President John Dramani Mahama has commissioned the world’s largest calcined clay cement plant at the Tema industrial enclave, marking a major milestone in the nation’s industrialisation drive and transition toward low-carbon sustainable manufacturing.
It Is also aimed at ensuring sustainable industrialisation, climate-smart growth and a hub for innovative manufacturing in West Africa.
The $110-million plant, which is being operated by CBI Ghana Limited, producers of Supacem cement, has an installed capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of cement and 400,000 tonnes of calcined clay cement annually.
It is designed to operate continuously in line with the government’s 24-Hour Economy policy. Currently, it is said to have already created some 109 direct jobs, including engineers and technicians, and more than 1,000 indirect jobs across the supply chain.
The plant uses locally sourced clay from the Torgome Traditional Area in the Volta Region to partially replace imported clinker in cement production, significantly reducing carbon emissions and foreign exchange dependence.
Traditional cement production accounts for about eight per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions, while calcined clay technology enables the Tema facility to cut emissions, and maintain the strength and quality required for modern construction.
President Mahama described the project as significant, and would support the Big Push programme in the construction of roads, interchanges, culverts and drains with locally produced cement, adding that the government spent huge sums of money on infrastructural development.
He said the project was tangible proof of the government’s Economic Reset Agenda moving from promise to practice.
“This investment signals to domestic and international investors that the country is serious about industrialisation, sustainability and private-sector partnership,” the President said.
He said the country aimed to increase the manufacturing share of GDP to at least 15 per cent by 2030, potentially creating 500,000 jobs.
President Mahama further said that the plant could also benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) due to its high local content meeting rules-of-origin requirements.
Commitment
The Minister of Trade, Agribusiness and Industry, Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare, said “for years, Ghana relied heavily on imported clinker, despite having all the raw materials beneath our feet”.
She also said that the plant would support the country’s international climate commitments, including its pledge under the Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 64 million tonnes by 2030.
Vision
The Managing Director of CBI Ghana, Frederic Albrecht, explained that the plant was built with capacity exceeding immediate needs to encourage industry-wide adoption of greener cement.
“We did not build this plant for CBI alone. We built it to support the next generation of construction in Ghana and beyond,” he added.
Mr Albrecht encouraged other manufacturers to incorporate locally produced calcined clay into their supply chains.
He expressed appreciation to stakeholders of the project, such as Norfund, Impact Fund Denmark and Heidelberg Materials for their confidence and support, which he said were critical to the project’s success.
For her part, the Swiss Ambassador to Ghana, Simone Giger, described the plant as both an industrial milestone and a symbol of sustainable innovation.
“This facility demonstrates what is possible when vision meets investment, technology aligns with local ingenuity and sustainability becomes a business strategy rather than a slogan,” she said.
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