Nigeria‘s quest to join the league of the top 20 economies of the world by year 2020 will fail if the steel sector is not revitalised, the Director of the Metallurgical Inspectorate and Raw Materials Development Department in the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development, Prof. Ibrahim Madugu, said on Thursday.
Delivering a paper on Steel production in Nigeria: Challenges and prospects, Madugu explained that economies of the world were driven by their consumption of steel.
He said, ”For any country to achieve any meaningful level of industrialisation per capita, steel consumption should not be less than 150 kilogrammes per person.
”At present, Nigeria‘s steel consumption is 10kg per person. Today, all the leading economies of the world are technology driven. The iron and steel industry is the bedrock onto which industrialisation and technological growth are anchored.”
Madugu regretted the stagnation of the Ajaokuta Steel Company, which he said was targeted as the bedrock for the nation‘s industrialisation.
This, he blamed, on the lack of stable and focused government policies.
He said although the project was 95 per cent completed, most of the related infrastructure for delivery of raw materials for the operations of the steel plant were yet to be completed.
The director, who described the blast furnace as the epicentre of the steel plant where the raw materials are processed into liquid pig iron, also listed the essential raw materials as iron ore, coking coal, limestone, dolomite, refractory clay, silica and bauxite.
He added, ”Coking coal is presently unavailable locally. The annual demand is 1,320,000 tonnes.
”This is to be imported and delivered by rail to Ajaokuta via Warri port in the interim, and eventually through the deep seaport at Onne, Port Harcourt.
Source: The Punch, Lagos
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