East African Portland Cement eyes expansion

Kenya’s East African Portland Cement Co (EAPCC) is exploring the option of expanding its operations both at home and in neighbouring Tanzania, according to reports by Reuters.

“We are now discussing the financing of these projects,” Reuters quoted managing director, Kephar Tande as saying.

Cost cutting measures and improved cement sales helped EAPCC post a profit for the first six months of last year. EAPCC made a pretax profit of KES376.27m (US$4.3m) for the six months ended December, compared with a pretax loss of KES247.20m during the same period last year.The company is now confident it will post strong full-year results and return to profit for the first time in two years.

According to Reuters, Portland also plans to raise new capital through the Nairobi bourse, with the aim of increasing clinker production to 1.5Mt by 2016 from 450,000t.

Tande also expects EAPCC to double its export market to 10 per cent by 2014.