Displaying items by tag: Plant

Nigeria: Edo Cement Company's new US$500m plant in Okpella, with a cement production capacity of 3Mt/yr, will be ready for commissioning in early 2014, the chairman of parent company BUA Group has said.

Alhaji Abdulsamad Rabiu made the announcement at the signing of a US$35m contract agreement between BUA Group and Siemens to build a new gas turbine power plant for the plant. The contract, which was signed with Siemens at BUA's London office, was for Siemens to supply three SGT 500 turbines manufactured by Siemens Industrial Turbo Machinery AB in Finspang, Sweden with a total capacity of about 45MW. These will supply power to the Edo Cement plant, which is currently under construction.

"I am particularly very impressed so far by the civil construction work done by Julius Berger. 70% of the cement plant equipment has been shipped and is currently on site and the pace of work is very comprehensive and impressive. By early 2014 the cement factory will be ready for use," commented Rabiu on the plant's progress.

India: Binani Industries is in talks with potential financial investors such as JP Morgan and state-owned funds in the Middle East to sell up to a 40% stake in its subsidiary Binani Cement as it seeks to raise capital to cut its debt and expand its cement capacity. Potential investors may include Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Qatar Investment Authority.

The company, which has a total cement capacity of 11.25Mt/yr, has integrated cement plants in Rajasthan, India and a 2Mt/yr grinding unit in Dubai's Jebel Ali Industrial Area. The company has previously expressed an interest in expanding both inside and outside of India.

At US$130/t of installed capacity, Binani Cement will be valued at US$1.47bn. A 40% stake is thus worth around US$568m."The valuation of Binani Cement will be evolved in discussions with the financial investors and will be in compliance with the regulatory guidelines," said Sunil Sethy, executive vice-chairman and MD of Binani Industries."Given the overcapacity (in the Indian market) the absence of mergers and acquisitions has been surprising."

Tajikistan: Tajik-Chinese joint venture Huaxin Gayur Cement is building a 1Mt/yr cement plant in the Yovon district of Khatlon province, according to the Ministry of Energy and Industries (MoEI). The budget for the coal-powered plant is US$110m.

Elsewhere in Tajikistan a 50,000t/yr plant being built at Vahdat Township by Tajik-Chinese joint venture, Vahdat Hualun is nearing completion. It is expected to start operation during the first quarter 2013. A plant with a cement production capacity of 20,000t/yr in the northern city of Konibodom will start operation in the first half of 2013. Two cement plants funded by foreign investment in Danghara and Shahritous districts are also nearing completion. A 100,000t/yr plant in the Mastchoh district, Sughd province that opened in 2012 has plans to increase its capacity to 1Mt/yr.

According to data from the MoEI, eight cement plants with a capacity of 1.5Mt/yr currently operate in Tajikistan. The country's largest cement plant is OJSC Tojikcement (Dushanbe cement plant) with a capacity of 1.1Mt/yr. However it has not been in operation since the start of January 2013 due to a lack of natural gas.

Tajikistan's annual demand for cement has sharply increased in connection with construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power plant (HPP), highways and other facilities of the nationwide significance. Currently Pakistan is the main supplier of cement to Tajikistan.

Cameroon: The government of Cameroon and the German group GPower Cement has signed a partnership agreement to build a cement plant in the south-western town of Limbe. US$60.9m has been invested in the project with a target annual production capacity of 800,000t/yr. Construction of the plant will begin in June 2013 and is expected to produce its first cement bag by late 2015.

The initiative joins other projects underway such as those of Nigeria's Dangote Group (1Mt/yr) and Addoha from Morocco (500,000t/yr) in the commercial city of Douala. Cameroon's local producer and Lafarge's subsidiary Cimenteries du Cameroun (CIMENCAM), which has two factories in Douala and Figuil, has begun plant construction works on the outskirts of the capital, Yaoundé, to supply the Central, Southern and Eastern regions of the country.

Cameroon, which has been facing recurrent cement shortages for more than a decade, has opted for massive imports, with potential domestic demand being 8Mt/yr, while domestic production is currently estimated at just 1.6Mt/yr.

