Lafarge to expand capacity

MANILA, Philippines - French cement maker Lafarge Republic Inc. has lined up capacity expansion projects in the Philippines amid expectations of continuous demand, a top company official said.

Lafarge president Renato Sunico said the company’s board of directors approved an investment for a new mill at the Teresa plant in Rizal province, which will produce 850,000 metric tons (MT) of cement per year starting 2015.

“Various productivity improvement projects are expected to deliver additional capacity to supply the estimated continuing increase in cement consumption,” he said.

Sunico said for this year alone, the local unit of the world’s biggest cement maker is better placed to meet higher demand given the additional one million MT in cement milling capacity following an output expansion program last year.

The company has five cement plants, four of which are in Luzon, that produce a total of 7.7 million MT of cement per year.

For the first time, nationwide demand exceeded 16 million MT at 18.4 million MT last year, up 18 percent from 2011 due to a huge infrastructure backlog in the country.

“The infrastructure and other construction projects of the government both at the national and local levels coupled with the sustained demand from the private and commercial sectors contributed to this record growth,” Sunico said.

Robust turnover allowed Lafarge to substantially grow its earnings in the first quarter, the company said in a disclosure.

In the first quarter, Lafarge said its sales hit nearly P6 billion while earnings reached P1 billion, up 35 percent from the same period last year.

“Net sales improved due to increase in volume and improvements in the average selling price,” Lafarge said.