Estonia-based chemical company Viru Keemia Grupp (VKG) is planning to relaunch the plan for a new cement plant which it had stalled in 2009.

"The cement plant project was shelved so it could be taken off the shelf at some point, but that moment definitely has not arrived yet," VKG’s director in charge of development Jaanus Purga told BNS on Wednesday. "The time-line is five years from today," he said.

As soon as the launch of the company’s second oil refinery plant is successfully completed the cement plant project will be put on the table again, he said. "Unless something drastic happens."

In 2008 VKG conducted an international tender to get offers from cement equipment suppliers. "We’ve got three serious offers of the same level on the table," Purga said. When the project is relaunched VKG will try and ask the same companies about their current price tag for the technology."   

The plant should produce 825,000tpa of clinker. "In ideal circumstances it should be 50-50, clinker and oil shale ash. That would mean 1.5Mt of product," said the member of the VKG management board.