The South African company LontohCoal shipped 27,500 tonnes of Coal to Ethiopia on Wednesday. The shipment will be arrive through Port Djibouti for Huang Shan Cement and CH Clinker.

The two Chinese companies are subsidiaries of the Guangdong Chuanhui Group which signed the two year agreement for 480,000 tonnes of coal every year with LontohCoal.

The Coal was expected to arrive in September but was held up due to transportation difficulties.

It was reported in Mid August that the Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise (EPE) was going to import coal from South Africa to secure sustainable supply of coal as an alternative source of energy for cement factories.

The move came following the unsuccessful bid by the Ethiopian government to acquire pet coke for cement factories.

All 12 cement factories have the infrastructure for using coal while Mugher and East are expected to finish installing infrastructure to use coal power sources by 2013.

The factories require about 694 million tonnes of coal over the coming four years. Over the next twelve months the factories demand 896,500 tonnes of coal.

Ethiopia is to sign an agreement, in November, to ship and unload coal through Port Djibouti. The agreement to be signed next month with Djibouti allows Ethiopian Petroleum Enterprise (EPE) to import the coal.

Source:  mingleweekly.com