Displaying items by tag: Nigeria

Nigeria: Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer has struck a deal to sell a MVR 6000 R-4 mill for raw material grinding and a MPS 3350 BK mill for processing coal for kiln firing for Dangote Cement’s new plant at Okpella in Edo State. The mill order is the first for Gebr. Pfeiffer from the Nigerian cement producer. The order was placed by the China’s Sinoma International Engineering.

The MVR mill featuring a total drive power of 4000kW will be grinding 550t/hr of cement raw material to a fineness of 10% R 90µm. The MPS 3350 BK with a drive power of 1100kW is designed for a throughput rate of 50 - 70t/hr and will grind Nigerian coal, imported coal and/or pet coke, to a fineness of 12% R 90µm. Gebr. Pfeiffer’s own staff will supervise erection and commissioning.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement has appointed former Xstrata CEO Mick Davis as a non-executive director alongside Cherie Blair, a lawyer and the wife of ex-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. The new board appointments are targeted at strengthening the company’s board, according to Bloomberg. While the company did not explain the reason for such high-level appointments, it has been reported that the company is planning to relaunch its bid to be listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). According to Bloomberg, Dangote has already approached investment bankers to discuss a potential UK listing.

Davis ran Xstrata, the mining giant now owned by Glencore, for 12 years to 2013. He is now the chairman of Macsteel and the CEO of the UK’s ruling Conservative party. Cherie Blair’s other board positions include Renault SA.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement will use two vertical roller mills (VRM) from Germany’s Loesche for a new production line at its Obajana plant in Kogi State. The order comprises a six-roller mill for raw cement meal with a capacity of 580t/hr, the largest roller mill for raw material in the Loesche range, and a three-roller mill with a modular design featuring a drive power range of 1000kW for grinding hard coal and lignite with a throughput of up to 70t/hr.

The scope of delivery also includes a LDC classifier for the raw cement mill and a LSKS ZD classifier for the coal mill, which is characterised by individually adjustable grain size separation. The raw material mill is equipped with metal-matrix-compound (MMX) technology. The two mill gear units are equipped with state monitoring and remote access for remote monitoring. Loesche is also contributing to the design and planning of the entire plant as well as the engineering for the electrical measurement, control and regulation technology and complete automation. The delivery date is scheduled for the third quarter of 2018.

The contract partner for this project is China’s Sinoma International Engineering, which has previously installed a seven clinker and cement raw meal VRMs for the Obajana plant. The site has a cement production capacity of over 12Mt/yr and it is the largest cement plant in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Nigeria: The Methodist Church of Nigeria has called on the local government to support the reopening of the Nkalagu Cement plant. The Diocese of Onitsha wants the unit restored so it can create local jobs, according to the Vanguard newspaper. The plant was the first in Nigeria when it opened in 1954. It later closed in 2003 after it was privatised. The Ebonyi state government signed a memorandum of understanding with Ibeto Group in 2016 to revive the plant.

Nigeria: Lafarge Africa’s sales rose by 36% year-on-year to US$835m in 2017 from US$613m in 2016. Its recurring earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) nearly doubled to US$161m from US$81m. Michel Puchercos, the chief executive officer of Lafarge Africa, attributed the strong margins in its Nigerian business to cost initiatives and higher prices. He added that the company’s increased use of alternative fuels and coal to offset gas shortages in the west of Nigeria and a focus on coal and gas in the east and north of the country aided market share.

However, the cement producer reported a ‘challenging’ business environment in South Africa, where operations are expected to ‘stabilise’ in 2018. Its Lichtenburg cement plant returned to normal operations during the course of the year and a turnaround plan was initiated in order to transform the company’s operations.

Nigeria: Cement Company of Northern Nigeria’s (CCNN) sales revenue rose by 39% year-on-year to US$54.7m in 2017 from US$39.3m in 2016. Its profit after tax more than doubled to US$9m from US$3.5m, according to This Day newspaper. However, its cost of sales also rose, by 18% to US$33.4m from US$28.3m.

Nigeria: China’s CBMI and LafargeHolcim have held a signing ceremony for a 5000t/day cement plant upgrade project near Ewekoro. The deal follows previous collaborations between the companies in the country, including work at Ewekoro and Unicem.

Lots of facts stuck out from the inaugural Global GypSupply Conference that took place in Brussels last week. One was that Spain exported 1.49Mt of raw gypsum to West Africa in 2016. The data point from Spanish customs popped up in a presentation by Mohamed El Moustapha, the managing director of a gypsum mining company based in Mauritania. He was using the figures to reinforce the opportunities for his company to supply the growing cement industry in West Africa. Yet the size of the market has implications for the oft-repeated claims of cement sector self-sufficiency that various countries in the region have cried out for.

