Italcementi to build two new works in Kazakhstan

In partnership with the Kazakh group Mercury and the Turkish contractor Sembol, already active in Kazakhstan in a big way, Italcementi is to build two new dry-process cement plants in Kazakhstan.   

Each of the new cement works will have an annual capacity of 1.3m tonnes and Italcementi will own 50 per cent of the new plants and will manage them.  With its existing cement plant in southern Kazakhstan, Italcementi will then have a nominal capacity of 4.2Mt. HeidelbergCement recently announced its plans to build a 2Mta plant in western Kazakhstan, a move that would take its capacity in the country to 3.6Mt and Steppe Cement is in the process of refurbishing two dry process production lines, each with a capacity of 1.2Mt, which would give the Malaysian-owned group at total capacity of 3.2Mt by the summer of 2008.  

The investment by the three groups will ensure that the growing cement requirements of the oil rich Central Asian country can be met by domestic production, most of which will then be dry-process by the end of the decade.