Papua New Guinea’s only cement manufacturer is riding the wave of soaring demand from the real estate, mining and public sectors.

Credit: PNG Taiheyo Cement

‘2011 sales increased by about 20%, to 155,000 tonnes,’ says Makoto Kagamida, Managing Director of PNG Taiheiyo Cement. The increase in demand means PNG Taiheiyo is close to its production capacity of 200,000 tonnes, says Kagamida, so there are plans to expand.

‘We have a plant expansion blueprint,’ he says, adding that land availability and the reliability and cost of utilities such as electricit are issues. ‘We will soon start importing cement from Taiheiyo Cement Group in Asia until the plant expansion is complete … this may need to increase.’

Credit: PNG Taiheyo Cement

PNG Taiheiyo operates a modern plant—the first of its kind in the South Pacific—in Lae. The operation includes a cement grinding mill, storage silos, automatic packing machines, and a jetty which can cater for vessels up to 15,000 tonnes.

It produces ASTM Type 1 Portland cement, importing all high quality raw materials such as clinker from its Japanese parent company, Taiheiyo Cement Corporation (TCC). It then processes (grinds), packs and distributes cement to domestic and export customers, following serious quality control.

TCC bought out PNG Taiheiyo Cement in 2000 in accordance with the then-PNG Government’s privatisation policies. PNG Taiheiyo Cement also exports to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and to parts of Micronesia—countries where the local markets are still too small to support their own plants.

First published in Made in PNG 2012