Buying House Cement could fill Jamaican cement shortages

Jamaica's Government is being asked to consider alternative cement suppliers to Caribbean Cement (Cemex group) becaue of recent shortages on the island, which CemNet first reported in May.

For the last 15 years, Montego Bay company Buying House Cement has been importing the product to meet 10 per cent of Jamaica’s cement demand from the Domicem cement plant in the Dominican Republic.

Mark Hart, chairman of Cargo Handlers, a publicly-listed company with 30 per cent shares in Buying House Cement, said: "If we are given the green light we can provide more cement to stabilise any shortages. We are simply looking to provide some other alternative and a competitive market."

"We are on a quota system so basically it's 120,000tpa, but it is broken up in quarters. And, depending on what is happening with the market, from time to time we will request to bring in additional to support the production problems and the supply problems," Mr Hart added.

Jamaica's cement market has seen shortages of late which have been caused by logistic issues according to Chad Bryan, communication and social impact coordinator at Caribbean Cement.

"Based on what I know, we had some logistics issues getting the cement out. They exist and we know, but we want to assure the customers that we are making every effort to get it out to them as soon as possible," Mr Bryan told the Jamaica Observer.

Caribbean Cement recently announced an expansion project to increase its Rockfort plant capacity by 30 per cent.