A mega US$1.1bn cement plant in Egypt is yet to start operations. This surprisingly comes at a time when the country is experiencing excess cement capacity.
The cement plant
The cement plant with six production lines in the Egyptian city of Beni Suef will start operations within days. Each production line will produce 6,000 tonnes of cement per day, making the total output to be 13 million tonnes a year.
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As of 2017, Egypt had 79 million tonnes of cement with consumption only at 53 million tonnes. Additionally, at least three cement firms reported losses for the third quarter of 2017 and the national inventory is now 5 million tonnes.
Construction date
Construction of the mega project which began 18 months ago is located 120 km (75 miles) south of Cairo and is owned by El-Areesh Cement Co for Cement, which in turn is owned by the Egyptian armed forces.
Wu Yong, Vice President of engineering management at Sinoma 600970.SS, the Chinese firm responsible for mechanical works, confirmed the reports and said that the project is the biggest to be built at one time.
He further pointed out that other plants in the world produced more, but those had all been built in separate stages. The Beni Suef plant produced its first clinker in December last year while cement production is set to begin in the coming days.
