South Africa’s newest cement plant begins commercial production

Sephaku Cement, South Africa has begun commercial production at its Delmas grinding plant and has dispatched its first product across Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. The Delmas facility is one of two new Sephaku Cement plants; the other is Aganang, an integrated cement plant in Lichtenburg, which is in the commissioning phase. The Delmas grinding plant will be scaled up to its full production capacity of 1.4 million t later this year. Once complete the total capacity of the two plants will be 2.2 million t.

Sephaku Cement sells Sephaku 32 and Sephaku 42 cement in bulk or in 50 kg bags. In a statement on the company’s website, Pieter Fourie, Chief Executive, said, “Building cement operations from the ground up has given us the opportunity to ensure that we use the most high-tech cement manufacturing equipment. We can dictate product quality rather than be dictated to by existing operational constrains that other producers face.” He adds, “We want to ensure that every customer gets the best from our cement. We will assist technically from the start when a customer is deciding which class of cement is needed.”

With the addition of a new player to the South African cement industry, domestic competition has increased. According to one report, this has led existing South African producers PPC and Lafarge SA to revise their strategies, with PPC looking beyond South Africa with the aim of generating 40% of its revenue from outside South Africa by 2017 and Lafarge adapting its international products for the domestic market.

Sephaku Cement is 36% owned by Sephaku Holdings and 64% owned by Dangote Cement.

Edited from various sources by Katherine Guenioui

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/africa-middle-east/17012014/sephaku_cement_delmas_plant_opens_613/