Local cement factories are facing problems in obtaining fly ash, used in cement production, as local barges have stopped carrying the item from India since July 1 following restrictive measures taken by the Kolkata Port authority.
The cement manufacturers are being compelled to import the item through land ports, the transportation cost of which is higher. As a result the prices of each 50-kg bag of cement increased by Tk.20 in the local market in the past one week.
The Kolkata port issued a circular July 1 this year restricting the loading of fly ash to full capacity of a vessel after a fully loaded Bangladeshi barge sank near the port, creating dislocation in vessel movement. The circular said a barge will be allowed to load fly ash upto 70 per cent of its capacity.
"We have stopped transporting fly ash from Kolkata port since July 1. Not a single vessel carried the raw material during this period," said Khuirshid Alam, senior vice president of Bangladesh Cargo Vessel Owners Association (BCVOA).
Local cement manufacturers prefer carrying of the raw material in barges up to Narayanganj because of cost effectiveness.
Fly ash constitutes around 20 per cent of cement composition.
They also use slag, a substitute for fly ash, but the prices are higher than that of the fly-ash.
The prices of fly ash ranged between US$ 18- $ 20 each tonne while the prices of slag ranged between $ 40 and $ 42 a tonne.
However, country's multinational cement manufacturers are procuring the input through Sona Masjid Land Port from a thermal plant in West Bengal in India.
Sources at the multinational cement manufacturers told the FE that their production cost increased following import of fly ash through Sonamasjid port, a land custom station in Chapainawabganj.
"The prices of fly-ash procurement from India through land port rose by around $ 5.0 for each tonne," said Shankar Kumar Roy, general manger of Holcim, a Switzerland-based cement company.
Mohamed Alamgir, a director of Crown Cement, told the FE that some large factories are being forced to import slag from Orissa in India by sea.
He also said using slag in lieu of fly ash is expensive and it is contributing to the rise in the cement production cost.
Mohammed Ershad Hoque, a senior official of the Premier cement told the FE, "I have a stock of around 10,000 tonnes of fly-ash, I am now using it but will face trouble when it depletes," he said.
"They (Indian authorities) want to increase the number of Indian vessels in the route by violating protocol," said Abdul Karim, acting president of BCVOA.
Around 150 Bangladeshi barges used to ply on the route under a protocol called - Inland Water-country Trade and Transit Protocol - while only few Indian vessels ply on the route.
Bangladesh usually import around 60,000 tonnes of fly ash each month for its cement industries.
There are around 35 cement factories currently in operation out of 70 factories, having capacity to produce around 20 million tones per annum. Bangladesh local demand for cement is around 8.0 million tonnes a year.
