Dangote Cement Plc will add 6 million tons (MTs) of cement per annum (pa) from its newly built lines C and D at Obese plant to the cement market.
Commencing this August, the Nigerian cement market will get 12MTs pa of cement from Dangote Ibese Cement factory only, equivalent to about 24 million bags of 42.5R cement type.
With this also, its installed combined capacity (from all its cement plants) will be about 29MTs pa, about 55 million bags of cement.
The Deputy General Manager, production and process, at Dangote Ibese Cement plant, Sunday Adondua, disclosed this when he took the media through a tour of the recently built lines C and D of Obese Cement plant, which just came into operation August 8.
”Lines A and B have installed capacity of 6MTs of cement pa, and the coming up of lines C and D, also with installed capacity of 6MTs, amounts to 12MTs pa of cement,” according to Adondua.
This means that Dangote Cement will be giving the Nigerian cement market about 55 million bags of cement annually from all its plants. It is worthy of note that the older lines – A and D – presently employs 7,400 staff (direct and indirect), it is expected that when these new lines are fully operational the number would be doubled.
It could be recalled that February this year at a media briefing, the company promised to increase its cement production substantially before the end of the year. This has become a reality with the coming on of these two new lines at Obese plant.
These new installations are designed to run as a versatile plant operation on multi fuels – as it can run on coal, natural gas and HFO – in order to have continuity of operation in case of scarcity of a particular fuel. It power consumption is presently put at 90KwH/T and fuel consumption at 770Kcal/kg.
Depending on the scope of work, the machines are shut down after every six months of operation for routine maintenance for between 10 and 15 days, Adondua said.
According to Armando Martinez, the managing director of the new lines C and D, Aliko Dangote, president of the Dangote Group, is committed to long-term investment; an investment that could last 50 years. ”With this, Dangote is building the future of Nigeria, and Africa in general. The investment is helping to create employment, helping to better Nigeria and the world at large.
”With five of him (Aliko), Nigeria will be the frontier for industrial revolution,” he noted.
It could be recalled also that from commissioning to the present stage of these new lines, it took the Group, which has consistently produced the 42.5R cement type, less than two and half years to bring it to fruition, making it Africa biggest cement manufacturer.
