SOFIA (Bulgaria) – A consortium, led by Austrian construction company Strabag was picked to build a 160 million euro ($209.8 million) cement factory in Devnya, near Bulgaria's Black Sea cost, Strabag said on Wednesday.
The facility, which will have a daily capacity of 7,000 metric tonnes, will be built on the site of an existing cement factory for Devnya Cement, a subsidiary of Italian Italcementi, Strabag said in a statement.
China's CBMI, which will handle plant engineering, is the other company in the tie-in.
Strabag said that its share in the project is worth 90 million euro. The construction works are scheduled to begin next month and will be completed in two years.
"We won out against a number of international competitors in the negotiations. I am especially pleased with this accomplishment as this project represents the only major project realised by international investors in Bulgaria so far this year," Strabag's CEO Hans Peter Haselsteiner said in the statement.
Devnya Cement (www.devnyacement.bg), based near the Black Sea port city of Varna, has an annual capacity of some 2.0 million tonnes of cement.
In Bulgaria, Italcementi operates the Devnya and Vulcan cement plants.
Vulcan Cement, based in Dimitrovgrad, in southeastern Bulgaria, has an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes of cement.
Italcementi Group (www.italcementigroup.com), the world's fifth largest cement producer, operates in 22 countries.
($= 0.7626 euro)