Congo New Cement Co., a company jointly owned by China Road & Bridge Corp. and the Republic of Congo’s government, expects to double profit this year as it embarks on an expansion plan to boost output amid a shortage.
The company expects profit to increase to almost 1 billion CFA francs ($2 million) in 2012 from 500 million francs last year, Eugene Ngangoue, a director of the company, told reporters today in Brazzaville, the capital.
Production at the company’s plant at Loutete, about 300 kilometers (186 miles) south of Brazzaville, may be doubled to 300,000 metric tons a year to meet increased demand for the building material, Ngangoue said. Annual demand is estimated at 650,000 tons and may increase to 1.5 million tons by 2015, according to the Industrial Development Ministry.
President Denis Sassou Nguesso has worked to rebuild the Central African nation’s economy through investments in mining and oil after a civil war from 1997 to 1999 left 10,000 people dead and forced 800,000 more to flee their homes. Congo is sub- Saharan Africa’s fourth-biggest oil producer, pumping 295,000 barrels a day of oil in 2011, according to BP Plc (BP/)’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
SONOCC, as the company is known by its French acronym, is 56 percent owned by Beijing-based China Road and 44 percent by Congo’s government, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
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