Orascom Construction Industries announced consolidated revenue of LE 2,440m with EBITDA of LE 621.4m and net income of LE 340.5m for the first quarter ended 31 March 05. The consolidated results included a LE 25.5m loss on foreign exchange.
OCI Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Nassef Sawiris commented "Revenue from our Cement Group reached LE 599m, up 14% over last year. Unusually harsh weather conditions affected both domestic sales volumes in Algeria and export sales volumes from Egypt to Europe during the quarter. Cement consumption in Egypt, however, increased significantly during the quarter and we believe this trend will be sustainable throughout the year. Construction work on our second 2.5Mta production line in Algeria will be completed in June and work on our new cement ventures in Pakistan, Northern Iraq and Nigeria is underway. De-bottlenecking of our cement plants in Egypt and Algeria has progressed rapidly and initial test runs in Egypt indicate that our annual cement production capacity will reach 8.5Mt.
“Revenue from our Construction Group reached LE 2bn, up 118% over last year. The performance of all our construction businesses has been impressive. Construction activity in all our regional markets continues to expand and a wide array of new industrial, infrastructure and commercial projects have been recently announced. Although our consolidated backlog grew 4% from December to LE 11.4bn, we have sufficient capacity to take on new projects and are well positioned to deliver high value for money solutions to our customers."
