The visit of experts from Lafarge, a French cement producer, came to an end on January 31st.
Riad Gasimov, the Deputy Executive Director of Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC), informed Trend that the key objective of the visit is to study the limestone fields, which will be selected depending on the location of the cement plant in Azerbaijan.
Mr. Gasimov said that the first examination was carried out in Garadagh field and the next will be studied during a forthcoming visit to the country either in middle or end of 2007.
Lafarge will select the optimal field containing enough volume of raw material for cement production. The examination will be completed by March 2007, he added.
AIC Observation Board is planning to make a resolution on the participation of this project. AIC's stake will comprise 20% and the rest will be held by Lafarge.
The Government of Azerbaijan, AIC and Lafarge signed a trilateral Memorandum of Intention on investing in cement production in Azerbaijan. A second memorandum between the Company and the Azerbaijan Ministry of Economic Development was concluded this week to confirm the Governments intentions. The Ministry of Economic Development will act as security to the project on construction of the cement plant. The project budget for the cement plant is $110-120mln with a capacity of 1-1.25mln tons. The location of the plant will depend on the feasibility study.