The Federal Government has moved to revive the long-dormant Delta Steel Company, with its current owners, Premium Steel and Mines Limited, committing more than $1.3bn to rehabilitate and modernise the plant and return it to commercial production within 18 to 24 months.
The revival plan, which could create about 25,000 direct and indirect jobs, received a fresh boost on Thursday following the signing of a Sub-lease and Operations Agreement between the National Iron Ore Mining Company, Itakpe, and Premium Steel and Mines Limited.
The agreement is expected to address one of the major requirements for restarting the integrated steel plant: sustainable access to iron ore.
The development could mark a new attempt to resurrect one of Nigeria’s most ambitious industrial projects, which was commissioned in 1982 with an installed capacity of one million metric tonnes of liquid steel annually but later slipped into prolonged operational difficulties.
The plant, located in Ovwian-Aladja, Delta State, had operated at only about 25 per cent of its designed capacity before shutting down.
