SET IN CONCRETE

Yemen National Cement Company

Up to 2008, The Republic of Yemen’s cement supply was attributed to three wholly owned government cement plants. However, faced with increasing local demand and rising cement imports a decision had to be made by the directors to invest in the first Yemen private cement plant. Just like that National Cement Company (NCC) was created.

Part of the HSA Group NCC is the first company focussed on the cement industry in a family of companies offering a range of services to a number of different industries including, food and commodity retailing and importer/exporting and quite a heavy involvement in the food manufacturing industry. Vegetable oil, dairy products, lubricant oils, canned foods, corrugated boxes, confectionery, flour milling and, most recently, sugar milling.

In addition to these manufacturing activities, the group is also involved in the trading, banking, shipping, insurance, hotel services, healthcare and hospital industries. And, represents global companies in the automotive sector offering them an imput to Yemen, these include Ford, Hyundai and Porsche. With over 30 000 people employed, HSA Group is one of the biggest and most well placed group of companies in the Middle East.

With this sort of experience backing, NCC was established in 2003 in Wadi Saim in the governorate of Lahj which is ideally situated 70 kilometres northeast of the city of Aden which benefits from a Freeport with a deep sea harmour that can accommodate Panamax sized vessels.

Through another HSA Group, Yemen Company for Flour Mills and Silos has its own jetty that can be utilized by NCC

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Demand for cement in Yemen has always been higher than supplies were able to provide for, but thanks to private sector investment this has become more manageable over recent years. In 2008 local supply was estimated to be exceeding domestic demand by 2013 and Yemen then transformed into a cement exporter.

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Yemen National Cement Company

and is ideal for import and export purposes. Additionally, the factory is located close to the main limestone and sandstone mines and NCC owns and operates the two mines that are part of its site, while the rest of its materials come from other nearby mines some of which are owned by the HAS Group.

Production is focussed on OPC (Ordinary Portland Cement) and SRC (Sulphate Resistant Cement) in bulk and 50kg bags. For the latter NCC procures its polypropylene bags from its sister company in Aden, AIC (Al-Alam Industry Company). All cement if produced according to ASTM and EN standards and the plant is in the final stage of finalising the launch of its third type of cement- PPC (Portland Pozzolana Cement) which will be the first time that this cement has been produced in Yemen.

The high quality cement is sold through approved local distributors, as well as large construction projects. These would involve residential developments, real estate and land development projects. While transport is outsourced NCC have the capability to deliver their own product using a small fleet of vehicles.

NCC employs over 750 people, including a number of highly qualified foreign staff who are considered experts in their respective fields and as policy they provide structured training programmes for its local employees to ensure that

through them the quality of their product remains as high as possible.

NCC benefits from their own power plant, water treatment plan, on-site housing colony, security service and all sales are also conducted from the plant site itself rather than a separate sales office. Keeping as much internally as possible.

Although subcontracting is the norm, there is a clear move toward self-sufficiency. In areas where the required quality of work is not available from local subcontractors their policy is to train locally capable subcontractors and eventually outsource these jobs when they are capable of providing the level of quality the plant requires.

The kiln is coal-powered, while the plants electricity is currently produced by their own diesel powered generation plant. Due to the unpredictability of diesel supply and the effect it has on local diesel prices. However they are considering alternative fuels for power generation. To that end they have invested in a state-of-the-art thermal power plant, which is currently going through its final phases of performance guarantee tests before start up.

Investigation into waste heat recovery technology and the suitability of this to their facility is well under way and once the investment for this has been established it will benefit both Yemen National Cement Company and the Republic of Yemen well into 2013 and beyond.

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Endeavour Magazine • April 2013 •

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Yemen National Cement Companywww.nccyemen.com+967 2 510800

Written by Jack Slater

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