OCC confirms imported cement quality probe, Oman

Oman Cement Company (OCC) has confirmed that the country's Public Authority for Consumer Protection (PACP) has initiated an investigation on the quality of 30,000t of cement imported by the sultanate's second-largest producer.

In a filing to the Muscat Securities Market (MSM) on Wednesday, the company said that a team from the PACP visited its premises to inspect the cement it imported and purchased locally and blended with its own cement.

According to the OCC filing: "The [PACP] team considered this as violation by the company. However, the company assured the team that the cement purchased after a tender process is manufactured by reputed local and foreign cement companies according to specifications higher than British-European and Omani specifications and conform to high quality standards followed by OCC."

OCC said that it assured the PACP team that the company has "nothing to do either with cheating or compromise on quality of the product."

On a subsequent visit by a PACP team, inspections were carried out on the process of manufacture of cement by the company as well as "harmonisation" of procured cement with company manufactured cement, OCC said in its filing.

"The purchase of cement, which amounts to about 30,000tand is hardly one per cent of the annual capacity of the company, had been necessitated by the breakdown of one of the cement mills of the company in April 2013. This step was taken by the company to avoid inconvenience to its valued customers arising from shortage in production, which might have affected market prices beside the long waiting time for customers waiting for loading," the filing said.

"OCC wishes to assure its valued shareholders and all concerned that the subject matter will not have any adverse impact on the high quality standards followed by OCC which has been our strength, reflected by way of customer trust in our products," it added.