Namibia-based Ohorongo Cement plant plans to use blackthorn as biofuel for cement production, helping the southern Africa country's sole cement producer keep energy costs down.

"In the long term we will be very competitive," Ohorongo Cement's chairman, Gerhard Hirth, told AllAfrica news. Biofuel accounts for 30 per cent of Ohorongo's energy needs, a figure which it eventually wants to raise to 80 per cent.

Ohorongo Cement operates a 0.6Mta plant, of which some 0.5Mt is sold on the domestic market and the rest is exported to Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia.