Lafarge Ciments, Morocco’s large cement producer has announced plans to build a massive new plant in the northern Tetouan area, after the company’s owners agreed to invest 2.3 billion dirhams ($215 million) in the project.
Lafarge Ciments is jointly owned by Lafarge, the giant French construction conglomerate, and the ONA Group, Morocco's largest private company.
The intended facility will be called Tetouan II, and if completed on time will become operational in 2003. It will produce 950,000 tons of cement a year, or about 25 percent of Lafarge Ciments current output of four million tons.
Morocco’s current cement capacity per capita is a low 250 kilograms per year, but in the opinion of Bertrand Collomb, the chairman and CEO of Lafarge, who spoke at the press conference where the announcement was made, cement demand in Morocco would double over the coming 15 years, and that creates a need for a new one-million-tons-per-year cement production facility every three years. — (Albawaba-MEBG)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
