By Babajide Komolafe

A steel rolling mill worth $1.5 billion and capable of producing 800,000 metric tonnes of steel  annually will commence operations February next year.

The steel mill along with a ceramic tiles plant worth $500 million and a nail pruduction plant worth $200 million  all located in the Wempco steel complex in Ogun state, is expected to create 5500 additional jobs.

The production capacity of the steel mill, which is owned by the Wempco Group represents 65 per cent  of the  1.2 million of steel is consumed annually in Nigeria most of which are imported.

“The mill is 60 to 70 per cent completed. All the equipment have arrived and what remains is installation”, said Phillip Tung, Chief Engineer, Wempco.

Addressing journalists during a facility tour  of the steel mill complex, he said  a test run would be conducted in March while full operations would commence in April.
He said the mill will for now produce cold He said for now the mill will depend on imported steel billets for raw materials until it can work out how to transport iron ore from Itakpe in Kogi State.

Speeking on the ceramic tiles plant, Tung said the plant which has commence production, produces 800,000 square meters, which in addition to what is produced an existing plant of the group brings total production to 1.2 million square meters which represents 45 per cent of total local demand. He production will increase to 1.5 million square meters by the end of the year and three million square meters by 2015 which is more than the present local demand of 2.5 million square meters.

He added that the ceramic tiles produced by the company compares with the best in the world in terms of quality and is cheaper. He said the company plans to export its ceramic tiles to the western african region  and is already discussing with distributors across the region.

To ensure adequate and uninterupted power supply for the massive operations of the complex, the company invested about $250 million to build a 50 megawatt gas power plant.

Tung said that the steel complex, which would be the largest in Africa upon completion, is motivated by the need to conserve foreign exchange resources and the availability of the needed raw materials in the country.

“We realise that importing these products costs a lot of foreign exchange and we thought that since the raw materials are available locally, producing them locally will help conserve foreign exchange”, Tung said.

He said in addition to this, the huge investment on the complext is a demontration of the confidence and belief of the Wempco group in Nigeria.

“We have been in Nigeria in the last fourty years with established manufacturing companies producing wide range of building materials and associated products. This is because we believe in Nigeria and we see a lot of potentials in the country and its people”, he said.