SOUTH AFRICA’S Pretoria Portland Cement (PPC) says it is constructing a 100 tonnes per hour cement plant in Harare at a cost of $80 million which will be commissioned in 2016.
The project will be funded through corporate loans funded against the balance sheet of its Zimbabwean unit, the company said in its financials for six months ending March 31.
The new plant will produce approximately 700 000 tonnes per year. In a podcast, PPC chief executive Ketso Gordan said the Harare plant was part of the company’s efforts to target the northern part of the country.
“We have completed the planning. Construction has started and it’s roughly an 18-19 month project, so in the worst case scenario we will be producing cement there in January 2016,” he said.
He said the modern mill in Harare will give the company a competitive advantage and reduce costs as production at the moment was done away from the main market.
The company has cement manufacturing plants at Cementside in Bulawayo and Colleen Bawn in Matabeleland South.
The company said it had plans to construct a $200m clinker plant at the border between Zimbabweand Mozambique.
However, it said sales were under pressure because of liquidity challenges in the Zimbabwe market, but exports to regional countries like Zambia and Mozambique were promising.
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– The Source
