The Port Elizabeth material
landing facility for SA’s largest cement producer is open for
business says PPC coastal business unit head Johan Vorster.
He was speaking during a tour of
the R60m facility on Tuesday which was commissioned in August. The development
comes after PPC retired one of its kilns — known as “the old lady” — in June.
This was due to stricter
environmental regulations, which state that kiln emissions need to be below
50mg/Nm3 (milligrams per normal cubic metre) by July 1.
He said with the closure of the
kiln, the clinker was now brought in by rail from the company’s slurry factory
in the North West. The clinker is then ground to a fine powder and used as a
binder in the company’s cement products.
The facility also packages the
cement which is then transported to customers.
Vorster said the 44 people who
worked at the facility were all local residents.
Plant engineer Johan Coetzee said
it handled about 400 tons of clinker an hour.
PPC also operates in Botswana,
Zimbabwe, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.
In its operational update
published at the end of August, cement sales for the company fell by about 10%
for the first part of the year in the Southern Africa region amid a lack of construction
activity in SA and other countries.
This was largely due to an increase in cement imports which has continued to weaken demand for the local producer.https://www.heraldlive.co.za/business/2019-10-29-ppc-opens-new-facility-in-deal-party/
