Loma Negra to invest US$350m in new L'Amali line

InterCement-owned Loma Negra will invest US$350m in a brownfield expansion of its L'Amali plant in Olavarría, Buenos Aires province, Argentina, the company announced in a meeting with the President of Argentina, Mauricio Macri. The investment will boost the company's domestic capacity by 40 per cent.

The new production line, which will add 2.7Mta of annual capacity, will consist of a new state-of-the-art kiln, two vertical roller mills to grind raw materials and cement as well as a complete system of bagging and palletising. Construcion is scheduled to take 29-months for start-up in early-2020.

Some US$230m will be used to purchase equipment produced in the country, as well as civil works, assembly and other local investment. US$120m will be allocated to purchase equipment from abroad. The project will create 1000 direct jobs and an extra 2000 indirect jobs in logistics services of materials and people, safety, equipment manufacturing. The balance will be used to purchase imported equipment.

Minister of Production, Francisco Cabrera, has welcomed the news, saying "construction is consolidating its growth" and held that "investments such as Loma Negra are key to have more supply of inputs, in addition to promoting the development and creation of employment in the sector."

Note: this article was originally published on 14 December and was updated on 15 December 2017 to clarify that the new line will increase Loma Negra's Argentinian cement capacity by 40 per cent nationwide.