Pacific Cement Limited sells approximately 4,000 tonnes of clinker to Tengy Cement Company Limited

The Pacific Cement Limited sold approximately 4,000 tonnes of clinker to Tengy Cement Company Limited at a cost of $147.00 per tonne.

This has been confirmed by Pacific Cement Limited Director Nouzab Fareed.

Fareed says that Tengy Cement can purchase 500 to 600 tonnes of clinker per day.

This is after the breakdown of the machinery at Pacific Cement Limited which resulted in the stoppage of cement production.

However Fareed confirms that Pacific Cement has started the production of cement at a small scale and it may reach to about 70 percent of cement production.

He earlier said that if repair works are completed as scheduled by their four engineers from abroad they will have a chance to start supplying cement at a small scale.

However he says that this is not sufficient to meet the demands.

This means that people will still have to import cement.

Fareed stresses that close to 40,000 tonnes of cement needs to be imported.

He also adds that they are currently discharging their clinker on anchorage at sea and offloading it into trucks which then go along Queens Highway to their factory in Lami.

This follows the court decision that they have to take the clinker by road.

Fareed says they have been paying $11,000 per tonne since January this year for delays and they are trying to work out a plan to improve on the efficient delivery of clinker.

Meanwhile, Tengy Cement Stock Manager Haijang Luo says that purchasing of more clinker from Pacific Cement will increase the production of cement.

However Luo says that the supply may not satisfy their customers.

We are currently checking on whether the environmental impact has been taken into account when the clinker trucks go from the wharf to Lami and whether loading checks are being done to ensure that Walu Bay, Tamavua-i-Wai, Vugalei and Suvavou bridges do not suffer further damage due to overloaded trucks.