Qatar Cement signs US$100m deal with Saudi investors

The Qatar National Cement Company has agreed a US$100m financing deal with Samba Financial Group of Saudi Arabia, the Peninsula newspaper reports.

The investment deal will be used to part-fund Qatar Cement’s fifth integrated plant, construction of which is already underway at a total cost of QAR950m (US$260m). The new plant will have a clinker capacity of 17,000tpd and grinding capacity of 20,000tpd.

Qatar Cement also released its earnings statement for the first half of 2016. This overturned the company’s disappointing first-quarter results, which showed a 1.6 per cent YoY fall in profits. In the first six months of 2016, Qatar Cement made a profit of QAR251.7m (US$69m), up 3.75 per cent YoY.

Last month, Qatar Cement announced that it would close its oldest cement plant – Plant 1 – which first came online in 1969 and currently has a capacity of 0.2Mt of clinker and 0.14Mt of cement.