Dangote Cement’s six million metric tonnes cement plant in Calabar, Rivers State – in the South-south region of Nigeria, is primed for operations within the next 60 days. Africa’s richest man and the cement company’s founder and CEO, Aliko Dangote made the disclosure at the company’s recent Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lagos.
The completion of the Calabar Cement plant will move the company closer to achieving its quest of hitting 60 million metric tons per annum cement production from all its plants in the next three years.
At the AGM, Nigerian billionaire industrialist, Dangote revealed that the Calabar plant is almost completed. He said that the cement plant was strategically positioned in Calabar to serve local customers as well as Central African states like Cameroon and Gabon.
By Cement company’s calculation, of the 60 million mtpa, 55 percent would be local consumption while the remaining 45 percent will be for export to other sub-Saharan African countries.
Dangote believes that with the planned expansion of Ibese plant by another two lines of three million mtpa each, the June 11 commissioning of the Obajana Plant line 3 and the ground breaking of the line 4 as well as other operations in 14 other African countries; Dangote cement will hit 60 million mtpa within the next three years.
He also disclosed that Ibese plant would be expanded with the addition of 6 million mtpa line 3 and 4 within the next 26 months.
Dangote posits that additional investment in the cement industry by the management would only increase the value of the shares of the organisation and remain investor’s delight.
All these, he said, is meant to achieve the target of Dangote Cement as the largest cement producer in the world.
To project the company as a global brand in the international market, Dangote said the company now reports under the new International Financial Reporting Standards with the contracted assistance of KPMG.
At the AGM , the company announced a profit of N125 billion naira ($782.2 million) and declared a bonus of one for every ten shares held by its investors and endorsed a dividend pay-out of N1.25.
The operating profit rose from N102. 969 billion posted during the same period in the 2010 to N117. 332 billion naira ($733.9 million).