Gypsum is used as a retarding agent to control the setting time of cement. It gets added whilst clinker is ground into cement. Roughly speaking, cement production requires about 5% of gypsum. So a 1Mt/yr cement plant would require around 50,000t/yr of gypsum. The crucial question for cement producers in West Africa is where is this gypsum coming from. Given that the Global Cement Directory 2018 places cement production capacity at just under 100Mt/yr in the region, this requires around just under 5Mt/yr of gypsum.

El Moustapha made out that there were no gypsum deposits in West Africa. This contradicts a study on Nigerian gypsum mining published in Global Gypsum Magazine in March 2016 estimated local reserves to be around 150Mt although to be fair to El Moustapha these appear to be relatively underused. This also doesn’t take into account sources of synthetic gypsum produced at coal-power plants although this is likely to be negligible at present.

Reserves in Mauritania appear to be much larger at 1.7Bnt. Instead, the problem here appears to be assisting the exploitation of mined gypsum by improving infrastructure and supply chain issues. El Moustapha’s company Samia reported that it exported 170,00t of gypsum to cement plants in West Africa, mainly via ship, but with a significant minority via truck overland to Mali. Another speaker at the conference from the Moroccan gypsum trader Cultura presented a snapshot of a more mature market with exports of 210,000t in 2017. However, similar issues with port infrastructure were also present. To this end the company was keenly looking forward to an upgrade project the Port of Safi due for commissioning in 2020 – 2022 that would allow larger ships to berth.

A market report on the gypsum and anhydrite market by Roskill in 2014 placed Egypt, Algeria and South Africa as Africa’s leading gypsum producers. In particular it singled out South Africa as the only sub-Saharan country producing more than 100,000t/yr of gypsum. In terms of usage of gypsum Roskill estimated that just over half of the world’s gypsum was used to make cement, followed by 38% for wallboard and plaster production and then 18% for agricultural usage. Although this compares to just over a quarter for cement production and most of the rest for wallboard production in the US, with its more developed wallboard market than the rest of the world, according to recent United States Geological Survey (USGS) data.

As the Global GypSupply Conference demonstrated plenty of raw gypsum is available around the world. However, since supply and price can vary considerably in the short term, cement producers are keen to secure steady sources. Developing gypsum sources in northern Africa are necessary to help build the West African cement industry, but the regions need to work together.

The 2nd Global GypSupply Conference will take place in spring 2020

Nigeria: Dangote Cement’s sales revenue rose in 2017 but its sales volumes of cement fell. Its revenue rose by 31% year-on-year to US$2.23bn in 2017 from US$1.70bn in 2016. However, sales volumes of cement in Nigeria fell by 15.9% to 12.7Mt from 15.1Mt. Altogether, its sales volumes rose by 8.4% to 9.37Mt in the rest of Africa and fell by 7% to 21.9Mt in total. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 50.9% to US$1.08bn from US$713m.

“Although Nigerian volumes were lower in 2017, our Pan-African operations increased volumes by 8.4% and now make up 42% of the Group’s total cement sales, demonstrating the robust diversification of our business,” said Joe Makoju, Acting Group Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Cement. He added that the cement producer had increased its footprint from eight countries to 10 during the reporting period with the opening of new facilities in the Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, while its operations in Cameroon, Senegal and Ethiopia achieved ‘strong’ sales growth during the year.

Regionally, Dangote Cement said that its estimate for the total Nigerian cement market fell by 18% to 18.6Mt in 2017 due to a recession in the first half of the year and higher prices. It also noted that its Gboko plant in Benue State was mothballed for ‘most of the year.’ Elsewhere, it said that it exported 174,000t of cement from Nigeria to Ghana. In Senegal it introduced 32.5R cement to its product range. In Sierra Leone it opened a 0.5Mt/yr terminal and bagging plant in Freetown in early 2017. In Tanzania it said that its plant at Mtwara had lost earnings due to its reliance on temporary diesel generators. Gas turbines are scheduled to start operation in March 2018.

Nigeria: Ashaka Cement plans to complete its 16MW captive power plant in early 2019. The subsidiary of Lafarge Africa and LafargeHolcim started the US$30.5m project in 2017, according to the Nigerian Guardian newspaper. Once operational the power plant will supply additional electricity to the national grid as well as supplying the neighbouring cement plant.