ETHIOPIA: Dire Dawa to Open Its Second Cement Factory

The second cement factory for Dire Dawa town, Ture Dire Dawa Cement Factory will start production within the next two weeks.

The cement factory, which has a combined production capacity of 1, 500tns of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and Pozolana Portland Cement (PPC) a day,started the construction of its factory in 2008.

The factory, located eight kilometers west of Dire Dawa town has now completed its construction and is awaiting approval from the Ethiopian Conformity Assessment Enterprise (ECAE), according Mohammed Amin, public relation officer of the factory.

We have delivered a sample of our products and are waiting for ECAE’s approval to start our operation, Mohammed told Fortune.

Ture launched itsconstruction with a total cost of 307 million Br.The company, which is named after the late HajiMohammed Ture, a prominent businessman who established Ture Chinese Commodities Plc, a company engaged in import and export, in 1954, is owned by six members of the Haji Mohammed Ture family.

The Cement Factory has targeted to deliver its products to the eastern parts of Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti. In order to facilitate this, the company is planning to import 10 Sino trucks.

Dire Dawa Cement & Lime Factory, the nation’s first cement plant, is also undergoing an expansion project. It was established in Dire Dawa town by Italian investors in 1938. Later, it was acquired by East African Group Plc, which purchased 80pc of the company ownership at a cost of 48 million Br in 1995.

Since then, the company has gone through some major restructuring. The company began an expansion project with a total cost of 1.8 billion Br since 2005.

Located three kilometers north of the existing plant in Dire Dawa, the new plant that National Cement is erecting on 40ha of land, including the quarry, in Ija Aneni Kebele, off the highway towards Dire Dawa, will have the capacity to produce 3,000tn of cement a day, a volume that is equal to the production capacity of both Mugar and Messebo cement factories combined.