Polysius AG contracts electrical engineering for Namibia's first cement plant to Siemens Ltd

04 November 2008

Mumbai-based Siemens Ltd. has bagged an export order from ThyssenKrupp group company Polysius AG to provide complete electrical enginering works  for Namibia's first ever cement plant, being put up by the Ohorongo Cement Company, scheduled to be commissioned by December 2010.

Ohorongo Cement  is being promoted by Germany-based Schwenk (Pty) Limited with a local entity, the Namibia Investor Group, at an estimated investment of N$2.5 billion for a 2,100 TPD cement plant and a terminal with a grinding plant at Walvis Bay.

The factory completion is scheduled to take 27 months to be fully operational by 2010, while the Walvis Bay terminal is expected to be functioning at what Ohrongo considers "optimal level" by mid-2009. On completion, the factory will produce 600 000 tonnes of cement per year.

Siemens' industry sector, industrial solutions division in India had bid for the order from Polysius AG, the premier cement technology company. The order is on a turnkey basis for the supply of an entire range of electrical and instrumentation equipment for the Ohorongo cement plant in Namibia. This would be Namibia's first-ever cement plant.

The state-of-the-art plant with a capacity of 2,100 TPD is located at Otavi, near the Windhoek area in Namibia, which has abundant reserves of limestone and has well linked rail and road networks. The cement produced from this plant will be marketed within Namibia as well as in the neighboring countries of Angola and Botswana.

Siemens will engineer and supply the entire plant electrics that includes 132 kV outdoor gas insulated switchgear switchyard, power and distribution transformers, 11 kV vacuum circuit breaker panels, power control centers and intelligent motor control centres, MV and LV motors, variable voltage variable frequency drives, cables, lighting as well as earthing system, power factor correction systems, control automation, field instruments, etc.