Cement demand to increase with new projects:
Lanka Cement mulls re-opening KKS factory
Anuradha KODAGODA
Lanka Cement expects to re-open the Kankesanthurai (KKS) Cement
Factory in the near future.
“We are planning to re-open the cement factory in Kankesanthurai in
the near future and it will create more job opportunities for the rural
community,” Chairman Lanka Cement Ltd., Sisira Jinandra Paranagama said.
The KKS plant earlier |
According to a recent news report a few foreign firms have shown a
keen interest in investing in the cement plant in KKS in the Jaffna
peninsula. The Report added that four foreign firms have expressed an
interest for a strategic alliance with the KKS Cement Factory Ltd, a
subsidiary of Lanka Cement PLC. KKS has more than 1,000 acres of
limestone, the basic raw material for cement manufacture. It also owns a
250,000 tonnes-a-year capacity kiln that has been non-operational for
more than a decade.
“At present we are importing cement from Karachchi and we are
importing 10,000 metric tonnes per month,” he said. The annual local
cement consumption is around 10 million tonnes and we are expecting this
level to increase further with the new construction projects launched
especially in the Jaffna peninsula,” Paranagama said.
“For the past few years, apart from a few private sector companies,
the Government was not supplying cement in the Jaffna peninsula due to
the war situation. At that time a bag of cement was sold at Rs.2,500
which the local community could not afford. There was a monopoly in
supplying cement to Jaffna, he said. However, we started distributing
cement from Colombo to Jaffna and sold a bag of cement at the fixed
price of Rs.1,500. Today, Lanka Cement is supplying cement for all
construction projects in Jaffna at an affordable price,” he said.
“Our main target for the next few years is to supply cement at a
lower price not only in the Jaffna peninsular but also for the whole
country,” he said.
“In the past few months Lanka Cement sold around 13 million shares at
an attractive price and at present we are the number one in the stock
market, he said. |