Displaying items by tag: Algeria

Algeria: Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal has laid the first stone at a cement plant being built at Sigus, Oum El Bouaghi by the Industrial Public Group of Cements of Algeria (GICA). Sellal said that his country had invested significantly in the cement sector and that Algeria should being exporting cement by 2019, according to the Algeria Press Service.

Polysius SAS France, a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp, won the contract to build the cement plant in October 2015 on a budget of over Euro310m. The plant will have a production capacity of 2.2Mt/yr and it will start production in Febraury 2019.

Algeria: CILAS, a joint operation between Lafarge Algeria (49% stake) and Souakri Group (51% stake) located in the northeast of the country, has started commissioned its mill at its Biskra cement plant. Operation of the site’s kiln is scheduled to start in July 2016 according to the El Watan newspaper.

China’s CBM, a subsidiairy of Sinoma, signed a deal to build the plant in mid-2014. The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract included design, equipment supply, civil construction, installation, training and commissioning of the project. The plant will have a cement production capacity of 2.7Mt/yr when fully operational.

Algeria: Groupe des Ciments d’Algérie (GICA) has signed two agreements with CBMI, a subsidiary of Sinoma, to build a new cement plant in Bechar and upgrade the Zahana plant at Mascara. The agreements were signed in the presence of Industry and Mines Minister Abdessalem Bouchouareb, China's ambassador to Algiers Yang Guangyu and the chief executive officers of GICA and Sinoma, according to the Algeria Press Service.

The Bechar cement plant will have a cement production capacity of 1Mt/yr and it will be run by the Saoura Cement Company. The upgrade work at Zahana cement plant has an investment of US$344m. A new 1.5Mt/yr production line will be built at the site run by the Cement Company of Zahana. Work at both sites is planed to be complete in 2018.

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has appointed Caroline Luscombe as the group’s new Head of Organisation and Human Resources and member of the Executive Committee. Her role starts from 1 July 2016 and she will be based in Zurich. She succeeds Jean-Jacques Gauthier.

Luscombe joins LafargeHolcim from Syngenta where she has been Head of Human Resources since January 2010 and a member of the Executive Committee since 2012. Prior to joining Syngenta, Luscombe held senior human resource roles in the financial and healthcare businesses of the GE Group, and in the speciality chemical company, Laporte.

Having led the human resource integration between Lafarge and Holcim, Jean-Jacques Gauthier will be appointed as the Country Chief Executive Officer in Algeria from 1 September 2016. On taking up his new role, Jean-Jacques will relinquish his position on the Executive Committee.

Algeria: Cement production has resumed at the Société des Ciments Sour El-Ghozlane plant following maintenance work and an upgrade to add an electrostatic precipitator filter. The 1Mt/yr plant, a subsidiary of Buzzi Unicem, has been shut for nearly two months causing a shortage of cement in the central region of the country. This has led to some construction projects stalling and the cost of cement rising, according to El Watan.

Algeria: Orascom Construction has signed a contract to build a 6000t/day greenfield cement plant in Algeria for an unnamed private sector client. The deal is part of a wider set of industrial and infrastructure projects worth US$200m the engineering and construction contractor has announced including infrastructure work for an industrial complex in Algeria and an order to manufacture and supply all structural steel for the West Nile Delta gas development project.

“These new construction contracts build on our substantial track record in Algeria that stretches across a number of sectors including power, water desalination, petrochemicals and cement. We are also pleased to receive a large order to fabricate and supply the steel structure for an important gas development in Egypt, and look forward to further participating in this sector through our construction group and National Steel Fabrication,” said Osama Bishai, CEO of Orascom Construction.

Algeria/Denmark: FLSmidth has signed a Euro200m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with SARL Amouda Engineering for the supply of a greenfield cement plant. The plant will be located in El Beida, Laghouat.

The order includes engineering, equipment supplies, construction, commissioning and training. Once completed, the cement plant will have a capacity of 6000t/day.

"EPC solutions are increasingly requested by the industry and we are very happy that SARL Amouda Engineering chose FLSmidth as the preferred supplier based on a very close collaboration and our extensive knowledge of the region,” said Group Executive Vice President of the Cement Division Per Mejnert Kristensen.

Algeria: A US$277m joint venture cement plant between Lafarge Algeria (51%) and Algeria's Souakri (49%) in Biskra will start operations in 2016.

The Director of Public Affairs and Communications at Lafarge Algeria, Serge Dubois, said that the plant, which will produce 2.7Mt/yr of cement, will raise the group's overall production to more than 11Mt/yr. Lafarge Algeria currently has two cement plants in M'sila and Oggaz with 8.7Mt/yr of capacity. It also holds the 1Mt/yr Meftah cement plant in partnership with Algeria (GICA).

Algeria: According to All Africa, the Algerian minister of Industry and Mines Abdeslam Bouchouareb has said that the country is moving towards, "Self-sufficiency in cement and steel products thanks to the new facilities that will be operational in the short term."

Bouchouareb said that Algeria, which imports about 3Mt/yr of cement, "Will manage to cover its needs and even over produce by 2016." It will be the first time since independence from France in 1962 that the country will cease cement imports.

Two new cement plants in Biskra with a total production capacity of 4Mt/yr will, besides the national network of operating cement plants, meet the demand of the domestic cement market. Privately-owned La Biskrie des Ciments will be operational in December 2015 with an 1Mt/yr of cement production capacity.

Algeria: Qalaa Holdings, an investment company in the Middle East and Africa, has reported that its revenue in the first quarter of 2015 grew by 42.5% year-on-year to US$256m. Growth was driven mainly by operational improvements at ASEC Cement's Sudan subsidiary Al-Takamol, which recorded 157% year-on-year revenue growth. The energy and cement segments contributed 71% to its consolidated revenues.

Qalaa Holdings reported that its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) stood at US$36.2m, an eight-fold increase on the same period of 2014. It had a net loss after tax and minority of US$14.7m in the first quarter of 2015, a 51.6% year-on-year improvement. Foreign exchange charges rose to US$6.95m, compared to a gain of US$1.71m in the first quarter of 2014. Qalaa Holdings' cement and construction unit ASEC Holding recorded US$10.2m in foreign exchange losses due to its stake in dollar-denominated ASEC Holding Convertible.

Qalaa Holdings' plans for the future include several cement divestments. Negotiations are progressing for the sale of ASEC Cement's operations in Algeria, with an Algerian Holding Company in the cement industry being the natural buyer for Zahana Cement as it already owns 65% of the company. The greenfield plant in Djelfa, Algeria is being bid for by two Algeria-based industrial groups.