Nigeria: Production managers at Lafarge Africa’s cement plants at Ewekoro and Sagamu, Ogun State have complained about poor supplies of gas. Segun Shoyoye and Hannes Diedericks made comments to the Nigerian Guardian following a shutdown period of six weeks. They said that the situation started in early 2016 and has led to low production at the plants. The pair made their comments to the press in connection to an inspection of the two plants by officials from the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), led by the Acting Director-General, Paul Angya.

"The major issue is lack of gas supply because of the blowing up of oil and gas pipelines by militants in the Niger Delta region. We are now using a mixture of gas and black oil for our operations, which is highly costly, and also drops our production from 100% to 75% at the Ewekoro plant. This has been going on since February 2016,” said Shoyoye. He added that production at Sagamu stopped for six weeks in May 2016. Production has dropped from 3000t/day to 1000t/day due to the issue. Lafarge Africa is currently sourcing alternative sources of energy for its cement plants.