Pakistan: Lucky Cement’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 21.6% year-on-year to US$114m in the nine month of its financial year to the end of March 2018 from US$145m in the same period in 2016. It noted that its cost of sales rose by 16.9% due to rising coal and other fuel prices. Its gross revenue rose by 7.1% to US$439m from US$410m. Cement production rose by 11.1% to 5.79Mt from 5.2Mt.
The cement producer added that it is expanding production at its Pezu plant by 2.6Mt/yr due to delays with its expansion plans elsewhere in the north of the country. Approvals from the government have been secured. The US$152m upgrade project is scheduled to be completed by the fourth quarter of 2019. It is also building a US$109m integrated cement plant at Samawah in Iraq. The joint-venture project with a local partner will have a cement production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr when operational. Commercial production is currently scheduled for end of 2019.