DUSHANBE, October 14, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- The state unitary enterprise, Tojikcement (Dushanbe cement plant), will shift one of its furnaces from natural gas to coal until the end of the year, Ms. Fazilat Safarova, the deputy director of Tojikcement, said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

According to her, Tojikcement jointly with China’s company, Jun Hao (phonetically spelled), has worked out the project for re-equipping one of its furnaces, shifting it from natural gas to coal.  “We have already done 97 percent of work and it just remains to carry out installation work,” said Safarova, “Chinese specialists will arrive in Dushanbe within the next few days.”

She noted that shift to coal would allow reducing fuel expenses by 18%-20%.  “Tajikistan has coal fields and we will not have to purchase it abroad,” the deputy director said, noting that shifting one furnace from gas to coal will come to some 7 million somoni (equivalent to 1.6 million U.S. dollars).

“Shifting furnaces from gas to coal will also allow lowering cement prices,” Safarova said.

We will recall that current price for a 50-kilogram of cement produced by Tojikcement is some 31 somoni.

Safarova noted that Tojikcement had paid off its 12.4 million somoni debt to Tojiktrransgaz (Tajik state natural-gas distributor) and even had made prepayment of 11 million somoni for natural gas.  Tojikcement now receives natural gas at the rate of some 3,000 cubic meters per hour, while it needs 13,000 cubic meters of gas per hour for operation in full capacity. 

The rated capacity of the Dushanbe cement plant is 1.1 million tons of cement per year.  The plant has four revolving furnaces with annual capacity of 600 tons each and two smaller furnaces with annual capacity of 300 tons each.