Eurocement Group to build two cement mills which cost US$450m

Eurocement Group JSC expects to build two cement mills in the near future, President of the Company Mikhail Skorokhod said. According to him, the building companies will face deficit of cement in 2007. Besides, the Company’s assets depreciation exceeds 70 per cent, so it has to renovate the facilities. Therefore a technical retooling program for 2005-07 was worked out. It will allow the Holding to increase cement production by 5.2Mt by 2008. The two new mills will account for the major part of this growth. One of them with rated capacity of 2Mta will be built in the Lipetsk region, while the other one with rated capacity of 1mln tons a year is to be constructed in the Voronezh or Ryazan region. The construction will begin in late 2005, Mikhail Skorokhod added. He estimated the expenses as US$150 per 1t of products. Thus both mills will cost US$450m to the Holding. Eurocement intends to finance the projects out of its own funds.