Doha: Salim bin Baty Al Naimi, the Executive Director of Qatar National Cement Company (QNCC), announced the completion of the No. 4 cement plant, which has a capacity of 5,000 tonnes of clinkers a day.
During a press conference, Al Naimi said "the first cement mill in the plant, which has a capacity of 2,750 tonnes of cement per day was completed in May last year, followed by the second cement mill which has the same capacity was completed in July 2008, and the final testing for the cement kiln was concluded this month"
"The plant is currently in full operation and produces around 5,000 tonnes of clinkers a day and 5,500 tonnes of cement a day"said Al Naimi adding "a filling station was also built to fill and load cement bags at a rate of 4,400 cement bags every hour"
Upon the completion of the fourth plant, QNCC now produces a total of 12,500 tonnes of clinker and 15,500 tonnes of cement a day.
Al Naimi said that QNCC is currently upgrading the newly acquired sand treating plant which was bought from the Ministry of Municipalities in January 2003. The plant at present produces 20,000 tonnes of sand per day.
A second sand treating plant has been built by QNCC, and was completed in December 2008, will also have the capacity to produce 20,000 tonnes of sand per day.
Due to the construction boom in Qatar, treated sand has been a very sought after commodity, where queues of loading trucks would wait for hours. This was heavily reflected on the prices of treated sand.
"We are confident that with the second sand treating plant, the long queues of loading trucks will be a long gone history, and we will be able to meet the demand for treated sand in Qatar" said Al Naimi. "Prices of cement and sand will definitely be stabilizing because, QNCC will be able to reach the demand for both now that the new plants are fully operating" he added.
© The Peninsula 2009
