Ajaokuta Steel Project is located on 24,000 hectares of sprawling green-field land-mass. The Steel Plant itself is built on 800-hectares of land. The chosen Technology for Steel Production is the time tested Blast-Furnace – Basic Oxygen Furnace route for Steel Production.
The Ajaokuta integrated steel complex was conceived and steadily developed with the vision of erecting a Metallurgical Process Plant cum Engineering Complex with other auxiliaries and facilities. The complex is meant to be used to generate important upstream and downstream industrial and economic activities that are critical to the diversification of our economy into an industrial one. Ajaokuta Steel Plant is therefore aptly tagged as the“Bedrock of Nigeria’s industrialization”
In the words of Ajaokuta Steel Company management:
WHO WE ARE
Ajaokuta Steel Company is Nigeria’s leading steel company. Guided by a philosophy to produce safe, sustainable steel, it is the leading supplier of quality steel products in all the major economic sectors including construction, packaging and wire drawing/nail making industry. ASCL operates in all the major markets in Nigeria and employs about 3000 people.
Ajaokuta will take full advantage of the ECOWAS treaty and the Export Expansion Scheme of the Federal Government of Nigeria to expand its market base to the whole of the West African Sub-region and beyond.
ASCL VISION STATEMENT
Production of quality steel and steel products for the industrialization of Nigeria while meeting all standards.
ASCL MISSION STATEMENT
To be a knowledge based organization that continuously achieves economic value for stake holders by optimizing resources through operational excellence, enabled by continuous innovation and driven by technology to meet customers’ satisfaction.
| THE COMPANY OVERVIEW
Ajaokuta Steel Company is located on 24,000 hectares of sprawling green-field land-mass. The Steel Plant itself is built on 800-hectares of land. The chosen Technology for Steel Production is the time tested Blast-Furnace – Basic Oxygen Furnace route for Steel Production.
The Ajaokuta Steel Plant’s major units are as follows.
OVERVIEW
• Integrated Steel Plant based on BF- BOF Route
• Installed capacity – 1.3 Million Tonnes PA
• Provision to increase Capacity to 2.6 Million Tonnes and further to 5.2 Million Tonnes PA
• Rolling commenced November ’04
• Rolling Entire Range
• Wire rod 5.5 mm- 12 mm
• Rebars 8 mm – 30 mm
PLANT FACILITIES
• Coke Batteries – 0.88 MTPA capacity
• Sinter Plant – 2.6 MTPA of fluxed sinter
• Blast Furnace – 1.3 MTPA of hot metal.
• Two Basic Oxygen Furnaces – (130 tons each) 1.3 MTPA.
• Three continuous bloom casters of four strands each.
• Billet Mill – 795,000 TPA
• Wire Rod Mill (WRM) – 130,000 TPA
• Light Section Mill (LSM) – 400,000 TPA
• Medium Section and Structural Mills (MSSM) – 560,000 TPA
• Thermal Power Plant can produce a total of 110 MW from 2 generators of 55MW each.
Among the auxiliary plants are the
• Lime Production Plant,
• Alumino Silicate Refactory Plant and
• Tar bonded Dolomite Plant.
These major units are serviced by an array of water treatment and recirculation facilities and extensive gas facilities. A captive Power Plant of capacity 110mw is to provide an alternative source of power to the Steel Plant.
Engineering Complex:
Engineering Complex as one of the auxiliary units adequately equipped with machines and equipment for the manufacture of spare parts and fixtures of various specifications.
CAPABILITY
• Billets
• 100 x 100 mm
• WRM
• Wire rods of size between 5.5 mm to 12.5 mm.
• Re bars of size between 6.0 mm to 12 mm.
• LSM
• Plain and re bars : 10 mm to 30 mm
• Squares : 10 mm to 30 mm.
• Hexagons : 10 – 14 mm , 20 and 26.
• Angles : 25×25 mm to 50×50 mm in thickness between 3 mm to 6mm.
• Channels : 30 mm to 45 mm.
• T – sections : 30 mm to 60 mm.
• Strips : 6-12 ( t ) x 12 – 70 ( w )mm
• MSSM
• I beams : 80 mm to 300 mm.
• Channels : 80 mm to 300 mm.
• Equal angles : 70 x 70 mm up to130x130 mm.
• Un equal angles. : 50×80 mm and 100 x 160 mm.
• Flats : 70 mm to 150 mm width x 10 to 20 mm in thickness. |
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| Engineering Works Complex: |
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| Equipment Repair Shop: |
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The shop is equipped with machines, tools and installations that can
• Repair/ reconditioning of all types of Electric motors and generators both AC/DC
• Repair of Power distribution Transformers up to 1. 8 M VA capacity.
• Repair /reconditioning of electrical control panels.
• Repair of oil circuit breakers of different capacities.
• Repair of Pumps, filters and valves.
• Dynamic Balancing of Rotors and Shafts.
• Static balancing of Rotors / Shafts
• Purification and Reclamation of used Transformer oil.
• Bending of pipes up to 160mm diameter.
