Dangote Cement Plc has restated its commitment to meet the demand gap and ensure the availability of cement products across the country.

The Group Chief Sales and Marketing Director of Dangote Cement, Mr Rabiu Umar, said this in a statement issued on Tuesday.

Umar said that the renewed commitment became necessary in view of the need to meet the current surge in the demand for cement products in Nigeria.

While noting that Nigeria had moved from importing cement to becoming an exporter of the product, Umar explained that the demand for cement rose globally as a fallout of the COVID-19 crisis.

“Nigeria is no exception as a combination of monetary policy changes and low returns from the capital market has resulted in a significant increase in construction activity.

“We got into COVID-19 last year and immediately after that there is a surge in demand and this is not particular to Nigeria alone. A couple of countries across the world are also experiencing the same; Mexico, South East Asia among others,” Umar said.

He emphasised that Dangote Cement was aggressively building up more capacity as it recently invested in a new line that had been completed in Obajana Plant.

According to Umar, the line is waiting for the power plant to commence operation.

He said, “we have a new plant in Okpella in Edo state that is also going to start operation very soon.

“For the last couple of years one of our plants in Gboko, Benue state has not worked; we have re-started the plant all in a bid to make sure that there is enough production.

“We have also increased the capacity of our Obajana plant and very soon, I am sure the market will be flooded with enough products.

“You also need to note that other operators are also increasing their capacity. In every business, what drives the price is the demand and supply.

“As a business, we have not increased our price up until this point. So, what has happened in price increment in the cement products are forces of demand and supply.”

He said though the company has direct control over its ex-factory prices, it cannot control the ultimate price of cement when it gets to the market.

Umar advised that it would be important to distinguish Dangote’s ex-factory prices from prices at which retailers sell cement in the market.

He pointed out that the company was trying to make sure that it increased the supply of the product in the market and noted that the company would bring in 2,000 new trucks to ease distribution bottlenecks.

“We are buying these trucks and putting them out there to make sure that the distribution is also taken care of.

“This new development will lead to additional thousands of direct jobs in the country; apart from both direct and indirect jobs the plants will also create.

“Globally, by the time we are done, we believe that the additional capacity we will put on the market compared to what we have in the market today is probably the size of each of our competitors in terms of the additional volume that we will put in the market.

“And we believe that should help to manage the tension in the country as far as the situation with the skyrocketing prices of cement is concerned,” Umar said.