Poor energy supplies and heavy rains have disrupted production dates of a major cement plant in Cameroon. Dangote Cement will now be open for business in August instead of July as originally announced by the Governor of the Littoral region during its economic tour there a few weeks ago.

Baba Abdullahi, CEO of Dangote Cement Cameroon, said: "We are facing three main challenges. First, the energy. We are working with Aes Sonel authorities to resolve this as quickly as possible. “Then we have the driveway. The Minister of Public Works was here recently and requested that the Port of Douala coordinates a plan of action to improve the situation.

“Finally, we have bad weather, over which we have no control. Heavy rains disrupt our operations in particular. Faced with these challenges, we programmed the start of production for July. We do everything we can to meet deadlines. But we can assure that if we can’t do it in July, August would be more realistic.

The work done has already reached 84 per cent." A visit last Tuesday on the site enabled media men to realize the status of project, as well as having information on the measures taken to protect the environment. Among other things, the factory has 27 filters to control dust emissions.

"Indigenous peoples were accustomed to dust emissions from other plants. But we plan to use the latest technology that gives the most effective in terms of dust. We expect to reject in nature about 30 milligrams of dust per m3. To give you a token of our effectiveness, Europe, the standards are 50 mg/m3. And you should know that the more you lose dust, less money "we win, says an engineer on site.

On a production capacity of one million tonnes per year, Dangote Cement, according to his Dg should move to an annual production of 1.5 million tonnes by 2016.