Ciments du Maroc, the Moroccan subsidiary of Italcementi Group, had officially presented its project for the construction of a new cement plant to Moroccan authorities. The new plant, which is set to replace the existing Agadir cement plant, will be located 50 km from Agadir and will have a yearly production capacity of 2.2 million tons.
Scheduled for completion in 2008, the project will entail an investment of more than 260 million Euro.
The new cement plant of Ait Baha will be located within an area that the Moroccan Government has identified as destined to industrial development, without any impact on urban agglomerations.
Moreover, this location should prove especially advantageous because of the plant’s vicinity to the locally available raw materials.
The project, which entails the use of the Best Available Technologies (BAT) to meet both industrial and environment-related requirements, places great attention on the architectural layout and the integration of plant facilities into the surrounding environment. In this respect, existing quarries will undergo a rehabilitation program that would provide for their connection to the cement plant via a conveyor belt. Moreover, the implementation of a specific landscape rehabilitation plan will provide an approximately 310-acre green belt around the new cement plant.

Ciments du Maroc, which closed the financial year 2006 with net sales and net income amounting to 11% and 14.6% respectively, has entered an agreement with Morocco’s National Electricity Board (O.N.E.) to build a 50 MW wind power plant at Layoune.