Chilanga Cement results Chilanga Cement Plc in Zambia, recently the recipient of funds from the Commonwealth Development Corp. (CDC), sold nearly 400,000 mt of cement in 1997, an increase of 11% compared with the previous year, according to the newspaper The Post of Zambia.

Exports of 147,000 mt were 31% higher than in 1996. The company is reported to have made a gross profit in 1997, 24% higher than in the previous year.

Warning signs in UAE Existing cement producers in the United Arab Emirates are beginning to get worried about new capacity being created in the industry, according to a report in the Dubai Gulf News.

Manufacturers are said to fear that new projects in the emirates and elsewhere in the Gulf may hurt the sector, impacting negatively on some companies. Executives in the local cement industry point out that the boom of past times is well over and has now been replaced by a more sedate pace of growth. They add that while the current market demand can be adequately addressed by existing producers, any extra capacity can only be created to the detriment of all units.

The UAE has 10 cement factories, nine manufacturing grey cement and one producing white cement. Independent industry estimates place domestic clinker output at as much as 5 million mtpy from an installed capacity of about 8 m illion mt. Local consumption is believed to be in the region of 5 million to 5.5 million mtpy.

Despite idle capacity already existing, plans have been unveiled for the establishment of at least two new plants, one in Ras Al Khaimah and one in Jebel Ali.

Cement monitoring in Egypt The Beni Suef Cement Co. in Egypt awarded an environmental monitoring contract to Environmental Measurement Services, the Cairo-based agent for Environmental Technology Research (ETR), a member of the Milieutech Group.

The contract is for the installation and supply of three Alpha particulate monitoring systems at the customer's production plant near Beni Suef, about 90 to 100 km south of Cairo.

Each system will be installed in individual flue stacks and used to measure the quantity of particulates passing up the stack into the atmosphere. This information is passed via a data system and collected and logged on a dedicated PC. A proprietary software system supplied by ETR permits this information to be displayed. Output is in selectable formats that ensure the raw data is stored in an accessible way for several years.

Due to the standard method of data input used, the data-logger can accept information, including temperature, pressure, and oxygen content, from other sensors.