Dangote Cement Plc (DANGCEM), Nigeria's largest company and the continent's biggest producer of the building material, said it has delayed expansion in Sierra Leone due to the Ebola virus outbreak in the country.
"Sierra Leone was scheduled to start this month, but we had to put the project on hold because of the Ebola crisis," Chief Executive Officer Devakumar Edwin said on a conference call today. "As and when the crisis abates then we'll immediately start moving ahead."
Companies have slowed investment in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, the three countries most affected by the Ebola outbreak that's killed about 5,000 people in West Africa. Dangote Cement's parent company, Dangote Industries Ltd., postponed a visiting day for investors in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, in September after some fears about Ebola. Nigeria declared itself Ebola-free last month after the virus killed seven people in Africa's largest economy.
Dangote Cement, controlled by billionaire Chairman Aliko Dangote, expects to have a capacity of 29 million metric tons in Nigeria by the year end. The company plans to expand in 13 other countries on the continent, bringing total capacity to as much as 60 million metric tons by 2016.
Persistent fuel disruptions to Dangote's Nigerian plants are expected to ease after gas-supply authorities assured the company they don't anticipate major disruption within the next six months, Edwin said.
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