Jamaica: Caribbean Cement to start 240,000t Venezuelan shipment

Caribbean Cement Company Ltd (CCCL) has commenced supply of a new 240,000t clinker order to Venezuela. The US$20.5m contract will run over an 18-month period and help boost export revenue from the Rockfort plant.

The new order from Caracas extends a previous agreement that saw CCCL ship 100,000t of clinker between December 2013 and April 2014 in a US$8.5m deal. In 9M14, CCCL recorded clinker exports of 80,373t, compared to 6757t in 9M13. Cement export sales also increased during the Jan-Sep period, from 178,643t to 191,556t. In addition, the company noted a 10,000t rise in domestic sales to 458,644t as the construction market recovers.

The contract comes amid a slow quarter for cement export volumes, which fell by a quarter. However, overseas clinker sales are performing well, nearly tripling to 17,113t in the July-September period.

The new contract is also said to signal ‘business as usual’ at the works, which saw the replacement of Brian Young as board chairman by Christopher Dehring last week.

"The recent trend in the domestic market is expected to continue as well as improvement in the export earnings," said Caribbean Cement's chairman Dehring and director Hollis Hosein in a statement appended to the newly-released quarterly earnings report.

"In addition, we have entered into a new agreement to supply 240,000 tonnes of clinker to Venezuela, starting shipments in October 2014. We, therefore, remain cautiously optimistic that these favourable results can be sustained," they added.