BY MOHAMMAD SHOEB
DOHA: The upcoming cement storage and conveying plant (silos) being developed by Qatar Primary Materials Company (QPMC) in Mesaieed will be completed by this year-end, according to a senior official of a consultancy associated with the project.
The facility has been designed to discharge 1.8 million tonnes of cement per year into the 12 silos (circular structure for storing bulk materials) with the total storage capacity of 60,000 cubic metres.
Once operational, the plant equipped with the cutting edge technology, will be able to load 1,000 tonnes of cement per hour in trucks, which will significantly reduce the truck loading time to about 90 seconds per truck.
“Once completed the facility will help Qatar importing or storing more cement than what it is able to do today. In case the local producers have a surplus output, in future, they can also use the storage facility which will maintain the quality of cement intact for a longer period of time,” said Marc Stordiau, (pictured) Managing Director of ‘Rent A Port’, a Belgium-based engineering consultant specialising in port designing and logistics operations.
Stordiau, in an interview with this newspaper, added: “Although the plant has been designed 100 percent to handle cement, but it can also be used to store gypsum and clinker (cement in lumps or nodules) with minimal modification.” He said that the cement silos project was one of the big jobs his company designed and tendered so far.
“We put a lot of efforts to correct the numerous errors in the initial design of ‘the lowest bidder’ which was not stable with the high wind speeds in Qatar. But now we are in full agreement about the project which is going to be completed in November. It is something we as well as QPMC could be proud of,” he said.
The plant, according to Stordiau, will also improve the cost efficiency and handling capacity of the port significantly as the latest technology will help unload a vessel with 60,000 cubic metres of cement within a day, instead of 10 to 15 days without the conveyor belts and silos facilities. The high rate of discharge capacity from ships will also be reducing ships waiting time.
The cement unloading-conveying-storage terminal is also equipped with smaller silos which have been designed to load up to four trucks simultaneously, taking the total loading capacity to 40 trucks per hour or 20,000 tonnes per day.
The facility will also provide importers with multiple options to import and store different types of cements. The materials stored in silos can also be discharged from it directly into the Barges using pneumatic systems to take the material to projects sites through sea route easing pressure on road traffic.
In future, the asset can also be used by regional traders and producers as a storage hub of cement for re-export in other countries.
The Peninsula
