Qatar National Cement Company (QNCC) has reiterated its continued support to the country's infrastructure development.
In this regard, the company is diversifying the product portfolio by adding new products to meet the growing local demand.
This was disclosed by QNCC chairman Salem bin Butti al-Naimi at the annual general assembly where shareholders approved 30% cash dividend.
In his address, he highlighted efforts to “diversify the production by adding new types of cement to meet the demand of local market and utilise the opportunity of exporting to external markets.”
The company had last year said it was looking to annually export as much as 3mn tonnes clinker, especially to Africa, Asia (including India) and Kuwait.
The export markets, which also include Yemen and Iraq, come in view of the company recently operationalising its fifth plant that will enhance the daily clinker production by 5,000 tonnes to 11,000 tonnes.
QNCC is also seeking to optimise the production capacity of washed sand and calcium carbonate to meet the expected local market demand to achieve its targeted goals.
The company’s production in both categories of cement (ordinary portland and sulphur resistant) reached 2.2mn tonnes in 2019.
The production of washed sand was 4.8mn tonnes in 2019 against 7.8mn tonnes a year ago.
Calcium carbonate production increased to 49,000 tonnes in 2019 compared to 47,000 tonnes the previous year.
The total sales revenue was QR703mn compared to QR848mn in 2018.
In 2019, QNCC had been able to control the production cost, by contracting with service providers to provide the company regular labour and technical staff, increasing the operations efficiency and accordingly reduce the production cost considerably.
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