A new plant has been launched by Georgian Cement Company (GCC) in partnership with LafargeHolcim. ICR spoke with Merab Chikhradze, founder of GCC, to find out the latest developments in the Georgian cement market as well as what has been happening at the works. By ICR Research, UK.
ICR: What decisions had to be made after the LafargeHolcim merger in terms of grinding systems, philosophies and systems to be adopted at Poti? Is the plant still mainly set up on operational systems that were employed by Lafarge or have there been benefits from introducing former Holcim practices as well?
Merab Chikhradze (MC): The merger of Lafarge and Holcim happened during the final stages of our plant construction. As for the implementation of our project, we preferred a non-turnkey solution, and therefore, the support from the LafargeHolcim technical centre was vital. This was a great opportunity and our staff were involved on both the process and civil engineering side, which provided us with a good understanding of the construction activity and allowed us to gain specific knowledge for subsequent operations.
