Arab Union Contracting Company (AUCC), a state-owned Libyan enterprise, has placed an order with F.L.Smidth A/S for a new cement plant at a total sales value in the region of EUR 160m. The contract was awarded in the wake of a similar major contract which F.L.Smidth recently landed in the neighbouring country of Algeria.
The contract signed with F.L.Smidth A/S is on a semi-turnkey basis and covers a complete 4,200 tonnes per day cement clinker production line to be erected near the town of Zliten on the Mediterranean coast, some 170 km east of Libya's capital, Tripoli. F.L.Smidth will supply machinery and equipment plus construction steel and construction drawings in addition to being responsible for the erection and installation of mechanical and electrical equipment. Commissioning assistance and training services are also included in the contract. The new plant will comply with Europe's high dust emission standards of 30 mg per Nm3 (normal cubic metre of air).
Technologically the new facility is quite similar to the recently completed grey cement plant in Sinai, and it is scheduled to come on stream in the summer of 2005. The order will be taken to income during the years 2003 to 2005 in step with equipment supplies and provision of erection and installation services.
The new production line will be the first cement plant owned by AUCC, which is among the largest players in Libya's building contracting and construction materials industry. Several F.L.Smidth Group companies are contributing to the project as subcontractors. In addition to the raw mill, five silos, a preheater, kiln, clinker cooler and two cement mills to be provided by F.L.Smidth, the contract comprises three F.L.Smidth Airtech electrostatic precipitators, a MAAG ATOX gear unit, an FLS Automation quality and process control system, three Ventomatic packing lines and automatic truck loading systems, an F.L.Smidth Materials Handling limestone crusher, raw material stacker and two raw material reclaimers, with part of the construction engineering being provided by Bhagwati Designs.
After most of the UN sanctions on Libya were lifted in April 1999, the relations between the country and the outside world have begun to normalise. Libya, with a population of 5.5m people, is an oilrich nation in great need of infrastructure development and is currently undergoing rapid growth.
FLS Industries A/S
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