The Siguaney Cement Factory, in the central province of Sancti Spíritus, started its production this week after seven months without activity due to problems in the kiln. To this was added the exacerbated energy deficit this year.
According to a report from the newspaper Escambraythe resumption of production at the plant, located in the town of Taguasco, Spirit, was made possible by the importation of refractory bricks to repair the kiln.
Gonzalo Reina Aguilar, director of the entity, told the local media that “the Taguasquense industry has managed to produce more than 1,000 metric tons of clinker in the renovated kiln, thanks also to the better energy situation in the country, which allows the necessary allocations of electricity to this plant.
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Since the restart of the process this week, Siguaney exceeded 500 tons of gray cement. These are marketed in the provinces of Sancti Spíritus and Ciego de Ávila. In these territories, as throughout the country, the material has been in short supply in recent months while the demand is very high.
The Siguaney Factory, founded in 1971, is one of the few that produce cement in Cuba, where this material is not imported. The fact supposes a notable pressure for the national industry, immersed in a modernization process that began in 2018 and from which the Government has not achieved the results it expected, since the works are more than a year behind schedule.
according to a study published in OnCuba Two months ago, in Taguasco, the construction of a new factory with Chinese capital was planned next to the current Siguaney and said investment never materialized.
In 2021, the engineer Saúl Rodríguez, technical director of the company, explained that the modernization process of the new plants in Santiago and Nuevitas “was going to extend to Siguaney”, but since there was no “financial capacity to assume a third factory (…) the eastern part of the country was prioritized, which is where the most demand and the least there was an offer”.
The interruption of production in Siguaney in the first half of the year will prevent Cuba from fulfilling its plan of 1 million 400 thousand tons in 2022, far removed from its best productions in the 1980s, when they were produced. more than 3 million 500 thousand tons.
The Cuban cement industry has been greatly affected by technological obsolescence that causes continuous stoppages of its plants; the scarcity of fuels due to the high consumption; the lack of financing to maintain the equipment and buy new ones; and the labor fluctuation of its human resources.
