Chairman of BUA Group, Abdulsamad Rabiu, has revealed to Reuters that the company is in talks with SINOMA, a Chinese company to build a cement plant in Nigeria and two others in East Africa for $1.9 billion.
The two cement plants to be built will have an annual capacity of three million tonnes each, and will cost $700 million, while the steel plant will have a capacity of 1.2 million tonnes and will cost $1.2 billion.
This will not be the first time BUA and Sinoma will be partnering in such deals, in January 2015, BUA group signed a $600m contract with Sinoma to double capacity at its flagship cement plant to expand its market share in Africa.
Sinoma is the only enterprise that possesses core technology and a complete innovation system in the non-metallic material industry in China. SINOMA is an innovative international corporate group that incorporates scientific research and design, equipment manufacturing, engineering and construction as well as international trade. SINOMA has ranked among China Top 500 for years on end.
The company also leads in three major industries: Non-metallic materials manufacturing, Non-metallic materials equipment and engineering and Non-metallic mining.
This is not the first time Sinoma would be investing big in Nigeria and parts of Africa, Last year the Chinese company signed $4.34 billion deal with Dangote in order to build various cement plants across Africa.
On its part, BUA Group, specializes in the importation and marketing of iron & steel, agricultural and industrial chemicals. Earlier in January, BUA announced the divestment of its flour business to Olam International in a deal worth USD275million.