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Kazakh cement plant gets EBRD loans
Funds will pay for refurbishment, environmental upgrade
The EBRD is arranging $35 million of long-term loans to support the expansion
and modernisation of Kazakhstan’s Karaganda cement plant. The Bank will lend
$20 million for its own account, and the balance will come from participants.
The borrower will be Karcement JSC, an affiliate of Central Asia Cement JSC,
which has been established especially for the project.
This project represents the first major investment in the cement sector in
Kazakhstan for more than 15 years. Upon completion, the plant’s capacity will
be doubled. This will help satisfy rapidly increasing demand for cement in
Kazakhstan and thereby support the booming construction sector.
To achieve this, a production line which is currently mothballed will be
refurbished and re-commissioned. It will manufacture cement using the
“dry-process” method, which is a much more energy efficient and
environmentally benign method of production that the present process. The
investment is therefore expected to have a positive impact upon the cement
plant’s environmental and energy efficiency performance, and to act as an
example to the rest of the industry.
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