Uzbekistan to launch largest cement plant in Central Asia soon

By Azernews

By Kamila Aliyeva

Uzbekistan will launch the largest portland cement plant in Central Asia in late August, Podrobno.uz reported.

The plant, located in the Sherabad district of the Surkhandarya region, with a total value of more than $212.8 million, will produce 1.5 million tons of products per year after reaching full capacity.

The other day the facility has already made a test launch, releasing the first trial lot of products.

The project is financed at the expense of own resources of Almalyk Mining and Metallurgical Combine in the amount of $ 24.4 million, a loan from the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Uzbekistan for $ 90 million and another $ 110.6 million of loans from commercial banks.

Earlier, Uzbekistan started the sale of cement at fixed prices to prevent speculation in the market.

There are five big cement facilities and several small ones with total capacity of 8.5 million tons in Uzbekistan. Qizilqumsement JSC with capacity of 3.1 million tons and Akhangarancement JSC with capacity of 1.7 million tons are the biggest of them. In the next five years, Uzbekistan plans to increase the volume of cement output by half - to 17 million tons per year.

Representatives of the cement industry only in the next few years intend to build several large plants. For example, Russian holding company Eurocement Group will invest $ 220 million in cement production in a “dry way” with the capacity of 2.4 million tons per year.

Two more cement plants will be built by Chinese investors. The first will appear on the basis of the Xin Lei enterprise in the Akhangaran region and will have an annual capacity of 1 million tons and cost $ 108 million; the other - on the basis of Akhangaranshifer with a capacity of 1 million tons and a cost of $ 100 million.

Cement holds a significant share (76 percent) in the total volume of the construction materials production in Uzbekistan, according to Ozqurilishmateriallari JSC.

Uzbekistan exports cement to Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.