Status

Iraq: Pakistan’s Attock Cement has commissioned its new grinding plant in Basra. Civil, mechanical and electrical construction work on the unit was finished in January 2019.

Pakistan: Maple Leaf Cement has commissioned a new 7300t/day production line at its Iskanderabad plant. The upgrade will increase the unit’s total production to 18,000t/day. The line was supplied by Denmark’s FLSmidth. The total cost of the project was US$184m. Commercial production on the new line is scheduled to start in late April 2019

Power Cement of Pakistan has released a progress report on the implementation of the Nooriabad expansion project  for the quarter ended 31 March 2019. In view of the ongoing progress, a new date for trial production would be announced soon, according to a company official. The original expected date for trial production was June this year.
 
Power Cement is implementing an ambitious expansion plan to install a new line of 7700tpd at the company’s existing site Nooriabad Industrial Area, Kalo Kohar District. Jamshoroo, Sindh. In early 2017 equipment supply and supervision contracts were signed with FLSmidth. The construction and erection contract had also been finalised with China-based TEPC and the company has since then been working actively to complete the project within due timelines.

The contract for the civil construction was awarded to a well-known Chinese contractor CECC Tianjin (Pakistan) Electric Power Construction (Pvt) Ltd. The contractor is fully mobilised at the plant site and up to now, 97 per cent of the civil works are completed. The complete plant has been imported and the mechanical and electrical drawings are complete. Currently, 30 per cent of the erection work has been completed. The design phase of the new 40MW grid station and its column bar fixing has been completed, civil work has started and related shipments except transformer have been arranged at site and installed. The lightening protection work is under progress.

Once the said expansion is complete, PCL will be one of the most cost-efficient cement manufacturers of Pakistan and the second-largest cement producer in the southern zone, with production capacity of 3.5Mta. The plant has proximity to Karachi and Interior Sindh.

Flying Cement Company has placed a major order with FLSmidth for its new 7700tpd production line in Mangwal, Pakistan. 

FLSmidth will supply a new OK™ 71-6 cement mill, which will be designed to grind OPC cement at a capacity of 415tph. 

Commissioning is expected in 2020, and the mill will be supplied together with an FLSmidth ILC preheater system, two-Base Kiln, Cross-Bar^® cooler, ROKSH 119 Separator, MAAG^® WPV-5000 gear unit, heat exchanger and three filters.

Pakistan cement manufacturers have reportedly increased the prices PKR10-15/bag (US$0.07-0.1) of cement in the northern region (Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) of the country. The hike in cement prices will be effective immediately, according to a report by a local research house.

Reasoning the hike, the analyst stated that the price change is courtesy of supply-side management amid continued demand-side pressure and inter-regional trade. Cement prices in the north witnessed a sharp drop of PKR50-60/bag during February-March 2019 to PKR510-560/bag.

After incorporating the recent price increase, the new price range stands at PKR520-575/bag as compared to price range of PKR570-600/bag in the south, the report added.

Taking into account the current demand scenario (particularly in the north) and upcoming expansions in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, it is estimated that the price increase may not be fully sustainable

KARACHI: The cement exports during first eight months of the current fiscal year from Jul 2018 to Feb 2019 period registered a growth of 52.30 per cent to 4.65 million tons from 3.05m tons exported in the corresponding period of last year.

According to the data released by the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association, the overall cement exports from the country increased by a healthy 69.07 per cent year on year basis in Feb 2019.

The industry exported 0.51 million tons of clinker and cement in Feb 2019 against exports of mere 0.301 million tons in Feb 2018.

The Southern part of the country, particularly the Sindh region, fared comparatively better as cement exports from the region increased by 185 per cent from 0.12 million tons in Feb 2018 to 0.35 million tons in Feb 2019.

The local consumption in the region stood at 0.67 million tons in Feb 2019 as compared to 0.61 million tons in Feb 2018.

Copyright PPI (Pakistan Press International), 2019