Crown Cement to start new factory from this month

Crown Cement, the country's one of the leading cement manufacturers, has said it will start commercial operation of a new production facility in Munshiganj from this month - a year after it missed the February 2023 deadline. 

The publicly listed cement maker declared the new deadline for its sixth production unit on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) website on Monday, without disclosing any specific date for it.  

While explaining the delay in a public disclosure, Crown Cement said it was not able to complete the construction work as the delivery of machinery by the suppliers was disrupted by the Russia-Ukraine war. 

Meanwhile, its share price increased 3.46% at the DSE over the previous session to reach at Tk77.80 on Monday. The company's 22,047 shares totaled Tk17 lakh were traded on the day. 

Mozharul Islam, company secretary of Crown Cement, told The Business Standard, "We've explained the reason for the delay in starting the commercial production of our new unit in the disclosure."

In reply to a question, he said, "No production start date has been set yet, but it will be by this month. The date will be fixed soon."

Asked about the reason for announcing new deadline after a year, he said, they had been waited for the construction work to be complete. 

"So, we didn't say anything. Now, the construction of our new unit is over. And everything has been done according to the rules of disclosure of price sensitive information," he noted. 

Earlier on 17 January 2019, the company unveiled a plan to expand its production capacity by 8,000 tonnes to 19,400 tonnes per day by setting up sixth manufacturing unit at the Munshiganj factory with an investment of over Tk700 crore.

But in October 2020, Crown Cement scrapped the expansion plan, citing the Covid-19 pandemic and a production overcapacity in the sector against the domestic market demand.

In an official statement, the company then said, "The cement industry has seen a sharp decline in demand in the wake of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus and that the entire industry is currently operating at substantially lower capacity levels."

Later, in June 2021, it revived the expansion plan for constructing a new unit at the existing factory in Munshiganj.  

Despite challenges of rising primary energy s prices and a slump in taka's value against the greenback, Crown Cement posted a profit of Tk61 crore in FY23 in contrast to Tk23 crore loss made in the previous fiscal year.