Displaying items by tag: Democratic Republic of Congo

Iraq: Lucky Cement has started production at a cement grinding plant in Basra, southern Iraq. The US$40m plant is a joint venture between Pakistan-based Lucky Cement and the Al-Shawy family. It has a production capacity of 3000t/day or 0.8Mt/yr. The plant is intended to supply cement for the southern Iraq market.

In comments reported by Mena Report Lucky Cement CEO Muhammad Ali Tabba said that the completed grinding plant is the first phase of development at the site. Lucky Cement may continue development at the plant investing US$125m to build an integrated cement production line with a capacity of 1.25Mt/yr.

Tabba added that Lucky Cement is also working on building a US$240m plant in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It has a 50-50 agreement with the Rawji Group, a local company, to start production via a company called Nyumba Ya Akiba. When operational, the plant in DRC will produce 1.2Mt/yr of cement.

Democratic Republic of Congo: PPC (formerly Pretoria Portland Cement) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Democratic Republic of Congo's Barnet Group to build a US$230m greenfield cement plant. The project will involve building a 1Mt/yr plant and an associated quarry 20km from Kimpese in western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

"This investment is another of PPC's commitments to invest in sub-Saharan Africa and we are very confident about DRC. 22% of PPC's revenue comes from outside South Africa, at present, but the target is to increase this to 40% by our 2016 financial year. We look forward to a growing contribution and partnership with the DRC in the years ahead," said CEO of PPC, Ketso Gordhan.

In its press release announcing the project, PPC noted that the existing cement market in DRC was 'severely' undersupplied. At present, the DRC has 16kg/capita annual cement consumption, the lowest in Africa, compared with the South African average of 240kg and the global average of 400kg.

For the project PPC has partnered with Jean Saidi Bamanisa, Chairman of the Barnet Group, who is also the Honorary Secretary of the Federation of Congolese Companies. He was elected Governor of the Oriental Province of the DRC. The project will take advantage of DRC's first special economic zone.

DR Congo: Pakistan-based cement producer Lucky Cement has announced plans to begin construction of a US$240m plant in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in June 2013. Lucky Cement has a 50-50 agreement with the Rawji Group, a banking company, to start production via a company called Nyumba Ya Akiba (NYA), according to Reuters.

"Now's the time to reconstruct a country that was destroyed by civil war," said Sajid Feroze, NYA's chief financial officer.

The proposed factory, to be located around 250km from the capital Kinshasa, is due to come online in late 2015 and will produce 1.2Mt/yr, more than double the current total production in Congo. The country currently consumes just 15kg/capita/yr. Neighbouring Angola uses 300kg/capita/yr and the global average is 400kg/capita/yr said Feroze.

Earlier in May 2013, South African cement firm PPC announced it would build a US$200m cement plant in Congo.