• Inaugurates $150m pipe mill
President Muhammadu Buhari is mulling stoppage of imported substandard oil and gas steel pipes.
He also expressed worries over the dilapidated state of the Ajaokuta Steel Company.
Buhari spoke while inaugurating Setraco Construction Company (SCC) $150 million Steel Pipe Manufacturing Mill at the weekend in Abuja.
He noted that the organisation would help the nation meet its gas pipe demand of 100,000 tons annually.
The president, who was represented by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, said the federal government is committed to developing local contents in the sector to promote rapid industrial growth.
He said: “In the face of our increasing demand for steel pipes which today stands at 1.2 million tons annually, the SCC pipes mill is expected to provide close to 10% of the nation’s oil and gas pipe demands, which is about 100,000 tons annually.
“Therefore the government will continue to promote and protect such investments and all other effort aim at achieving industrial growth and social economic development by creating enabling environment and regularly putting in place policy measures which safeguard local investment by banning those products that atimes are below quality.
“This development is a great milestone in our collective effort to promote and increase local content in the oil and gas sector and to fast track effort at transferring technology and technical capacity to Nigerian engineers and artisans as well as conserve the much needed foreign exchange.”
SCC Managing Director, Levy Yuval, described the organisation as first indigenous company to manufacture steel pipes.
Yuval said about $150 million was expended on the project expected to provide jobs for the unemployed, especially the host community.
The Chairman of SCC Board of Trustees, Ambassador Dele Cole, stated that the first set of 48 inches steel pipes were produced for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
The pipes, he pointed out, were produced in strict adherence to quality requirement of the American Petroleum Institute (API) and International Standards Organisation (ISO 9001).
Cole revealed that the company would also invest additional millions of dollars in the establishment of a pipe coating plant within the same factory premises due for completion by 2016.
“Not only have we retooled and upgraded the factory, SCC has taken a decisive action to increase the initial stalled capacity of the steel pipe factory from 80, 000 tons per annum to 280, 000 tons per annum through the additional state-of-the-art mill,” he added.