Cemex Philippines allots $225 million to Antipolo plant expansion

Listed cement maker Cemex Holdings Philippines Inc. has allocated P3 billion to build a new integrated production line and increase the capacity of its factory in Antipolo, Rizal.

“Specific to the Solid Cement plant expansion—P2.5 billion to P3 billion this year,” Cemex Holdings Philippines president and CEO Ignacio Mijares told GMA News Online on the sidelines of the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting in Makati City on Wednesday.

A unit of Cemex Holdings Philippines, Solid Cement Corp.’s  production plant in Antipolo has an annual capacity of 1.9 million metric tons.

A new production line will increase the capacity of Solid Cement by 1.5 million MT per year to 3.4 million MT.

“This will allow us to further serve the cement requirement of the country during an important period heralded as the Philippines’ golden age of infrastructure,” Mijares said in a message during the stockholders meeting.

The plant in Antipolo serves the requirements of the National Capital Region and Southern Luzon.

In December 2017, Solid Cement secured an environmental compliance certificate for the new production line from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources .

“We’re committed to have the plant ... operating in the first quarter of 2020,” Mijares noted.

Cemex Holdings Philippines is investing a total of $225 million for the Solid Cement expansion project.

The cement maker reported a 65-percent decline in bottom line to P659 million last year from P1.87 billion in 2016 due to lower cement prices, despite an increase in domestic sales volume.

Mijares said the company is committed to get back on track this year.

“We will find all opportunities to increase productivity, efficiency, reduce our unitary distribution cost, and advantage of any price opportunity to improve our prices to be able to return to better margin that we have in the past.” —VDS, GMA News