Dangote Cement says it has maintained its strong hold in the Nigerian domestic cement market, accounting for 65 per cent of the market volume, while other African plants, volumes went up by 7.5 per cent to 7.0 metric tonnes per annum.
According to a statement by the company on Sunday, it has in the past months expanded its operations across Africa with the coming on stream of the 1.5Mta integrated cement plant in Mfila, Republic of Congo and the appointment of an acting chief executive officer for the company.
It added that the unaudited results for the nine months ended September 30, 2017, showed that the plant, which began operations last month, had almost doubled the size of the cement sector in the country.
The statement read in part, “The Congo plant brings to 10 the number of Dangote Cement plants across Africa. Analysis of the results indicated that the company recorded strong volumes in Senegal, Ethiopia and Cameroon.
“In the nine months under review, the 1.5Mta clinker grinding facility in Douala Cameroon sold approximately 938 kt of cement, indicating an increase of 16.4 per cent on the 806 kt sold the same period in 2016.
“The company attributes the increase in sales to a number of factors ranging from strong brand recognition, increased point of sales branding, improvements in sales and marketing strategies to higher visibility through trade shows.”
The statement added that Dangote Cement Ethiopia also increased sales by 16.8 per cent to nearly 1.7Mta in the first nine months of 2017 representing capacity utilisation of approximately 88 per cent while the cement plant in Pout Senegal sold 1.0mta of cement in the period under review, up by 21.7 per cent on the comparable period of 2016, representing almost 89 per cent capacity utilisation at the factory.
The Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Cement, Onne van der Weijde, was quoted to have said that the company’s pan-African operations were performing strongly with excellent sales growth in Cameroon, Ethiopia and Senegal.
“We are consolidating our success across Africa and have just inaugurated our 1.5Mta factory in Congo, the 10th country in which we have established operations. In our key operations in Nigeria, we have significantly improved our fuel mix and this has helped increase margins across the group. It is especially good for Nigeria because most of the coal we are using is mined in our own country,” he said.
According to the statement, the board of the cement company also announced changes in the leadership of the company with Weijde, stepping down as the company’s CEO at the end of 2017, having completed three years in this position, in order to return to his home country, the Netherlands.
“He will be appointed as a Non-Executive Director of Dangote Cement Plc, with effect from 1st January 2018. Mr. Joseph Makoju, Honorary Adviser to the Chairman and former Managing Director of WAPCO/Lafarge, will be acting MD/CEO of Dangote Cement Plc,” the statement added.
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