The majority of the large civil structures at Sephaku Cement’s new Aganang plant, in the North West province, were complete and the remaining civil work was progressing well, engineering project manager Heinrich de Beer reported on Wednesday.

The greenfield project included a high-tech integrated clinker and cement production plant that would produce 6 000 t of clinker a day and 1.2-million tons of cement a year.

With storage volumes of 50 000 t, the facility’s clinker silo would be one of the largest single clinker storage bunkers in South Africa with the biggest single kiln in the country.

The constuction would incorporate at least 100 000 m³ of concrete and 14 600 t of structural steel. De Beer added that, to date, some 70 000 m³ of concrete had been placed on site.

The plant would also have raw meal silo storage capacity to accommodate 20 000 t, along with pre-blended stockpiles that extended the length and breadth of four rugby fields. The cement silos would have a storage capacity of  22 000 t of finished cement product.

De Beer added that, at the end of April, the limestone crusher building was far advanced and progressing as required.

“The structural steel erection work is continuing in all areas. The space frame structures over the three raw material stockpile areas are well advanced with the limestone storage area structure already sheeted.”

He added that, since January, rapid progress had been made on the raw material proportioning station (RMPS), the cement-proportioning station (CPS), the pre-heater structure and the grate cooler area, among others.

Further, the preassembly and erection of the coal mill, the raw mill and the clinker mill had started.

In November last year, the roughly 74-m-long kiln arrived from China, with good progress being reported with the installation, and the Kiln shell being in place and welded together.

“Mechanical equipment assembly work has started, with solid progress being made on the stacker and reclaimer machines located in the limestone, gypsum, additives and coal storage areas. Electrical cable racking installation had also begun throughout the plant with exceptional progress being made in the RMPS, CPS, the pre-heater/kiln area, as well as inside the many conveyor gantries already erected,” De Beer said.