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Nigeria not handing over Ajaotuka Steel Plant to British firm. Here’s why

Published

2 years ago

April 12, 2022

Nigeria’s Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Arc. Olamilekan Adegbite, has refuted reports that the Federal government of Nigeria plans to hand over the Ajaokuta Steel plant to a British firm for rehabilitation.

The refuter was revealed via a statement issued by the minister’s Special Assistant on Media, Ayodeji Adeyemi on Monday.

The statement is in reaction to a report on some media outlets that the Ajaokuta Steel plant will be handover to a British firm,

“A local company in partnership with a British company has offered to execute the technical audit at no cost to Nigeria and with no preconditions. This was what I said at the media parley at the statehouse and not that Ajaokuta would be handed over to a British company for rehabilitation.” The statement reads.

The minister further explains that the ministry’s partnership with a Russian firm on the resuscitation of the plant due to international sanctions placed on Russia, which have also impacted Russian firms and businesses.

“The minister clarified that a local Nigerian firm with a British partner had expressed interest in carrying out the TECHNICAL AUDIT for free with no preconditions. The minister pointed out that the federal government had been in discussion with a Russian firm Messrs TPE (nominated by the Russian government) towards conducting the technical audit. The war between Ukraine and Russia has caused a setback to the proposed plan.” The statement concludes.

The Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited (ASCL) is located in Ajaokuta, Kogi State, Nigeria on a 24,000 hectares (59,000 acres) site starting in 1979, it is the largest steel mill in Nigeria, and the coke oven and by-products plant are larger than all the refineries in Nigeria combined. However, the project was mismanaged and remains incomplete 40 years later. Three-quarters of the complex has been abandoned, and only the light mills have been put into operation for small-scale fabrication and the production of iron rods.

Related Topics:Ajaokuta Featured Nigeria

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VenturesNow

World Bank grants Malawi $57.6 million for food crisis

Published

5 hours ago

April 27, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

As a response to its food crisis, the World Bank said on Friday that it would give Malawi $57.6 million in “quick release” grants.

“This support comes in the context of the severe food crisis the country is suffering due to El Niño conditions in the wider southern Africa region,” the World Bank said in a statement.

“A series of intense disaster events over the last few years has left almost no time for the country to recover and has resulted in a severe erosion of food security at the national level.”

Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world. It is ranked 170 out of 187 countries in the 2010 Human Development Index. Almost 16 million people live there, and 90% of them make less than $2 a day. That’s 53% of the total population.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says that 46,000 children in Malawi are seriously malnourished. In 2023, UNICEF said that more than 500,000 Malawian children were at risk of not getting enough food.

Now, Malawi has a lot of programs in place to deal with things like poverty, and climate change, and to make the business and agriculture more diverse.

VenturesNow

Nigerian oil regulator implements regional fuel standards

Published

1 day ago

April 26, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Nigeria’s oil authority has clarified that the recent changes to diesel fuel sulphur content standards are part of a regional effort to make things more uniform and are not meant to loosen rules for local refineries.

A report from S&P Global last week said that the West African fuel market had changed a lot after Nigeria raised the maximum diesel sulphur content from 200 parts per million (ppm) to around 650 ppm. This caused worries that the country might be lowering its standards to allow diesel made in Nigeria that is higher than the 200 ppm limit.

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), on the other hand, said it was only following a 2020 decision by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) that all of the regions had to slowly switch to better fuels.

Fuels that have a lot of sulfur can hurt engines and make the air dirty. As of right now, the ECOWAS rule lets locally-made fuel have more sulfur until January 2025. After that, a standard of less than 5 parts per million will be used for all oil, whether it is refined in West Africa or brought in from another country.

Farouk Ahmed, the head of the NMDPRA, told Reuters that the new limits are in line with ECOWAS’s choice to require stricter fuel specifications. The new rules will go into effect in January 2021 for non-ECOWAS imports and January 2025 for ECOWAS refineries.

“We are merely implementing the ECOWAS decision adopted in 2020,” Ahmed said.

“So a local refinery with a 650 ppm sulphur in its product is permissible and safe under the ECOWAS rule until January next year where a uniform standard would apply to both the locally refined and imported products outside West Africa”, Ahmed said.

Ahmed said that importers were told that the amount of sulphur allowed was going down, from 300 parts per million in February to 200 parts per million this month. This was done long before the huge Dangote refinery started providing diesel.

Diesel with a sulphur level of between 1,500 ppm and 3,000 ppm could be brought in by importers before.

The switch to cleaner fuels is in line with efforts to protect the environment around the world and makes sure that all area refiners have the same chances.

Nigeria recently had its worst blackout in decades because of a problem with its energy supply. The high cost of alternative energy sources has been a huge problem for both businesses and individuals, with the price of diesel being the most affordable choice for businesses.