Displaying items by tag: Al Wusta Cement

Oman: Al Wusta Cement Company has appointed Abdullah Abbas Ahmed as its chairman and Ahmed bin Yousuf bin Alwai Al Ibrahim as its vice-chairman. The officials were nominated at a meeting of the representatives of two joint venture partners Raysut Cement Company and Oman Cement Company. The new cement company plans to build a plant at Duqm in 2018.

Oman: The Special Economic Zone Authority of Duqm (SEZAD) has signed a usufruct agreement with the Al Wusta Cement Company to establish a cement plant in Duqm. As per the terms of the deal the Al Wusta Cement has received a 500,000m² plot in the zone for a duration of 50 years, according to the Oman News Agency. The new cement producer is a joint venture between Oman Cement and Raysut Cement.

Al Wusta Cement plans to start building the plant in 2018 with production scheduled for 2020. The unit will start with a production capacity of 5000t/day before raising this to 10,000t/day, subject to market demand.

Update on Oman

It’s been an interesting month for the cement industry in Oman with the announcement of various producer projects and a recent market report predicting steady growth in the country.

A late August 2016 sector report from Al Maha Financial Services concluded that government-backed infrastructure projects in the country have pushed cement demand over the production capacity of the two leading local cement producers, Oman Cement and Raysut Cement. The report tempered the good news though with fears that excess production capacity from neighbouring producers in nearby countries would continue to lower prices in Oman. This matches the situation Global Cement found when it visited Oman Cement’s plant in early 2015. Such was the demand-production gap that this producer sometimes imported clinker to keep its supply constant when it shutdown its kiln for maintenance.

Cement production capacity in Oman currently stands at 8.81Mt/yr according to Global Cement Directory 2016 data. The major cement producers hold most of the local market with Oman Cement’s 4.2Mt/yr plant at Rusayl and Raysut Cement’s 3Mt/yr plant at Salalah.

Raysut Cement has announced progress on a number of local projects throughout 2016 including launching a new 20,000t silo at Salalah in May 2016, building a new terminal at the Port of Duqm due to open by the end of the third quarter of 2016, installing a new 150t/hr rotary packing plant with auto truck loader for expected commissioning by the end of October 2016 and it is currently upgrading its gas supply station at Salalah, also to give cement production a boost.

This last project is of particular interest because when Global Cement visited Oman Cement the staff at the Rusayl plant were concerned about the rapidly rising price of natural gas. The plant used gas as its primary fuel and at the time of the interview in January 2015 they were considering diversifying into alternative fuels such as a tyres or using local coal instead. The issue also received a mention in the company’s first quarter report, where it attributed the rise in gas prices to a 26.8% hit in its operational profit taking it down to US$15.6m in the first quarter of 2015.

Meanwhile, both Raysut Cement and Oman Cement are in the process of building a cement plant together at Al Duqm. The latest news on this joint venture emerged in mid-August 2016 when the companies announced that they had registered Al Wusta Cement as the company designated to carry out the project. So far the plant is at the feasibility study stage with further progress to be released at a later date.

Operating in a full-capacity environment will be a dream to many cement producers around the world. However, it is not without its pitfalls from input issues such as gas supply or fighting off external competition who may want a piece of the pie. Oman's construction industry is expected to see growth of 3.4% to US$5.74bn in 2016 backed by government spending. It is there for the taking for the local producers.

Oman: Oman Cement has registered a new joint-venture company with Raysut Cement to operate in the Duqm Special Economic Zone Authority. The new Company is named Al Wusta Cement Company and it will set up a new cement plant following a feasibility report.