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| Forge and Fabrication Shop: |
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The shop is equipped with machines, equipment and installation necessary to produce Steel Forgings of light and heavy parts up to 500Kg, Fabricate light, heavy parts and Steel structures up to 10 Metric Tons etc. The shop’s forging and fabricating capacities are 2,000 MTonns and 2,200 MTonns per annum respectively.
The Shop is design to handle
• Plate Bending of maximum thickness of 40mm.
• Plate/ round/strip of between 25-65mm thick plate/ rounds.
• Annealing and normalizing.
The core equipment of the shop is as follows:
• 2 Ton forging hammer with a forging manipulator
• 4-Roller plate bending machine.
• Different types of welding equipment.
• Heat Treatment furnaces of various hearth areas.
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| Foundry and Pattern Making Shop: |
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Foundry shop is designed to produce about 7,000 Metric Tons of casting per annum, including 3,550 MTonns of cast iron, 3260 MTonns of steel and 190 Metric Tons of Non-Ferrous metal castings.
• The shop is equipped with a spectrometer Laboratory for determining the chemical composition of Ferrous materials.
• The Pattern Making shop is designed to manufacture pattern for the foundry. It can produce up to 460 cubic meters of wooden items.
• Some of the casting done on a regular basis for external customers are jaw crusher, Grinding media of various sizes, roller shells, Gears, Pulley, Flywheel, Non-Ferrous bushes etc.
The core equipment of the shop is as specified below:
• Two Electric Arc Furnaces 6,000 kg capacity, each.
• One Induction Mixer Furnace of 10,000 Kg capacity.
• One Induction Melting Furnace of 1000kg capacity.
• One Fuel Fired crucible Furnace of 100Kg capacity.
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| Machine and Tools Shop: |
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The shops is equipped with machines, tools and installation necessary to Manufacture mechanical parts and perform machining and repair works on various sizes of work pieces up to 9,000 Metric Tonns per annum of manufactured parts, and I,050 Metric Tonns of Reclaimed spares.
Also available are different types of equipment for heat treatment to suit our customer’s need. The shop also handles maintenance job orders involving disassembly, repair and assembly.
The unique capabilities of the shop are with respect to specialized jobs/ job sizes viz.
• Turning. 800mm diameter x 12meters long
• Turning. 3,200mm diameter x 3 meters long
• Milling. Table size 400mm x 1600mm.
• Planing. Table size 1,400x 6,000mm
• Horizontal Boring. Machining area 2,500 x 2,000mm
• Gear cutting. Up to Module 30
• Heat treatment of component. Up to a mass of charge of 30Metric Tonns.
• Horizontal press. Up to 600 Metic Tonns capacity.
In addition is the quality control section and a supporting Design and Planning section having well trained Engineers and Auto Card Draftsmen.
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| Rubberizing and Vulcanizing Shop: |
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The Rubberizing shop is designed to produce various types of oil seals, O- ring for different applications. It can produce rubber products suiting specific customer’s requirement.
The 250 Ton press and Masticating Mill installed in this shop are designed for shaping and vulcanizing mechanical Rubber products.
The shop is also equipped with one 800Tons press and many portable presses with which to perform vulcanizing of conveyor Belts up to 2000mm width in the shop and at site.
There are two Mixers for the production of pasty mixture according to customer’s need.
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This Steel Company is obviously huge and great in capacity. It has the capacity to meet our local steel needs and serve the entire African market. Today, our dear Naira is struggling so dearly against the US dollar, which is becoming scarce in Nigerian economy as the day goes by. The question we must ask every government that has been in Nigeria from the time of Shehu Shagari to the immediate past government of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is, what on earth were they doing in Aso Rock with a sleeping giant beneath them at Kogi State – just a few miles (less than 300) from Abuja.
According to a news report in 2014, it was said by the Minister of Trade and Investment that Nigeria imports $3.3bn steel, iron annually. If you convert that to naira in the current market price of 199 (official rate) and around 322 (parallel market rate) today – then you will be in the realms of trillions of naira. We need more dollar to stay competitive and strong in the world economy; yet our past government officials closed their eyes to these buried huge potentials that can liberate Nigerian ailing and chained economy.
Having meditated on the issues around the commencement of operations of the greatest sleeping giant in Nigeria; I came to realize that it was not the Steel company that is as sleep; but the leaders of Nigeria – the ones entrusted with the economic and political destinies of Nigeria – and not only them, the entire citizens of Nigeria are as sleep. The big question then is, who will summon a great courage to wake the sleeping political and the economic leaders of Nigeria.
I know that the current Minister of Mines and Steel is a passionate and driven man; and I am not in doubt of the will of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. However, I need to remind Mr Minister of Mines and Steel that his legacy will never be his rhetoric, but his realization of the dreams and aspirations of every Nigerians as it concerns our National pride, growth and true independence.
It is time for our collective National interest to overwhelm the selective or sectional interests of parties, politicians and even goe-political zones. We have so much capacity in Nigeria to become a leading economy in the world – Rome was not built in a day and the China we so much talk about did not just appear – choices were made and landmarks were laid by men – not ghosts! Singapore will never forget Lee Kuan Yew; I hope Nigeria will also never forget Dr John Fayemi Kayode (JFK) and President Muhammadu Buhari – if the Giant Steel Company is alive under their watch and its working at 100% capacity! I rest my humble case for now!
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