The dream of Dangote Cement to single-handedly drive continental backward integration in cement, will receive a strong boost tomorrow as all is set for Thursday, November 23, 2017 inauguration of Dangote Cement factory in the city of Mfila, Congo.
The factory is a 1.5 million metric tonnes per annum capacity Cement Plant valued at $500m.
Details from the company’s website showed that the new plant is the largest ever opened in the country driven by solid minerals.
Situated on the road between Pointe-Noire and Brazzaville, the factory plant is ideally located to replace imports and serve key cement demand centers in and around the capital.
Mfila plant has 144 million tonnes of limestone reserves and will utilize coal for its kilns and power. It began operations in the second quarter of 2017.
The plant had rolled out its first bag of cement on August 7 and is expected to create about 1000 direct and indirect jobs.
Just as the Congo Plant commissioning will make 10 fully operational Dangote Cement Plants across Africa, other operational facilities include those in Cameroon, Ghana, Ethiopia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
The company currently has a plan to open new import or grinding facilities in Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire by 2019.
Dangote Cement is Africa’s leading cement producer with revenues of US$2 billion in 2016 and nearly 17,000 employees currently.
Besides, the company remains the largest company on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, having listed its shares in October 2010.
Further investigations by Business Hilights on Dangote cement exploits show that the group had sustained its stronghold in the domestic cement market accounting for 65 per cent of local cement market while Pan-African volumes went up by 7.5 per cent to 7.0 mta.
Giving additional insights recently, President of the group and Africa’s richest man, Alhaji Aliko Dangote averred that “Our Pan-African operations are performing strongly with excellent sales growth in Cameroon, Ethiopia and Senegal”.
“We are consolidating our success across Africa through commissioning of our 1.5Mta factory in Congo, the tenth country in which we have established operations.
“In our key operations in Nigeria, we have significantly improved our fuel mix and this has helped increase margins across the Group.
“It is especially good for Nigeria because most of the coal we are using is mined in our own country,” it said.
The company further linked its observed sales increase to strong brand recognition, increased point of sales branding, improvements in sales and marketing strategies and higher visibility through trade shows.
It would be recalled that the combined efforts of Dangote Cement, Lafarge Africa and BUA Cement pushed Nigeria to achieve backward integration in the product during the last administration of Dr. Goodlock Jonathan.
