Derba Midroc Cement Factory announced that it is coming closer to starting cement production with its revised production launch date slated for the end of June 2011. The 351 million dollar factory, located 70km outside the capital in Sululta Town of North Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State, is to start operation with an initial daily production of 1,800tn of cement by the end of June 2011, according to Haile Assegdie, CEO of Derba Midroc Cement Factory. However, to do so, it is critical for the factory to be provided with a 50MW power supply from the Ethiopian Electric Power Corporation (EEPCo), according to Haile. The production is to steadily progress to its full capacity of 60,000tn daily, according to the CEO. “One of the major problems we have been facing is in obtaining electricity,” Haile told Fortune. “We requested the electricity supply four years ago, but we have been met with only delays by the EEPCo. We have already delayed unnecessarily while we must test the motors and we have not done that.” To speed up delivery of this, Derba Midroc had constructed a substation at the factory and installed a 132KV transmission connecting it to the factory, for which the EEPCo was consulted at a cost of 12.8 million Br. The factory also needs a 150tn-capacity crane to put the tops on the burners of the factory, Haile said. “We have had a series of problems in acquiring the land, building roads, establishing a water supply, obtaining permits to import raw materials for the construction, and it seems as if we had come to the end of the tunnel,” Haile told a visiting group of government officials. They included Demeke Mekonen, minister of education (MoE); Shitaye Minale, deputy speaker of Parliament; Tefera Walwa, former minister of Capacity Building (MoCB); Bedru Kemal, former president of the Supreme Court; and Zenebu Tadesse, minister of Women, Youth, and Children’s Affairs (MoWYC); during a tour of the site on Sunday, May 8, 2011. Haile tried to impress the factory’s need for electricity upon the high-level government officials. Derba Midroc could be a key player in supplying badly needed cement and to help stabilise local cement prices, he claimed. “The potential business plan of the factory is to supply cement to big government projects, particularly for dam constructions,” said Nebiyu Samuel, senior advisor and special assistant to Mohammed Al-Amoudi. “Our other projects would be ones like the Saudi Star irrigation canal and for the private sector.” EEPCo has not signed any agreement with Derba Midroc for the supply of electricity but once a formal request is made and depending on the available power, the corporation will have no problem in discharging the services to the factory, according to Addis Tagele, deputy head of corporate communications at EEPC0. “There might be ongoing discussions with EEPCo at many levels,” Addis told Fortune. “We are not saying that there will be no support, but it depends on the commissioning of the power station and the transmission lines. Once that has been completed, we will see how much energy we can give them to run the factory.” Derba Midroc has contracted China National Building Materials (CNBM) for the engineering, procurement, and commissioning (EPC) of the project for 200 million dollars. CNBM will also be in charge of operating the factory and training the employees for one year after production starts. The factory has an agreement with Volvo for the purchase of 1,000 trucks for the transportation of its cement. It expects that up to 980 trucks could come to the factory daily to pick up and deliver its products, according to Haile. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment