Displaying items by tag: Cameroon

Benin/Cameroon: LafargeHolcim Maroc Afrique has purchased a 50% stake in SCB Lafarge Benin and 54.7% in Cimencam in Cameroon. Amounts for the deals have not been disclosed, according to the Ecofin Agency. LafargeHolcim Maroc Afrique, a joint venture between Lafarge Holcim and the Société nationale d’investissement also bought Socimat in Cote d’Ivoire in July 2016.

SCB Lafarge in Benin produces about 600,000t/yr of cement and Cimencam produces 1.7Mt/yr. The new acquisitions are part of LafargeHolcim’s expansion strategy across Africa. Countries with high growth potential such as Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali, Mauritania, Congo, DRC and Senegal have also been targeted.

Cameroon: Les Cimenteries du Cameroun (Cimencam), a subsidiary of the multinational LafargeHolcim, has announced that it has signed an investment agreement with the government for the construction of a new cement grinding unit in Nomayas.

The new US$40.3m installation is scheduled to start operation in 2018, initially with a capacity of 0.5Mt/yr. It will have the option to increase production to 1Mt/yr. The plant will use imported clinker from the port of Kribi.

Cameroon: The share capital of Medcem Cameroon has risen to US$689,000 from US$17,200, the company has revealed in a statement. However, the cement grinding plant has not produced cement for the local market in at least six months according to the Agence de Presse Africaine. Medcem’s production stopped after several shutdowns earlier in 2015 and a period of testing in late August 2015.

Medcem Cameroon, a subsidiary of Turkish company Eren Holding, has a cement production capacity of 0.6Mt/yr. Les Cimenteries du Cameroun (CIMENCAM), a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, and Ciments de l'Afrique (CIMAF), part of the Moroccan Addoha group, both operate integrated cement plants in the country. Dangote inaugurated a cement grinding plant in August 2015 and Mira is also planning to build a grinding plant in the country.

Cameroon: Mira plans to build a 1Mt/yr cement plant in Douala at a estimated cost of US$53m. The Swiss engineering firm has reportedly signed an agreement with the government of Cameroon, sources at the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Technological Development have revealed to the African Press Agency. The new plant will create about 1600 direct and indirect jobs.

Once built the new plant will be the fifth in Cameroon. Existing cement plants operating in the country include the LafargeHolcim subsidiary Cameroon Cement (CIMENCAM), the Morocco-based African Cement (CIMAF), the local subsidiary of the Nigerian Dangote cement group (DCC) and Medecem Cameroon, a subsidiary of the Turkish Eren Holdings. Total production of cement in Cameroon is estimated at around 3.5Mt/yr and domestic demand is estimated at 5Mt/yr.

Cameroon: The launch of Ciments de l'Afrique Cameroun's (CIMAF) new 500,000t/yr cement plant brings Cameroon's cement plant number to three. The Moroccan-based company has been supplying cement to Cameroon for several months and intends to increase production to about 1Mt/yr in the near future.

The other two cement plants in the country are Les Cimenteries du Cameroun, the oldest company in the country that produces 1.6Mt/yr, as well as Dangote Cement Cameroon, which was commissioned several few weeks ago and produces 1.5Mt/yr of cement. Estimated domestic cement demand stands at 2.8Mt/yr. Turkey's MEDCEM is also constructing a 600,000t/yr cement plant in Douala.

Tanzania: Nigeria's Dangote Cement is set to commission its new 3.0Mt/yr cement plant in Mtwara District on 10 October 2015. The company will also hold the ground-breaking ceremony for 25 hectares of jetty land at Mgao village in Mtwara District on the same day.

The commissioning of the new cement plant, which is part of the company's Africa expansion strategy, will be the fourth in the series after Ethiopia, Zambia and Cameroon. Cement plants due for commissioning this year are located in Senegal and South Africa, while construction works are ongoing in several other African countries.

Cameroon: Dangote Cement will open its new 1.5Mt/yr Sinoma-built cement plant in Douala, Cameroon today. "Africa's future growth is intrinsically linked to cement," said Aliko Dangote earlier in August 2015, as he opened another new factory on the outskirts of Ndola, Zambia. Both plants are part of Dangote Cement's US$4.3bn expansion across Africa and Asia, which we reported on earlier.

Cameroon: According to All Africa, US$150m will be invested by Dangote Group to build a new cement plant in Yaounde. The board chair and CEO of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said that the investment's aim will be to 'totally eliminate' any future cement demand increase in the country."Cameroon will not lack cement. We can assure the government that we are here to stay and will continue to invest," said Dangote.

Cameroon: Cameroon's demand for cement has risen dramatically despite the increasing volume of imports and local production, according to sources at the Ministry of Economy and Planning. According to the ministry, Cameroon's cement demand grows by 8%/yr and the country currently has a deficit of 2.5 – 3Mt. In 2014, local cement production was estimated at 1.3Mt and imports were around 1.2Mt.

Despite the government's bid to ban imports to boost domestic production, foreign producers continue to have significant market share in the country, importing to almost 1.3Mt in 2014 compared with 561,190t of cement in 2011. Cameroon's cement production is presently estimated at 3.6Mt/yr.

Cameroon announced this week that it intends to ban imported cement to aid the sales from the new Dangote owned cement plant in the country. Readers should note that Dangote is a Nigerian-based company. Protective legislation such as this should come as no surprise given the rise of Nigeria's own cement industry and similar initiatives in that country. The difference here, however, is that the Cameroonian government is protecting investment by a foreign company rather than propping up any home grown concerns.

The new Dangote-run cement plant in Douala will start with a cement production capacity of 0.95Mt/yr with the intention to rise to 1.5Mt/yr in 2016. A meet-and-greet by company officials with local press in early April 2015 revealed that the company intends to snatch 30% of the local cement market in 2015 with prices primed to just undercut the other major producer.

What then of the country's two other integrated cement plants? Both have foreign ownership. Cimenteries du Cameroun, with a 1Mt/yr plant, is a subsidiary of France-based Lafarge. Ciments de L'Afrique, with a 0.5Mt/yr plant, is a Moroccan firm. Add the new 1.5Mt/yr Dangote cement plant and domestic production in Cameroon is anticipated to exceed local demand.

When this happens how will the Cameroonian government view the two non-Dangote producers who may well be importing clinker and other products into the country for their operations? If the experience of Nigeria is a model then a 'self-sufficiency' battle may ensue in the media. Alongside this the price of cement may well stay fairly stable despite any alleged 'gluts'. This week, for example, the Cement Producers Association of Nigeria has lobbied the President-elect of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, to cut the price of cement by half. The hypocrisy during the Nigerian spat over imports was that Nigeria wanted (and has become) a cement exporter.

At the time this column asked how that could work if imports at the time were so much more competitive that they had to be banned at home. Then as now deals seem to mark the way. At that time, in early 2013, Liberia relaxed its tariffs on cement just as Dangote was building a new plant there. Now, in Cameroon, once again Dangote appears to be negotiating some form of preferential treatment.

At the root of these issues, Cameroon's citizens and industry want to build and develop their country. Cheaper cement will enable them to do this by pushing up per capita cement consumption. Protecting their domestic industry or those that have invested in the country may not necessarily lead to cheaper cement.