Republic of Iraq Ministry of Industry and Minerals

Cement industry in Iraq Historical survey and future need A Power Point Presentation presented by presented by Chief.Eng. Hussain Mohsin Obaid Director General and chairman of the board of the Northern Cement State Company Director General and chairman of the board of the Southern Cement State Company

Historical Survey (Rapid review) of cement industry in Iraq: Speaking about the cement industry in Iraq may leading us to the year 1949 when the first rotary kiln has been installed in Baghdad as a smaller as 200 tons / day that was built by the English company called Edgar Allen using the wet process which was the only alternative process at that time but very shortly after that step, three other kilns of a capacity of 400 ton / day were installed beside the first one, where the total daily production became 1400 tons / day. Since that date the history of the cement industry has been changed rapidly during three generations starting from the old wet process with high fuel consumption to the conventional dry process with gepol pre-heated and ended by the new generation of cyclonic pre-heaters with pre-calciner adjacent to the pre-heater tower as follows:

: almost all plants are working by wet process: Baghdad cement plant (3 x x 200 ) t/d. Old Badoosh cement plant (2 x 300) t/d. Hindyah barrage cement plant (2 x 300) t/d. Samawa cement plant (1 x x 1500 ) t/d. Hammam Al-Aleel cement plant (2 x 350) t/d. Sarchinar cement plant (2 x 350) t/d.

: Wet Process plant + One day process plant: Kufa cement plant (1 x x 1500) t/d. Hammam Al-Aleel new cement plant (1 x 1500) t/d. Faluja cement plant (2 x 700) t/d. Samawa South cement plant (1 x 1500) t/d. New Badoosh cement plant (Dry Process – Gepol) (2 x 1500) t/d.

: Dry Process plants w/Precalciner : Kubaysa cement plant (2 x 3200) t/d. Karkuk cement plant (2 x 3200) t/d. Karbala cement plant (2 x 3200) t/d. Tasluja cement plant (2 x 3200) t/d. New Badoosh cement plant 2 nd Ext. (1 x 3200) t/d. Muthenna cement plant (2 x 3200) t/d. Sinjar cement plant (2 x 3200) t/d. Al-qaim cement plant (1 x 3200) t/d. Faluja white cement plant (2 x 300) t/d.

Productivity of The Generations :  The first generation annual capacity based on 300 day / year was ( ) ton / year.  The second generation annual capacity based on 300 day / year was ( ) ton / year.  The third generation annual capacity based on 300 day / year was ( ) ton / year.  Hence, the total installed plants in Iraq during 35 years was ( ) ton / year.

The Actual Demand: If we fellow the population in Iraq during the mentioned period we can find that there was an increasing from 5 million inhabitants to 25 million inhabitants, then we can find a relation between the planned production and the population as (785 kg) of cement inhabitants and the actual demand based on the actual consumption not only in the housing sector such as industry, health, universities, education, roads, more than (1250 kg. / inhabitant).

Obstacles of cement industry in Iraq: Iraq had passed aperiod of 20 years of the critical situation of the production of cement in spite of the presence of 20 cement plants distributed over the geographical map which was caused mainly from the following reasons : 1. The second gulf war on 1991 and the security council decisions of application the economy blockade that started from august 1990 until 2003 including the boycott on importing the dual use materials mainly all the electronic and mechanical spare parts that the cement industry need to maintain the running of the plants the rated capacities, also that have been caused a completed damage of the best modern plants that were just started few years before the war, which brought the crisis the use of bad quality spare parts creating further problem such as deformations in the kilns shells.

Obstacles of cement industry in Iraq: 2. The electrical power shortage : as it is common for the cement industry 25 MW/ million ton annual production are needed for every 24 hours /day that means they need 450 MW. for the cement plant existing during period when the cement rated capacity were 18 millions tons. But that was not the figures which was and still needed because of the shortage of the electrical power production that caused the partial stoppage of the lines and sometimes that complete stoppage depending on the availability of the electrical power close the plants. 3. The new industrial management system which removed the government support on the governmental plants that are based on fix prices stated by ministry and not according to the market and in the same time the imported quantities of the cement they could compete easily with fix prices and the cement silos became full with cement not because of higher production but due to very low marketing.

Obstacles of cement industry in Iraq: 4. The local rehabilitations of the plants based on locally manufactured spare parts or bad quality imported ones did not succeeded to bring back the plant to rated capacity From all above reasons and causes, the production of cement in Iraq can be considered as very low in comparison with the design capacities and the actual demand. Later here, there are five table which are showing the contracted capacities and the production of the Iraqi cement plant during the period ( ).

Table No. (1), cement factories production (1000 tons / year) :

Table No. (2), cement factories production (1000 tons / year) :

Table No. (3), cement factories production (1000 tons / year) :

Table No. (4), cement plants production (1000 tons / year) : Note: The production of cement in Iraq in the table (4) above showing that the production rate of Tasluja cement plant is (0), that is because this plant is locating in Kurdstan region which is govern by an autonomy authorities since 1990 till now.

Table No. (5), cement factories production (1000 tons / year) : Note: The production of cement in Iraq in the table (5) above showing that the production rate of Tasluja cement plant is (0), that is because this plant is locating in Kurdstan region which is govern by an autonomy authorities since 1990 till now.

Estimation of the future need: The basis was taken in consideration for the calculation process : The present need is estimated as high as (3) million housing unit, which could be executed with (10) years at 80 square meter for each housing units which need (20) Tons cement each. So the total quantity of cement needed is (6) million Tons/years. The population growth-rate for (25) million people is 3 % equal to (750) thousand people per year and satisfy the need for additional housing units due to family spiltting (at simple average ) (375) thousand units each year need to be constructed equal to (7.5) million Tons cement /year. To compensate the depreciation of existed building at a rate of 2 % of the estimated number of (205) million housing unit per year needs to be constructed equal to one million Tons /years. The annual demand of construction industries plants in the private sectors (concrete blocks and others ) is estimated as (4.5) million Tons for the plants, which are registered at the general directorate of industrial growth. Also the need for projects of public benefits (roads, bridges, dams, hospital, schools and others ) is estimated as (25 % ) from the whole annual need which is equal to (6) million Tons / year. So the annual needs is (25) million Tons of cement at normal circumstances, well this figure is within the well known demand index for cement in growth countries.

Investment strategy in Iraq : The investment law NO. 13/2006 came to surface as a very good solutions to solve all the above mentioned points by introducing the investors who are capable of investing their money in profiting field by a joint venture contracts with cement machinery manufacturers special those who were the same companies built these plants to their original statements and can produce at least 90 % of the contracted capacities. During 2007 and 2009 ministry of industry and minerals announced for the investment of majority of the cement plants in Iraq, some of the plants are already contracted such Taslooja cement plant who could achieve 90% of the rated or the contractual capacity in 2008 after one year real rehabilitation of this plant by Polsius A.G who were contracting company for supplying plan. In the meantime some of our plants like Sinjar, Kubaisa, AL-Qaim and Karbala have been handed over to the investors while Almuthanna, Old Badoosh, Hammam Al-alile cement plants are still under studying and evaluating the offers.

The End