Dangote Cement Zambia has expressed excitement about the prospects of the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ), adding clinker from its factory in Ndola, Zambia, to the goods transported from Zambia to Zimbabwe by railway.
The NRZ transports various products like coal, fertiliser, sulphur and wheat into Zambia. The company announced during the Zambia Agriculture and Commercial Show (ZACS) held in Lusaka in August that it was also pursuing a new potential deal to move clinker from Dangote Cement Zambia plant in Ndola into Zimbabwe.
Cassandra Mhone, Head of Sales and Marketing at Dangote Cement Zambia, said the company was excited to hear of the National Railways of Zimbabwe’s plans as they relate to the cement industry.
The company was, however, not able to comment on a specific deal with the entity, as all clinker transportation in the past had been by road.
The NRZ operates a system that is 2,760 route kilometres of 1,067 mm gauge track. National Railways of Zimbabwe and Mozambique are linked through Mutare/Machipanda border posts to Beira, as well as Sango/Chicualacuala, which goes to Maputo. South Africa is linked through Beitbridge, and Botswana is connected via Plumtree and Victoria Falls to Zambia.
Dangote Cement Zambia is currently exporting cement to Malawi and Congo DRC. The company has a capacity of 1.5 million tons per year. About 30% of its cement sales are exports.
Its plant in Ndola on the Zambian Copperbelt was opened in 2015. The plant produces 42.5-grade cement to compete against the lower-grade but dominant 32.5 products in the market. The plant has reserves of more than 240 million tonnes of limestone.
The Dangote Group recently announced a US$1 billion investment deal with Zimbabwe. The project includes a fertiliser plant and a 2,000km-long pipeline from Namibia’s Walvis Bay, through Botswana, to Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, Bulawayo.
In October, Namibia approved a proposal by Nigeria’s Dangote Petroleum Refinery to construct a fuel storage facility in Namibia.
Dangote has in the past said it planned to build storage tanks to supply fuel to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and potentially southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, positioning Walvis Bay as a regional distribution hub.
Written by Chamwe Kaira for Railways Africa
