Displaying items by tag: Cimenterie Nationale

Lebanon: Cimenterie Nationale has announced that it will dispatch its last batch of cement for the foreseeable future on 6 March 2021. The L’Orient-Le Jour newspaper has reported the cause for the stoppage as the exhaustion of stocks of raw materials. The Lebanese government suspended access by cement producers to their quarries in October 2020. The nation’s three cement companies are permitted only to produce cement using clinker or limestone from existing stockpiles.

The company currently has 700 employees. It said that 3500 other jobs depend indirectly on its activities.

Lebanon: The Ministry of Industry has reversed a recent decision to allow cement imports into the country. Following a meeting with local cement producers, Minister Imad Hobballah declared that allowing imports would decrease official selling prices rapidly, according to the L'Orient-Le Jou newspaper. Local producers have reported low sales due to a strict coronavirus-related lockdown that started in January 2021. Cimenterie Nationale reportedly stopped production in early February 2021 due to a lack of raw materials.

Democratic Republic of Congo: The Council of Ministers has approved a proposal of the Ministry of Industry to appoint auditors to perform an inventory and evaluation of the 0.3Mt/yr integrated Cimenterie Nationale (CINAT) Kimpese cement plant in Kinshasa Province with a view to re-launching cement production there. Current estimates place the cost of reopening the plant at US$82,000. CINAT is 92% state-owned.

The government established the Kimpese plant in 1974 and production ceased in 2011 due to a fuel shortage. It has resumed since. CINAT employees have kept the plant in working order and guarded it in order to prevent it from being salvaged for scrap.

Lebanon: Residents in Koura district has demanded that nearby cement plants be closed and cement exports banned due to health fears. George Costantine al-Itani, the environmental committee coordinator for Kfar Hazir issues a list of demands, according to the Daily Star newspaper. The group wants local cement plants in the area to move out of residential areas, close down unauthorised quarries and replace petcoke usage with natural gas. In the longer term the group wants the government to plant trees on cement company land and decrease the cost of local cement. Local company Cimenterie Nationale and Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim operate cement plants in the region.

Lebanon: Cimenterie Nationale has officially inaugurated a new bag filter at its Chekka cement plant. The new filter is expected to reduce dust, NO_x and SO₂ emissions by more than half, according to the L'Orient-Le Jour newspaper. The filter has been in operation since late May 2017.