Ghorahi Cement Industry has launched its Sagarmatha brand cement . The company’s chairman PL Sanghai formally unveiled the new product at a ceremony on Thursday.

According to Ghorahi, Sagarmatha OPC (Ordinary Portland Cement) complies with Nepal Standards NS 49-2041. The company said that it was working for international recognition by obtaining ISO 9001 certification.

Director of the cement factory Aditya Sanghai said that the manufacturing plant of Sagarmatha cement is equipped with state-of-the-art technology from KHD Humbolt of Germany, which is considered to be one of the most reputed cement industry product suppliers in the world.

According to the company, the strength of Sagarmatha cement ranges from 55-60 MPa (mega pascal) while cement with a strength of 53 MPa is considered to be of high grade.

“By manufacturing high grade cement in the country, we aim to substitute imports from India and China,” said director Sanghai. “Our goal is to substitute imports of cement and clinker worth more than Rs 10 billion annually.”

Director Sanghai said that with this aim in mind, the company had invested heavily in high-end technologies to ensure that its products were of high quality. It has built a world class laboratory to monitor the quality of its cement regularly by using an X-ray analyzer, the first of its kind in Nepal.   

According to Sanghai, Ghorahi handles the entire production process from “quarry to lorry”, that is, from mining limestone to processing it into clinker and then into high grade cement . He added that the closed circuit grinding unit which has a capacity of grinding 750 tonnes of cement per day has been supplied by LNVT Technologies. The unit is equipped with automatic rotary-packers which prevent leakage and conduct precision packaging of 50 kg of cement in a sack.

Ghorahi Cement Industry has claimed to be the largest clinker manufacturer in the country. It has a capacity of manufacturing 1,200 tonnes of clinker daily. Apart from manufacturing its own cement brand, the company also supplies clinker to other companies.

Meanwhile, Ghorahi has worked with Himalayan Climate Initiatives to establish an eco-friendly cement factory, the company said. Sanghai said that the company has invested Rs 30 million to reduce air and noise pollution. “The factory has planned to use rice husk, paint sludge, shredded tyres, polythene, plastics and other materials available in place of coal as fuel,” he added.

source: the kathmandu post,21 June 2013