The Steel Melting Shop, SMS, a vital production section of the Delta Steel Company, DSC, Ovwian-Aladja in Delta State, caved in during the week, plunging the company, now managed by Global Infrastructures Limited, GHI, an Indian company, into a serious production crisis.

Since Monday, May 30, when the incident took place, production had stopped, but the management sid it is doing everything possible to repair the collapsed roof of the SMS, which caused extensive damage to the structure.

Vanguard gathered that the damage could have been averted if the management had taken precautionary steps to maintain the SMS shop, which had technical defects. “The Indians who run the company do not want to maintain the structure, they believe in just making money out of the available facilities they met on ground, which is the problem,” a source said.

Acting General Manager, Public Affairs, DSC, Mr. Kesiena Agbosa confirmed to Vanguard when contacted that the SMS unit was partly damaged by rainstorm, saying the hue and cry by some persons was unnecessary, as it was a natural disaster.

He said a similar incident occurred years back when the Central Maintenance collapsed and it was fixed, saying that efforts were on to repair the current damage.

It was gathered that the company has contacted Julius Berger Company to fix the damaged SMS, but officials of the company who visited DSC reported that it was an extensive damage and they would want to contact their headquarters for further instructions.

A source said the DSC management wanted Julius Berger to just effect repairs only on the damaged portion, but the engineers who came felt otherwise, and advised that a thorough job be done. “At the moment, there is no production activity in the company, as the affected furnace, number 2 is disrupting the second operational furnace, number 4, from functioning the way the structure collapsed,” a staff of the company told Vanguard.