According to the company, with the Scantogo investment, HeidelbergCement has become the largest German foreign investor in Togo.

The US$50mn Cimburkina cement grinding plant has an annual capacity of 800,000 tonnes and is located near the capital city Ouagadougou.

IFC, branch of the World Bank, is partially funding Scantogo and the Togolese government will hold 10 per cent of Scantogo.

HeidelbergCement chairman of managing board Bernd Scheifele said, “The new greenfield facilities are part of our strategy of expanding our cement capacities in growth markets. In addition to Asia these include, in particular, the countries of sub-Saharan Africa.

“The new clinker plant in Togo will greatly improve our competitiveness by enabling us to replace expensive clinker imports by local sourcing. The clinker from Togo will also be used in our new grinding plant close to Ouagadougou to produce cement for the local construction industry in Burkina Faso. Our new plants are strengthening our position in both countries as well as in the whole region.”

Scantogo will supply clinker to HeidelbergCement’s West African cement grinding mills in Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Ghana, partly replacing expensive clinker that has previously been imported from overseas, thereby strengthening HeidelbergCement’s competitiveness in the region, the company added.

HeidelbergCement has been present in Togo since 1984 with the Cimtogo grinder in Lomé. The new operation will help create around 1,000 additional jobs locally and is expected to contribute to domestic cement production and local infrastructure development. HeidelbergCement also recently begun building a 0.25mn tonnes cement capacity greenfield grinder in Kara region situated in the northern part of Togo, which will be ready by 2017.

HeidelbergCement is currently operating 12 plants in eight countries in sub-Saharan Africa — Benin, Burkina Faso, DR Congo, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Togo.

Source : africanreview.com