Malawi’s Shayona Cement is investing $61-million in a new cement production plant at Wimbe, in the country’s central district of Kasungu, where it also has a limestone mine.

Shayona administration manager Rowland Mwalweni says the plant, which is scheduled to start production in 2015, is designed to produce 1 200 t/d of cement.

Mwalweni says the new plant will see Malawi saving $50-million each year, which is currently spent on limestone imports.

“Production will be sufficient to meet our market demand. There is also the possibility of a surplus that will be exported to neigh-bouring countries,” says Mwalweni.

Shayona, whose production caters for 20% of Malawi’s cement market share, estimates that its Wimbe mine has several million tons of limestone, which can sustain production for at least the next 25 years.

The company’s competitor, Lafarge Malawi, currently imports limestone, since its Changalume mine ran out of limestone over ten years ago.

Malawi currently experiences erratic cement supply because Lafarge faces problems in importing limestone owing to a shortage of foreign exchange, which has rocked the country as a result of poor tobacco sales and the suspension of financial aid by foreign donors because of poor governance under the previous administration of the late President Bingu wa Mutharika.

Though it sources limestone locally, Shayona imports other raw materials from South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The Malawi government is, meanwhile, promoting investment in limestone mining in the country, where the Geological Survey Department has mapped out a number of areas with limestone deposits.

Besides other projects, Lafarge Malawi is carrying out prospecting work at a site in the district of Balaka, in the southern region.

Bwanje Cement is also conducting studies on a limestone deposit in the central district of Ntcheu, and Cement Products is in the process of setting up a cement production plant at another site in Mangochi.