted technology was the blast furnace iron making process. However, three of the four rolling mills viz: light section and bar mill, wire rod mill, billet mill, were completed and in operation before the year 1988. But the last rolling mill, the medium section and structural mill which has been modified in design to produce 100,000 tones per year of rails was completed in the year 1988 to be precise.

Although, it was commissioned in July 1983 with the light section while the bar mill has been in commercial operation, that produced various sizes of plain bars, ribbed concrete reinforcement bars, and angle bars, but there were other products developed like tees, channels, and flat strips among others. In April 1984, the wire rod mill was commissioned and produced wire rods of both plain and ribbed profiles of diameters of 6.0mm-12.0mm in coils of about 900 kg according to record.

Other more Crucial shops integrated to the plant to provide support facilities to the main producing plants were completed in 1986, such as the machine shop including heat treatment and electroplating facilities, while the forge and fabrication shop was in the same year completed too.

In 1987, a Captive thermal power plant capable of generating 110 megawatts of electricity as well as the 795,000 tones per year semi continuous billet mill were put into operation, while by the end of 1988, the foundry and the medium section and structural mill were ready to commence operation fully.

Record has again that the structural mill and medium section has the capacity of 560,000 tones of structural and rails per annum, while the foundry can handle 7,000 tones of castings per annum, made up of 3,500 tones of iron castings, 3,260 tones of steel castings and 190 tones of non-ferrous castings respectively. The Ajaokuta Steel Project (ASP) won the 16th Trade Leader Club International Trophy for Quality, awarded at a ceremony in Madrid; Spain in 1988 as a result of its Vigorous quality control measures.

The need for importation of spare parts in the long run would have been reduced drastically, if the status quo were maintained, because of the highly versatile spare parts manufacturing facilities, ranging from the foundry, forge and machine shop facilities of the Ajaokuta Steel project in Ajaokuta, Kogi state, North Central, Nigeria, West Africa. The project was considered to be the biggest in black Africa, capable of catering for the spare parts requirements for the project and for a myriad of heavy equipment and plants in the Country, and in extension Africa. The world at large would have been our market, jobs created for the teaming un-employment youths and young adult alike through training and retraining on craftsmanship skills, reducing crime in the society , and indeed kogi state. The youths could be orientated to take advantage of the fabrication training of various spare parts with the available facilities capable producing gears and brake drums for various types of vehicles and machinery, shafts, screws, lots, rollers and what have you.

Although, the Federal Government in seat then directed the project to embark on flat steel production and tender documents, with the record to that effect revealed that they have since been submitted and studied by the then government.

Reliable sources showed that the reason may not be un-connected with the fact that the Federal Government wanted to embark on an accelerated program me in order to reduce raw material importation and boost the development of the local manufacturing facilities. With the construction of the flat sheet rolling mills while the liquid sheet production facilities of the first phase completed, the liquid steel would thus feed both the first phase and the flat facilities together.

On completion, the flat sheet rolling mill’s would produce plates, hot and cold rolled sheets, in various finished forms and categories.

While the locally availability of the above would have served as a substantial boost for the locally manufactured consumer goods and fabrication of industrial machinery, created jobs for people at the local level.

As at the date under review, the major raw materials for the steel plant were imported billets and blooms,pending when the first-phase of the steel plant was fully integrated, then the plant would be based wholly on local raw materials, which includes the following below:

Iron ore from Itakpe

Lime stone from Jakura

Dolomite from Osara and Burun

However, while the exploration continued to identify economically viable indigenous sources of coking coal and other raw materials, all the coking coal requirements would be imported.

THE ADMINISTRATIVE SET UP OF AJAOKUTA STEEL PROJECT (ASP)

The Ajaokuta Steel Company was divided into six departments for administrative convenience, whereFive of these departments were headed by Deputy General Managers: