Pakistan: Lucky Cement’s revenue grew by 12% year-on-year to US$729m in the first nine months to 31 March 2019 from US$654m in the same period in 2018. Its local cement and clinker sales volumes dropped by 13% to 4.4Mt from 5.1Mt. Export sales more than doubled to 1.5Mt from 0.7Mt, Overall sales volumes rose to 6Mt. Its income fell by 18% to US$80m from US$97.3m. It said that its cost of sales rose by 14.1% due to rises in the cost of coal, packing material and other fuel prices.
The cement producer said that a 2.6Mt/yr expansion project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be completed by the end of 2019. Contacting for a new 1.2Mt/yr plant in Samawah in Iraq has been finalised including a power plant from Finland’s Wärtsilä. Commercial production at the site is planned for mid-2020.
