Nigeria's Dangote Cement Imports South African Coal Amid Fuel Shortages

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Nigeria's Dangote Cement (DC) said it has ordered 30,000 tonnes of coal from South Africa to cope with Nigeria's power crisis.

"No business can survive in an atmosphere of energy crisis," said Devakuoar Edwin, the managing director of the DC group. "If we don't have power and fuel, our operations would become endangered."

DC is investing $250 million in three coal-based cement plants: Obajana in Kogi state, Gboko in Benue state, and Ibeshe in Ogun state. Dangote will use the imported coal to power dedicated 60-megawatt (MW) power plants and a 30-MW standby generating facility.

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Access to South African coal is seen by Dangote as a temporary measure in response to the fuel shortage, according to Edwin: "We aware of large coal deposits in Nigeria and the allocation of blocks to prospective miners. But we have to take urgent steps to safeguard our investments in the country; more so, exploitation of the commodity has not commenced on a scale that can sustain our operations.

"Currently, we don't have either gas or black oil [low pour fuel oil] to run our machines fully. We even had to resort to importation of black oil to do our business. We had hoped that the gas infrastructure challenges would be resolved, so that normal supplies can be resumed. But the reality on the ground now is that the crisis has persisted.".

Despite government pledges to improve access to gas supply, power-generating companies might convert their plants to coal feed to drive the turbines.

For related information, see July 9, 2014, article - Nigeria Continues Power Development, Despite Toxic Conditions.

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