Two new lines of Lucky Cement one in Karachi and another in North Frontier West Province would likely to go online this month, each consisting of as much 4000 tons per day, said Abdur Razzak Thaplawala, executive director of the company.
Sources at the cement sector said that several companies have either started building new plants at their existing premises while few are near completion to expand the cement production in the country.
Similarly, Lucky Cement has finalised a plan to boost its production, some of the work has finished while plan to increase production in two of its units-in NWFP and Karachi-are near completion. The second line in NWFP and one in Karachi are expected to start production by this month, raising its capacity.
"Each of our four new lines have an ultimate production capacity of 3,800 tons of clinker per day or 3,990 tons or 4,000 tons of cement per day, Thaplawala said.
According to an information posted on the website of Lucky Cement, it has decided to build a Green Field Plant with a capacity to produce 8,400 tons of cement of different types & grades per day at Karachi on Super Highway.
Following the completion of both the expansion projects, the company will have a total production capacity of more than 21,000 tons of cement per day. Both the expanded plants will have their own power generation. The total cost of both the expansion projects, including power plant, has been estimated at Rs 13 billion.
The half-year report of the company said there has been a significant growth in demand of cement both in local and international markets. Because of higher demand of cement in Afghanistan, it was possible to get better prices of cement if exported to Afghanistan. Resultantly, the exports of the company in the last six months (July-January) in terms of value increased by 85.46 percent.
The recent decision of the government to construct four big dams would definitely boost the demand of cement in Pakistan. The demand is further expected to increase locally due to start of work on various mega projects like canal lining, highways, public sector housing schemes, rehabilitation work for earthquake and infrastructure development.
Lucky in the half-year report also said that the recent oil prices boom has created substantial surplus fund to the oil rich Gulf countries resultantly they have launched various mega construction projects, which need huge quantity of cement. Therefore, there is a good potential of export of cement to these Gulf countries from Pakistan.
"The company since July, 2005 to February 2006 has exported more than 218,000 tons of cement to Afghanistan and Middle Eastern countries and became the highest exporter among all the manufacturing units in Pakistan," Thaplawala said.
Moreover, they dispatched the highest quantity in February 2006 as compared to all cement mills in Pakistan. This included 159,109 tons to local market and 50,107 tons to export market.
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