BUA signs agreement with Wartsila OY of Finland for construction of 70MW power plant in Sokoto

Chairman of BUA Group, Abdul Samad Rabiu has signed an agreement with Wartsila OY of Finland for the construction of a 70megawatts dual-fuel power plant for the BUA Cement Sokoto Line 4 in North-West of Nigeria, Sokoto State.

Recently, the cement company revealed that it was looking to increase its production capacity within Nigeria over the next 3 years with new plants in the works. This will be the second plant to be constructed by Wartsila for BUA Cement – the first being the BUA Cement Sokoto power plant scheduled to be commissioned alongside the plant in November 2021.

At the signing ceremony, the Chairman of BUA Cement Plc acknowledged the importance of continued investment in the region. He stated that BUA Cement will keep up its investment strategy in the West African Cement industry to position itself as the bridge between the huge infrastructure and housing deficit.

In his statement, he said that “BUA Cement is happy and pleased with the progress that Wartsila made with the construction of the power plant we initially purchased for our BUA Cement Sokoto Line 3 which we expect will begin commissioning by November alongside the power plant. We believe Wartsila will bring the same level of efficiency, technical expertise, and professionalism to bear in ensuring that this new power plant for the 3million Mtpa BUA Cement Sokoto Line 4 will be completed on schedule by the end of next year as we look towards bringing BUA’s total capacity in its Sokoto plant to 8 million metric tonnes by early 2023 and 17million metric Tonnes across all its plants by the same time.”

It would be recalled that during the Group’s shareholders meeting held in July, the Chairman announced that the Line 3, Sokoto plant currently under construction would be commissioned this year while other lines in Sokoto, Edo, and Adawama will be commissioned in 2022/2023.

In 2019, the Chairman of the Group signed its first contract with the same company, Wartsila Oy of Finland, for the construction of a 48-megawatt power plant for Sokoto Cement line 3 in Sokoto State.