CMS addresses cement Sarawak shortage, Malaysia

CMS Cement, Sarawak’s sole cement producer, has assured that the current shortages being experienced by the construction industry in Miri will be resolved by next week.

Sarawak is situated on the island of Borneo and is one of two states, with Sabah, comprising what is referred to as East Malaysia. Sarawak is Malaysia’s largest state with around 37 per cent of the total land mass and has a population of 2.4m.

Othman Abdul Rani, head of CMS’s cement division, said the shortage was largely due to the disruptions to the deliveries of raw materials, Bermana news cited him as saying.

While Malaysia does have clinker, the domestic reserves of clinker are not sufficient to meet the output demands. For this reason CMS Cement, like most cement manufacturers in the country, turn to third party international suppliers, mainly from Vietnam and Thailand to provide the raw material. "Due to prolonged bad weather conditions (continuous rain) in Vietnam and Thailand, the clinker raw material, could not be loaded onto the vessels in time to meet our production schedule," he said in a statement in Miri .

CMS has made arrangements to import 21,500t of cement from Vietnam and Thailand to meet the current cement shortages in Miri. The first shipment of 9000t had already been delivered, Mr Rani said, and the second shipment of 12,500t is due to arrive on Tuesday.

"Both the shipments (of 50 kg bag cement and jumbo bag cement) have now been delivered by the third party vendor to CMS Cement’s Pending Grinding Plant here and, thereby, ground cement can be delivered sufficiently to our bulk terminal in Miri," he said in a statement in Miri.

CMS is currently increasing clinker output to maximum from the existing kiln line as well as a number of other measures including an improved distrubtion system for the Sarawak markets in Sibu and Miri.