Survey reveals new cement raw material deposit in Azerbaijan
By Aygul Salmanova
A prospective marl deposit, called Jeyrankechmez, suitable for extraction of raw materials required for cement production was discovered in Gobustan district of Azerbaijan.
The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources announced on February 5 that the evaluation work has shown that C2 category reserves of the deposit total 1.71 million cubic meters.
Moreover, perspective areas in Chenlibel agate chalcedony deposit and Dozular limestone deposit in Goygol region have been marked out. Evaluation work was carried out in these areas and approximate reserves have been estimated at 1,470 kilograms of P1 category agate and 5,502 kilograms of chalcedony. Reserves of C2 category limestone suitable for cement production in Dozular deposit was estimated at 9.6 million cubic meters.
Status of financial institutions, investment of capital, local economic trends, and, in particular, cement industry in Azerbaijan is influenced by global economic situation and energy resources’ prices. These factors influence activities of cement businesses and its demand in the country.
Although the devaluation of the country’s currency has also raised some production costs across numerous sectors, in 2014 construction materials production grew by 22.2 percent year-on-year to $585 million. Cement production grew by 40.5 percent to 2.98Mt and gypsum production increased by 23.3 percent to 192,800t, according to the State Statistics Committee.
As for the year 2017, the production of cement in Azerbaijan is increased by 23 percent on January-August. Overall, cement production in the country rose by 243 percent year-on-year to 2.88Mt in 2017. Data from the State Statistics Committee showed that the overall value of building materials produced increased by nearly half to $333 million.
The country plans to double its production of building materials, including cement, in 2016 - 2019.
Azerbaijan has three integrated cement plants with cement production capacity of 4.7Mt/yr. Holcim Azerbaijan until several years ago was the only integrated cement plant in the country. Other plants, Norm Sement and Akkord Cement started operations later.
Meanwhile, about 60 percent of the market is provided by local producers and 40 percent of cement is imported from neighboring countries.
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