Consumers are expected to enjoy competitive pricing of cement by December, as production is set to begin at the US$200million Dzata cement plant sited on a 10-acre land near Tema Port.

The Dzata Cement Factory, construction of which began some six years ago, when fully operational will be the fourth local cement manufacturing company after Ghacem, CIMAF Cement and Diamond Cement.

The plant factory, which is about 80 percent complete, is expected to produce 2.6 million tonnes of bagged cement per annum.

The Supervising Site Engineer of Dzata Cement Limited, Mr. Fiifi Yawson – speaking to journalists during a tour of the site – explained that the company has been issued with a licence to import 1.2 million metric tonnes of cement to test-run the plant; and confirmed that after the test, the plant will become fully operational by end of the year.

He explained that the cement grade to be produced by the plant is ordinary Portland cement, which will be imported for the plant and is being deployed on the back of modern industrial technology from Germany developed by Haver & Boecker.

The factory will bag an average of 120 bags per minute from the two production lines.

Dzata cement factory was commissioned in November 2016 at the Free Zones enclave in Tema. It has a reported capacity to produce one million tonnes of cement annually, and became the third local cement manufacturing company after Ghacem and Diamond Cement.

The plant, when completed, is expected to be among the huge cement manufacturing factories being built in the Tema Port enclave by Ghanaian engineers, and it is expected to boost the country’s built and construction sectors of the economy.

CEO of the company, Ibrahim Mahama, is hopeful to finish construction of the plant in 2018 and start production.

“About 80 percent of the engineering work has been completed; Siwertell has been procured and awaiting installation. We started civil works with an all-Ghanaian engineering workforce. The plant is expected to be the largest single cement factory, and is a 24-hour plant. We have created enough storage space to take care of the volumes during peak production,” he said.

The factory has installed some cutting-edge automation as well as state-of-the-art processing facilities, with a packing plant for bagged cargo and silos for bulk cement distribution.

“DZATA cement factory is expected to employ over a thousand workers,” he said.