Ethiopia: Requests from 20 cement producers have led the Ethiopian Petroleum Supply Enterprise (EPSE) to start a tendering process to procure coal. Four international firms have reached the preliminary technical evaluation stage of the tender to procure 0.7Mt of coal, according to the Addis Fortune newspaper. The majority of the coal, around 0.6Mt, will be imported for the cement producers with the remainder going to steel and ceramics producers. The process excludes Derba Cement, which has its own arrangements to import coal in place. EPSE is expected to award the bid by the end of July 2017.
Ethiopia imports over 0.75Mt/yr of coal, of which more than 75% is for cement production. More than half of the energy consumption of the country’s cement plants is derived from coal.