Mintom limestone deposit could reduce price of cement by 50%

Joseph Victor Hell is categorical. Talking to the Cameroonian employers' association on 1st June 2016 in Douala, the Director of the Institute of Geological and Mining Research (IRGM) indicated that operation on the Mintom limestone deposit, in a town located in the South-Cameroon region, would lead to a drop of roughly 50% in the price of a bag of cement produced locally.

Therefore, he invited the economic operators to invest in this project, which has the specificity of being able to curb the Cameroonian cement market price trend.

Indeed, the price of cement in Cameroon curiously remained in line with those of 5 years ago (FCFA 4,800 per 50kg bag), despite a stiffer competition due to the multiplication of the number of cement factories in the country.

For example, in early 2015, the Moroccan group Cimaf ended the 48-years monopoly of Lafarge, a French group who has a majority shareholding in Cimenteries du Cameroun (Cimencam)

After Cimaf, Nigerian Dangote Group and Turkish Eren Holding entered the Cameroonian cement market, by offering to the country its 3rd and 4th cement factories.

As a consequence, the cumulated production capacity is now of over 4 million tons, for a local demand peaking at 3 million tons. But the prices remain unchanged. Contrary to the laws of demand and offer.

In October 2015, during a meeting with the operators in the building materials sector, the Minister of Trade, Luc Magloire Mbarga Atangana, openly suspected the cement producers operating in Cameroon of illegally agreeing on the prices.

"There is a game on the price of cement that the government cannot condone anymore. Obviously, you have agreed to impose on us the approved rate. We will have to review everything", he declared.

Unfortunately, eight months after this denunciation and the commitment to bring back some order, the price of cement on the Cameroonian market still varies between FCfa 4,700 and 5,000, respectively for the local and imported product; as was already the case over 5 years ago, during the monopoly of Cimencam.

Local producers have always pointed out the price of clinker, an imported raw material made from limestone, as the origin of this high cement price. Limestone is an ore with an estimated deposit of 540 million m3 in the subsoil of the Mintom area.

At the start of the 2010's, the Cameroonian government and the Chinese company CATIR had signed an agreement for the establishment of a limestone mining and processing unit in this town. The project has not yet taken off until now.