Nigeria set to have international cement research centre

Nigeria is set to become one of the six countries to have international cement research centres from Lafarge, a global leader in cement, aggregates and concrete making.

The country is on the verge of joining France, China, Brazil, India and Algeria as host to Lafarge’s development laboratory, which is targeted at developing new solutions and business opportunities to consumers through guaranteeing strong orientation towards products applications and construction systems, while deepening understanding of local constructive modes specificities.

Gilles Rochard, prospective research and development (R&D) director, Lafarge Group, disclosed this in Lyon, weekend, during a media tour of the Group’s facilities in France.

“There will be one in Nigeria,” Rochard said, while explaining the Group’s plan to launch the state-of-the-art research facility in Africa’s largest economy.

“I know Bruno Lafont (Group’s CEO) is pushing for that. In our business, we try to be active in innovations. We don’t research for the sake of it; we research to create products that will add value for our customers,” he said.

Lafarge Group operates in 62 countries and has 64,000 employees. Its annual sales worldwide total 15.2 Euros, while production sites are 1,636 in number. The Group’s research centre is occupied by 240 researchers, 60 percent of whom have PhDs in different disciplines. Its cutting-edge research is in collaboration with the world’s best teams of researchers from institutions such as Princeton University, Massachutes Institute of Technology (MIT), Ecole Nationale des Ponts and Chaussees, and the Navier Laboartory, Tsinghua University (Peking), as well as Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Science and Technology, among others.

In Nigeria, Lafarge (now Lafarge Africa) operates as second largest cement maker and has stakes in the United Cement Company of Nigeria (UniCem) and Ashaka Cement, Real Sector Watch has found.

One solution of Lafarge for Nigeria is to reduce the quantity of clinker in each ton of cement, with a view to making more clinker available for the future and reducing the level of carbon (Co2) emission, Rochard said.

Similarly, the cement maker has unveiled OneCem low density cement product for the oil and gas sector, which naturally needs more complex solutions. The product, which is also expected to hit the Nigerian market within the shortest possible time, replaces off-site blending with industrially controlled solution and is flexible to tailor performance needs as a system platform, while having the capacity to integrate into conventional blending and pumping equipment, Real Sector Watch gathered.

A grade of cement known as 32.5R, largely produced by Lafarge, has been restricted to plastering by the Standards Organisations of Nigeria (SON). According to the SON, this is aimed at reducing incessant building collapses around the country.

But Abdellatif Boumiz, group senior expert, cement products development manager, said building collapses come from quality of final product, concrete and block standards, among others.

According to Boumiz, who has been in cement business for years and worked in many countries, presenting cement’s 28-day strength as the sole quantity criterion for building collapses is simplistic, dangerous and counter-productive.

He said product performance might be deteriorated by misuse of higher cement strength, adding that 25 percent of German concrete was made with 32.5R.

There has ironically been frequent building collapses in Egypt in spite of massive usage of 42.5R grade, a fact that demonstrates that applications should be stressed strongly rather than any grading, he said.

“To avoid collapse and ensure building integrity, there should be high level certification process for key producers – cement, concrete and others,” Boumiz said, saying “there must be enforcement of national regulations and standards, establishment of legal responsibilities for misconstructions, more market education and information as well as improvement or updating of standards addressing quantity and security of buildings (concrete and block).”

In an interactive session with journalists, Guillauime Roux, group managing director, Lafarge Africa, said “the company does not see itself just as a seller of cement but a provider of solutions.”

According to Roux, what is critical to Lafarge in Nigeria is to continue to educate engineers, masons and contractors and help design new solutions that are relevant to Nigeria.

Lafarge operates in many countries, commits enormous resources to research and has values that have stood the test of time, he said.

ODINAKA ANUDU