Evaluation of Cost Effectiveness of Onibode Fire-Clay for Production of High Quality Refractory Bricks

David Ehigie Esezobor^1*, Friday Ichifu Apeh², Mfon Okon Udo³, Mustapha Fabiyi², Enebi Solomon Apeh²

¹Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria.
²Engineering Materials Research Department, Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute, Ota, Nigeria.
³Department of Marine Engineering, Federal Collage of Fisheries and Marine Technology, Lagos, Nigeria.

DOI: 10.4236/jmmce.2015.35042                

Abstract

In establishing a plant or factory, the cost-benefit analysis is needed to determine the viability for such financial investment on the project. In this paper, the cost establishing a factory of 200,000 bricks per annum capacity, for the production of high quality refractory bricks from locally available raw materials in Nigeria was evaluated. The evaluation was conducted on the virgin refractory material (100%) as well as with varied percentages (10% - 40%) of alumina additions. The result of cost benefit analysis indicated that, the project was viable, with the highest cost at N1,203.66 per brick as against N1,800 (at 3 years projections) of the imported brick. The payback period for the capital investment was very short (within two years). The findings will aid investors in decision makings.

Keywords

Cost-Benefit-Analysis, High-Temperature, Refractory Bricks, Steel Plants

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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