Lafarge Algeria, part of the Holcim group, has exported 2Mta of cement and clinker for the first time, according to a company press release. The company achieved the volume less than five years after the start of cement exports from Algeria.

The 2Mta volume represents a considerable increase from the 1.2Mt of exports achieved in 2020 and puts the company firmly on the way to its 2.5Mt target by the end of this year. In 2022 the cement producer aims to export 2.6Mt.

This symbolic bar of 2Mta is largely reached thanks to "the internal mobilisation of all our teams in central and in factories in M'Slla, Oggaz and Cilas, and also to the support of the public authorities, ports, customs service and border police,” said the CEO of Lafarge Algeria, Nicolas George.

The company sees the industrialisation of logistics and the automation of ship loading as an “obligatory passage that will allow Algeria to impose itself on the international cement and clinker market” to export 10Mta and generate more than US$400m per year. To achieve this ambitious target, the company is investing heavily in upgrading and expanding export facilities, including a logistics platform for the export of clinker, the first storage hall inaugurated in June 2020 with an extension coming online by the end of this year, as well as the acquisition of an 18,000tpd shiploader. It also continues to strengthen export capacities from several Algerian ports such as Oran, Mostaganem, Jijel, Skikda and Annaba.