Construction begins on Cam Pha cement plant

Vinaconex officials and their partners push buttons to break the ground for the cement plant in Quang Ninh Province. The VND4.74 trillion (US$301.9m) Cam Pha Cement Plant, located in Cam Pha town, has an eventual design capacity of 2.3Mt of PCB40 cement and 1.89Mt of clinker per year. However, upon its intial operation, the plant will offer a grinding capacity of 690,000t of clinker, equivalent to 820,000t of cement a year. Vinaconex’s project also includes a 20ha grinding facility in My Xuan Industrial Zone in southern Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. This grinding factory will receive some clinker produced by the Cam Pha plant and grind up to 1.2Mt of clinker a year to produce 1.48Mt of cement annually.

The grinding facility in Ba Ria Vung Tau Province is expected to be operational in the second quarter of next year and the cement plant in Quang Ninh will be completed in late 2007. The consortium that provided Vinaconex with financing for the project includes Incombank, BIDV, Vietcombank and Indovina. Vietcombank was the leader of the consortium, bankrolling VND1.83 trillion. French banks Societe General and BNP Paribas also lent Euro 20.36m. Another Euro 76m round of financing will be provided by the French banks along with the Japan Bank for Investment and Cooperation.