President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, told the company’s 11th Annual General Meeting in Lagos on 17 June that Dangote Cement was able to sustain 54,000 jobs in four African countries, where the company has its operations.

“According to our 2019 socioeconomic impact assessment study specifically on our operations in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Senegal and South Africa, we sustained 54,005 jobs (direct, indirect, induced) in these four markets in the year under review, ” he said.

Dangote Group is the largest employer of labour in Nigeria, outside the Federal Government, and when the upcoming oil refinery project is completed, the company will have more than 100,000 Nigerians under its employment, according to local industry commentators.

Briefing shareholders at the company AGM last week, Dangote told the shareholders that the year 2019 was a strong year given the tough business environment across most of its operating geographies, disclosing that the Group recorded cement sales volumes of 23.7Mt and revenues of NGN891.7bn (US$2303m).

He said; “We recorded a strong EBITDA margin of 44.3 per cent. As a result of this performance, the Board has recommended for your approval a dividend of NGN16.00 per ordinary 50 kobo share.”

Speaking on the local Nigerian operations, he said, “Nigeria’s cement market grew slightly in 2019. We estimate that total market consumption was up between 2-3 per cent on the 20.7Mt estimated in 2018.”

The modest performance was achieved in spite of the negative impact from disruptions in 2019 related to election cycles, heavy rains and the loss in land export volumes due to border closures.

“Dangote Cement’s Nigerian operations remained at 14.1Mt in 2019, including export sales of 0.45Mt. Domestic sales in Nigeria were nearly 13.7Mt, compared to 13.4Mt in 2019. This implies a two per cent growth mirroring the estimated GDP growth for the year. However, land exports reduced to 0.45Mt from 0.7Mt for the full year, owing to the border closure in the last few months of 2019.

Dangote noted that pan-African operations sold 9.44Mt of cement in 2019, up 0.8 per cent on the 9.37Mt sold in 2018. “Including clinker, pan-Africa volume was 9.6Mt. The total pan-African volume represents 40.1 per cent of Group volumes. Pan-African revenues of NGN282.7bn were 0.2 per cent lower than FY18 and represented 31.7 per cent of total Group revenues.

"The region’s EBITDA contribution of NGN47.9bn (before central costs and eliminations), represented 12.1 per cent of Group EBITDA, at a regional margin of 16.9 per cent, compared to a margin of 17.3 per cent in 2018.”

The future strategy will see Dangote cement export its surplus output across the continent. “Looking ahead, we expect to further deploy our clinker and cement export strategy across West and Central Africa," he explained, adding: "The completion of our 1.5Mta grinding plant in Cote d’Ivoire is expected by the end of 2020.”

Published under Cement News