By Dipo Olowookere
In the 2017 financial year, plants of Dangote Cement Plc outside Nigeria contributed significantly to the company’s turnover, Business Post has learned.
At the firm’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Lagos yesterday, Chairman of Dangote Cement, Mr Aliko Dangote, informed shareholders that pan African operations of the firm increased volumes by 8.4 percent, with Ethiopia, Senegal, Cameroon and South Africa all performing strongly and close to their operating capacity.
He attributed the 31 percent increase in the company’s revenue of N805.6 billion to its pan African operations growth which also recorded a significant increase in revenue from N195 billion to N258.4 billion in 2017.
“Pan African operations increased volumes by 8.4 percent, with Ethiopia, Senegal, Cameroon and South Africa all performing strongly and close to their operating capacity,” the Africa’s richest man said.
Noting that the company experienced some challenges in operating in sub-Saharan Africa, Mr Dangote said the management responded in a robust fashion and benefited from “…the diversity we have created across our business and because of our local knowledge and attitudes towards doing business in neighbouring countries in Africa.”
Explaining the rationale behind the success recorded by the Dangote Cement’s revenue, the acting Group Chief Executive of the cement maker, Mr Joe Makoju, “… the increase was helped by our decision to increase our use of local coal in Nigeria and that also helped to improve our fuel security, maintain production uptime and it reduced our need for foreign currency.”
“We source coal from our parent company, Dangote Industries and from another Nigerian supplier, and we are very happy with the way this has worked out for us because it has enabled us to phase out the use of expensive low pour fuel oil in our kilns and also to reduce our use of imported coal,” he added.
