Our spotlight is on Uzbekistan this week following an update on the Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine's (AMMC) plans to build a new cement plant in the south of the country. The news emerged in the wake of the completion of the AMMC's cement grinding plant, in the Jizzakh region, which was finished in late March 2014. Meanwhile, Eurocement announced that its subsidiary in Uzbekistan, the Akhangarancement plant, had received a limestone and marl quarrying licence.
Previous to the new AMMC grinding plant, Uzbekistan had five cement plants with a total cement production capacity of nearly 6Mt/yr. Only one of these was a dry production process plant, the 2.5Mt/yr Krzylkumcement plant, in the south-western Bukhara province. Cement consumption in the country was estimated to be around the same, also at 6Mt/yr.
Back in 2011 the government of Uzbekistan planned to invest US$6.94bn to develop infrastructure, transport and communication construction from 2011 - 2015. This investment has now been followed up with a direct financial injection into the cement industry.
In late February 2014, local building materials company JSC Uzbuildmaterials announced government plans to invest US$49.1m into the local cement industry. The programme includes nine projects for the three largest cement plants in the country: the Kyzylkumcement plant, the Ahangarancement plant and the Bekabadcement plant. Kyzylkumcement will receive the majority of the investment, US$39.6m to spend over three years on a new cement mill, upgrades to the clinker production lines and construction of a 220/10kV main substation. Ahangarantcement and Bekabadcement will replace 'out-dated' equipment and will upgrade their production lines.
Mineral-rich Uzbekistan is relatively undeveloped but this is changing. Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was reported to be US$51bn in 2012 by the World Bank, having seen steady growth since 2002, and its population was just over 30m in 2013. Its cement consumption is 300kg/capita, a figure below the global average (estimated at 536kg/capita in a forthcoming Global Cement Magazine report on 'Cement consumption versus Gross Domestic Product'). This places Uzbekistan in a favourable position for future development on a graph of GDP per capita against cement consumption per capita. The latest investment programme suggests that the Uzbek government are hoping that this is the case.