BUA's $500 million three million metric tonne Edo Cement Company located at Okpella in Edo State will be ready for commissioning early next year.

This was made known by the chairman of BUA Group, Alhaji Abdulsamad Rabiu at the signing of the $35million contract agreement between BUA Group and Siemens to build a new gas turbine power plant for the BUA Cement factory located at Okpella.

The contract which was signed with Siemens at BUA's London office was for Siemens to supply three SGT 500 turbines manufactured by Siemens Industrial Turbo Machinery AB in Finspang, Sweden, with a total capacity of about 45MW to supply power to the ultra modern $500 million Edo cement plant currently under construction which is expected to be completed early 2014.

Rabiu expressed satisfaction with construction giant, Julius Berger's pace of work at the cement company.

"I am particularly very impressed so far by the civil construction work done by Julius Berger. 70% of the cement plant equipment have been shipped and are currently on site and the pace of work by Julius Berger is very comprehensive and impressive. By early 2014, the cement factory will be ready for use," he said.