Displaying items by tag: Nigeria
Sinoma to build US$386m cement plant for Ibeto Cement
22 October 2015Nigeria: China National Materials Company's Shanghai-listed subsidiary Sinoma International Engineering Co Ltd has entered into an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Ibeto Cement Company Limited for a 6000t/day clinker line and 45MW self-generation power plant in Enugu, Nigeria. The contract is worth US$386m. It covers the whole process, from the exploitation of limestone mines and the crushing of raw materials, to the packing and delivery of cement and a captive power plant and includes engineering design, supply of equipment, steelwork and materials, civil construction, installation, debugging and staff training.
Dangote Cement appoints two new regional CEOs
07 October 2015Nigeria: Dangote Cement has appointed two new Regional Chief Executive Officers (RCEOs). Arvind Pathak has been appointed as the new regional Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria and Vivek Chawla will serve as the new Regional CEO for West and Central Africa. Chawla was appointed on 17 August 2015.
Chawla has over 30 years of experience working in the cement industry. Previous to working for Dangote he was the President of Hindalco Industries, part of the Aditya Birla Group. Chawla also worked as Chief Executive Officer, East Region of ACC Limited.
Lafarge Nigeria unit acquires United Cement
06 October 2015Nigeria: An affiliate of Lafarge Africa, Nigerian Cement Holdings (NCH), has completed a 100% acquisition of Nigeria's third-largest cement manufacturer United Cement Company of Nigeria (UNICEM). Lafarge did not disclose the purchase price. NCH owned 70% equity in UNICEM before agreeing to the deal in November 2014 to buy the remaining 30% from Flour Mills. UNICEM cement plant in Cross River has a production capacity of 2.5Mt/yr and is undergoing an expansion to 5Mt/yr, to be completed in 2016.
Dangote to launch Tanzanian cement plant in October 2015
30 September 2015Tanzania: 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.
AshakaCem and Nigerian Army ramp up efforts in north east
30 September 2015Nigeria: AshakaCem and the Nigerian Army have scaled up efforts to rebuild the Northeast part of Nigeria, which has suffered devastating damage from the Boko Haram insurgency.
Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai and Chairman of AshakaCem Alhaji Suleiman Yahaya both spoke when the latter visited the former in his office in Abuja on 30 September 2015.
Lt Gen Buratai commended the management of AshakaCem for its philanthropic activities in the region, saying the cement firm has supported the country's war against the terrorists.
He described the attacks on the company last year as unfortunate, but urged its management not to relent in its effort at rebuilding the region.
Yahayah responded that his company was impressed by the security arrangement put in place around AshakaCem, even as he said the attacks had cost his company US$23m.
He promised that his company would step up its humanitarian efforts and would soon make a major announcement on its next move. AshakaCem is the largest employer in the Northeast.
Dangote reissues call for concrete roads
25 September 2015Nigeria: Aliko Dangote, Chairman of Dangote Cement, has repeated his plea to the Nigerian Federal Government to urgently adopt concrete roads in the country. Dangote stated that the adoption is hoped to be to the benefit of Nigerians if the government embraced the option of using concrete for roads in the country. Dangote claims that, aside from being very cheap, concrete roads are more durable with near zero maintenance cost.
"We are pushing for Nigeria to have concrete roads. It is cheaper to lay a concrete road that will last 50 years than to lay a bitumen road. It will also help in eliminating corruption, because if you go and build a bitumen road, it will have to be adequately maintained unlike a concrete road that is very durable," he commented.
NSIA and Lafarge Africa to support Ogun State forest landscape restoration project
22 September 2015Nigeria: The Ogun State Government, in partnership with the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and Lafarge Africa, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the joint development of the Ogun State Forest Landscape Restoration Project.
The MOU would enable the creation of a legal entity to develop the project, engage development agencies and climate change funds and promote it to large agriculture and forestry investors. At maturity, the project is set to transform 1080km2 of heavily degraded land into an arable green area. It is designed to employ innovative approaches to achieve best-of-breed environmental, social and economic results. The scheme's uniqueness rests in the way it combines land restoration with business development objectives by applying the latest findings of agro-ecology and agroforestry.
The first part of the area will be rehabilitated through mixed reforestation to provide biodiversity hotspot corridors, allowing nomadic herders to cross the area with their herds and encouraging subsistence farming. The other part is expected to be leased to agro-industrial investors interested in the development of large-scale tree crop such as cocoa, coffee, rubber and oil palm as well as annual crops such as maize, sesame, cotton and cassava, among others. Forestry projects within strict social and environmental guidelines may also be considered.
"The restoration and enhancement of our forests benefits the environment and creates jobs in rural communities," said Ogun State governor Ibikunle Amosun. "Increasing the pace and scale of restoration is critically needed to address a variety of threats, including fire, climate change, deforestation and others, for the benefit of our ecosystems and forest-dependent communities. This project will show that enterprise and achieving strong mitigation are mutually supportive in tropical agriculture."
Group managing director/CEO of Lafarge Africa, Peter Hoddinott, said that the organisation's strong commitment to environment and social sustainability in its areas of operations had led the company to naturally support the Ogun State project. Promising a strong positive impact on the issues, Hoddinott said that the use of agro-ecology and agro-forestry principles in the projects would increase the company's productivity, ensure the land becomes one of Nigeria's best carbon capture areas and generate biomass waste that Lafarge intends to use to fire its cement kilns.
Shonhiwa joins Dangote Group
10 September 2015Nigeria: Former Lafarge Zimbabwe chairman Johnathan Shonhiwa has joined Dangote Group. Shonhiwa, who resigned from Lafarge Zimbabwe recently, was chairman for almost two years after having taken over from Muchadeyi Masunda in January 2014. Prior to that, he was managing director of Lafarge Zimbabwe for six years, finance director for four and a half years and finance manager for two years.
BUA Group to double capacity and expand across Africa
07 September 2015Nigeria: Nigerian conglomerate BUA Group has signed US$600m worth of contracts with China's Sinoma International Engineering Co. to double capacity at its flagship cement plant as it seeks to expand market share in Africa's biggest economy.
BUA plans to double the capacity of its Obu cement plant which currently has a capacity of 3.5Mt/yr, with completion expected in 2017. The contract was signed at Sinomas offices in China.
Executive chairman Abdulsamad Rabiu said, "BUA has less than 10% of the market share now but afterwards we should go to about 20%. Rabiu said that BUA, like Nigeria's largest cement producer Dangote Cement, was planning a continent-wide expansion.
Zimbabwe latest on Dangote's hit list
02 September 2015Zimbabwe/Africa: Aliko Dangote, President of Nigeria's Dangote Cement, has announced plans to open a US$400m cement plant in Zimbabwe. He also announced plans to invest in coal mining and power generation in the country.
"We've already decided to invest into Zimbabwe. That's why we are here," said Dangote following meetings with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa. "Any country we visit means, 'Yes, we've decided to invest,'" Dangote told journalists in Harare.
Construction is due to start in the first quarter of 2016, following the granting of government permission. Once constructed, the plant will produce 1.5Mt/yr of cement.
More widely, Dangote has also stated that investments in new plants across Africa are expected to increase the company's cement capacity to 100Mt/yr by 2020. Dangote said that Africa needs to increase its per capita consumption of cement in order to aid infrastructural development, stimulate further demand and force down rising cost of the commodity.