Ghana: Stanbic Bank Ghana has closed a US$20.2m loan deal with Western Diamond Cement Limited, a company in the West African Cement SA (WACEM) Group, to build a 1Mt/yr cement plant in Egyam Bokro, near Takoradi. Production will start in 2014.
WACEM has two associate companies currently operating in Ghana, namely, Savanna Diamond Cement Limited (SDCL) in the Northern Region, and Diamond Cement Ghana Limited (DCGL) in the Volta Region. Stanbic Bank's relationship with the WACEM Group started in 2011. WACEM has cement plants in West Africa including Niger and Burkina Faso, and with project stage plants in Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire. It has recently commissioned a plant in Mali.
The current cement production capacity in Ghana is 5.2Mt/yr. The project raises the number of cement plants Ghana to four, with the addition of a bagging plant that processes imported cement.