East African Business Week (Kampala)
11 January 2009
Dar Es Salaam — Dangote Industries Limited has commissioned experts to undertake an environmental impact assessment (EIA) study of the construction of a cement export terminal at Mtwara Port.
Africa Century 4 Development Limited (AC4D) of Dar es Salaam has been appointed for the job.
It will undertake a study of the impact of the project on the existing environment, social and economic set-up as per the Tanzania Environmental Management Act No.20 of 2004.
The same study will be conducted on the intended construction and installment of a cement packaging plant within Dar es Salaam Port area with a rated capacity of 700 tonnes per hour and a peak capacity of 850tonnes per hour.
Both facilities, Mtwara and Dar es Salaam are expected to be operational towards the end of 2009.
A huge cement factory, expected to be the largest in East Africa, is to be constructed by the Nigerian conglomerate Dangote Group to reduce cement scarcity in Tanzania and in the East African region.
Mtwara has reliable power supply from Artumas Power Station; has raw materials and a good and reliable water transport infrastructure besides a port.
Six months ago the government of Tanzania announced Dangote Group, owned by a Nigerian millionaire; Alhaji Aliko Dangote had shown interest in investing in East Africa and Tanzania in particular.
Dangote had visited Mtwara region in 2007 and promised his company would look into the possibility of constructing a factory that would produce around 200 million tonnes of cement per year for both local and foreign markets.
The trip to Mtwara region, about 400km from Dar es Salaam was organized by NEPAD Business Group. Dangote in February, 2008 signed contracts worth US$1.2 billion with China's Sinoma International to build cement plants in the region.
They include, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Senegal and Zambia.
The current Portland, Tanga and Mbeya cement plants are not capable of meeting the current local and export cement demand.
Recently, Dangote Group acquired a 45% stake in SouthAfrica's Sephaku Cement for 3 billion Rand through a private placement. Sephaku cement is a subsidiary of Sephaku Holdings Limited, a SouthAfrica minerals exploration, development and investment company.
The Group is one of the biggest and fastest growing conglomerates in Nigeria with its lines of business ranging from cement, sugar refining, pasta, flour milling, salt, polypropylene bags, haulage to port operations.
It has over the last three decades enjoyed increasing market share for its products and in 2006 alone, the Group recorded an annual turnover in excess of 300 billion Naira (US$ 2.5bn).
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