Production of Dangote cement postponed to August

The date was shifted due to problems of supply of electric energy at the origin of the new deadline which led to slight delay in the beginning of the Dangote cement production.

Reasonably, it should start in the month of August 2014, instead of July as originally announced by the Governor of the coastal region during his economic tour a few weeks ago due.

"We had some problems at the level of the supply of energy," says an engineer at Dangote Cement Industries. "We face three major challenges.

Firstly, it was that of energy. We work with the authorities to AES-Sonel to adjust this as soon as possible. Then we have the path.

The Minister of public works was here recently and asked for the Autonomous Port of Douala to coordinate an action plan so that the situation improves.

Finally, we have bad weather, over which we have no control. Heavy rains especially disrupt our operations. With all these challenges, we had scheduled for the start of production for July.

We do our utmost to keep deadlines. But we can ensure that if we can do it in July, the month of August would be more realistic. Work has already been made to 84% ", says Baba Abdullahi, Director-general of Dangote Cement Cameroon.

A recent visit on the site helped media men to realize the State of progress of the project, as well as detailed information on the measures taken to respect the environment.

Among other things, the plant has 27 filters to control issued dust.

"Indigenous people were accustomed to emissions of dust from other plants. But we have planned to use the latest technology which gives the most efficient in terms of dust. We plan to reject in nature about 30 milligrams of dust per cubic metre."

To give you ideas of our efficiency in Europe, the relevant standards are 50 mg/m3. And then, you should know that more is lost of dust, the less one wins money, says an engineer on site.

For a production capacity of one million tons per year, the Dangote cement, according its DG, should go to an annual production of 1.5 million tonnes by 2016.