The oil ministry has cut off natural gas supply to clinker producers, with the aim of helping them get rid of extra expenses they bear during the winter, said Abdolreza Sheikhan, the secretary of Iran’s Cement Industry Employers Association.
Sheikhan said the clinker factories’ depots were so full that any further production could lead to reduced qualities, adding that the discontinuation of clinker production as the raw material for cement will hold until the supplies run out, according to ILNA.
The move has also been assessed as good leverage for regulating the cement market. The abundant production of clinker during the recent months and the consequent production of cement launched a negative competition among the cement producers in a way that they supplied the material below the market prices.
Now, Sheikhan believes, the cement makers produce the material based on the market demand which will prevent price cuts and will increase their income.
According to the Cement Association, the move will also enable the oil ministry to deliver natural gas to other industrial sectors as well as to household consumers in a more efficient manner.
The cement industry has been dealing with numerous problems lately, among them the reduction of export to the neighboring country of Iraq due to stricter laws enforced by Baghdad on the Iranian cement. Another blow to the cement industry has been the unprecedented slowdown in the country’s housing and construction sector during the past two years.
