Fecto Cement has announced that it intends to enter a bid for Dewan Cement’s North plant, a 1.134Mta facility located in Hattar. Earlier this month, Lucky Cement indicated that it would put in a bid for the Hattar plant, while The News reports that a Chinese firm is also in the process of carrying out a due diligence investigation.

In a trading update released to the Pakistan Stock Exchange, Fecto Cement said that sales revenues for the first quarter of FY2017 were up by 16.3 per cent to PKR1.30bn (US$12.4m). Local sales rose by 22.4 per cent to PKR1.11bn, while exports fell 9.8 per cent to PKR188m. Overall profits were up by 19.3 per cent to PKR291m.

The company also gave notification of the completion of upgrade works at its Sangjani plant. These saw the replacement of kiln coal dosing equipment and IDE fan motors and have resulted in clinker production increasing from 2600tpd to 2760tpd (approximately 0.9Mta). Cement production also rose from 2730tpd to 2900tpd (approximately 0.96Mta).