Company Secretary of Bestway Cement Ltd, Hassan Niazi, has informed Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) that the company has achieved the major milestone of lighting up the kiln at its 7200tpd greenfield plant near Paikhel, Mianwali district, in Punjab Province of Pakistan. The kiln was successfully lit up at 9.22h on 20 October 2022, added the regulatory filling. Chairman of Bestway Group, Sir Mohammed Anwar Pervez OBE HPk cut the ribbon to inaugurate the lighting up of the kiln.
Mr Niazi explained that Sinoma was the OEM for the new Mianwali kiln line and this additional capacity will raise the company's total cement capcity to 12.9Mta. According to the annual report FY21-22 of Bestway Cement, the management envisages that the new cement plant and 9MW waste heat recovery (WHR) power plant will be operational by December 2022.
Speaking on the occasion, Bestway Group’s CEO, Lord Choudrey, said, "Our new greenfield production line at Mianwali has been set up in a record time of less than 18 months, from establishing the L/C to lighting up the Kiln. This has been achieved despite various hurdles and supply chain disruptions caused by Covid-19. By virtue of the Mianwali plant, Bestway Cement has now become the largest cement producer in the country.”.
Lord Choudrey added that work on the 7200tpd brownfield production line at the Hattar site was also at an advanced stage and was likely to be operational by March 2023. The 9MW WHR power plant at the same site is also making good progress and is anticipated to come online at around the same time as the kiln line.
Bestway Cement celebrates the lighting of its new 7200tpd kiln
Financial brief
During the year, Bestway recorded growth in turnover by 21 per cent from PKR85.2bn last year to PKR103bn in the year ended 30 June 2022. Gross profit for the year grew to PKR23bn, and net profit after tax amounted to PKR10.2bn. The company’s total cement dispatches showed a decline of 10 per cent (7.839Mt) due to a reduction in both local and export sales volumes.
Solar power generation
Building on the legacy of being an environmentally-conscious company, Bestway has commissioned solar power plants at all four locations. With a total solar capacity of 55.4MW, the company has the largest distributed captive power generation capacity in Pakistan and the entire region, reducing its reliance on the national grid. Moreover, it has reduced its carbon footprint by more than 3.4Mt CO2 emissions over the project's life, the equivalent of planting approximately 5.4m trees.
Going forward, the cement producer plans to shortly enhance its solar power generation capacity at all four plants.
