Africa’s leading cement producer, BUA Cement, has signed an agreement with Sinoma CBMI of China for the construction of three new cement plants of three million tonnes each per annum in Edo, Sokoto and Adamawa states of Nigeria to be completed by the end of 2022. Upon completion, this will bring BUA Cement’s total capacity to 20 million metric tonnes by 2022. At nine million tonnes combined capacity, this is the single largest contract ever awarded in the Nigerian cement industry for the construction of new cement plants at the same time and by a single company in Nigeria.
These three new plants are in addition to BUA Cement’s already existing 6mmtpa plants in Edo State, 2mmtpa plants in Sokoto State and another 3mmtpa BUA Cement plant in Sokoto – which will be commissioned in Q2, 2021.
Speaking at the ceremony held simultaneously at BUA HQ in Lagos and the CBMI HQ in China, Abdul Samad Rabiu, Chairman of BUA Cement, said the expansion decision was to transform the manufacturing industry and increase Nigeria’s cement production capacity, noting that “Nigeria and the surrounding region are still home to huge opportunities in construction, housing, infrastructure and allied industries”.
According to Rabiu, “despite these opportunities, there is no doubt that there exists a huge deficit in supply amid rising demand in Nigeria. This development has led to an increase in the retail prices of cement despite ex-factory prices remaining partially unchanged. To bridge this huge deficit in Nigeria and in the absence of new major investments in the industry, we have taken this decision to invest and build the three new plants at a total project cost of $1.05billion. The projects are due for completion by the end of 2022.”
In his comments, Mr. Tong Laigou, Chairman of SINOMA CBMI praised the longstanding partnership between BUA and CBMI…