Turkmenistan: Turkish company Polimeks Insaat Taahhüt ve San. Tic. A.Ş. has commissioned a 1.4Mt/yr cement plant in the east of Turkmenistan, an official Turkmen source has said. President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan and President Viktor Yanukovich of Ukraine flew by helicopter to the venue for the opening ceremony of the cement plant.

The plant in Garlyk in the Lebap region will produce Portland cement, oil well cement and sulphate-resistant cement. Raw materials will be taken from a nearby quarry and when operational the plant is expected to employ 800 people.

In October 2011, Polimeks launched a similar plant in the west of Turkmenistan, in the area of the city of Jebel in the Balkan region. Its cost is estimated at Euro180m.

India: UltraTech Cement, a subsidiary of the Aditya Birla Group, has started a US$297m capacity expansion project with the help of International Finance Corporation (IFC), the multilateral lending arm of World Bank Group. About US$100m of the project comprises loans from the IFC.

The proposed project comprises a brown field expansion at UltraTech's operational integrated plant in Chhattisgarh and the investment for the necessary infrastructure to support the expansion. In a recent statement IFC said that the project is a key component of the company's cement capacity expansion strategy in the eastern part of India. Located on 389 hectares of land, existing operations were commissioned in 1995. The existing facilities and ongoing expansion include expanding the clinker capacity up to 6.5Mt/yr, the cement line up to 6.5Mt/yr and taking a coal-fired captive power plant up to 80MW.

Currently, UltraTech has 12 integrated cement manufacturing plants, 15 grinding units, five bulk terminals and more than 100 ready mix concrete plants spanning India, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka with a capacity of 52Mt/yr

India: HeidelbergCement India has successfully completed and commissioned two projects in Damoh district in central India, with production starting today at both facilities. It has increased production at its Narsingarh, Madhya Pradesh, plant from 1.2Mt/yr to 3.1Mt/yr. In Imlai it has taken its cement capacity from 1Mt/yr to 2Mt/yr.

HeidelbergCement India said that the expanded capacity will enable the company to increase its market share in central India, where the company's brand 'mycem' is already a premium brand.

India: Heidelberg Cement India has received approval to set up a waste heat recovery (WHR) power plant at its clinker plant at Narsingarh, Damoh District in Madhya Pradesh. The proposed plant will produce approximately 12.15MW of power from the available waste heat of pyro-processing system of all three lines at the unit. The project cost is estimated to be in the range of US$26.9m to US$27.8m and it is expected to be operational in January 2015.

Bangladesh: Seven Circle Bangladesh, manufacturer of Seven Rings Cement, is going to establish a 1.3Mt/yr cement factory in Khulna by July 2013.

"We are expecting to enhance our production capacity to 4.4Mt/yr million tonnes by 2015 and the new factory in Khulna will help us a lot to achieve our business expansion target," said Seven Circle Bangladesh's general manager of marketing and sales Asadul Haque Sufyani. The company's current annual production capacity is 1.6Mt/yr

"Since 2008, we are exporting our product in 50kg bags to different states in India. We will be able to allocate more quantity of cement for export after starting production in our new lines. At present we are giving priority to our local buyers," added Sufyani, adding that the company was involved in numerous key building projects and highway developments in the capital Dhaka.

Zimbabwe/Mozambique: South African cement manufacturer PPC's (Pretoria Portland Cement) Zimbabwean subsidiary, Portland Holdings Limited (PHL), is to build a new cement plant in the country to service its markets in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The new plant will produce about 1Mt/yr of cement and will work alongside a separate grinding facility being constructed in Tete in Mozambique.

"In recent years our investment in Zimbabwe has show strong growth on the back of a more buoyant and stable economy," said PPC's chief executive officer, Ketso Gordhan. "This, together with the fact that PPC has received an indigenisation certificate, makes us optimistic about the future of the economy and the country as a whole."

"The construction of additional cement capacity will ensure that PPC continues to be a key player in the development of infrastructure in Zimbabwe and neighbouring countries," added Gordhan. "It is totally in line with our stated strategy of growing our non-South African revenue from the current 21% to at least 40% by 2016.

"Not only will this investment address the expected future increase in cement demand in Zimbabwe but create employment opportunities, beneficiation of the country's mineral reserves and a significant growth opportunity for our indigenisation partners," said PHL's managing director, Zak Limbada.