A French/Saudi joint venture was recently established in view of building a new plaster plant in the Kingdom. The partners in the planned undertaking and their respective shareholdings include Lafarge (40%) and 13 undisclosed Saudi partners including leading businessmen and commercial and industrial groups. Construction plans under consideration call for building a plant with an initial installed production capacity of 300,000t per year at world-class manufacturing standards. The facility, of undisclosed cost, is to be sited in Yanbu near a gypsum quarry.  As things currently stand, construction start-up is tentatively scheduled to begin in September 2005 in order to enable project completion by the 4th quarter of 2006. Published under Cement News