Lafarge Africa CEO Michel Puchercos said: “We continued to deliver strong margins in our Nigerian business as a result of our commercial and energy strategies. At the same time, our results were still affected by the performance in South Africa.”
Lafarge Africa’s commercial, logistic and industrial operations in Q2 2018 continued to improve strongly despite inflation and Foreign Exchange impacts.
“We continued to deliver on our energy improvement plan, with notable increased use of Alternative Fuel and Coal. Our logistics and commercial initiatives such as improved product visibility and fast tracking of the new route to market also contributed to the strong performance in the second quarter,” said Puchercos.
Lafarge Africa’s South Africa business is said by Puchercos to be focused on executing its turnaround plan centred on the improvement of margins.
In its full 2018-year outlook, Lafarge Africa says the cement market in Nigeria remains favourable with “positive signs of recovery since March”. Lafarge Africa’s business turnaround actions will continue to deliver in 2018 through “energy optimisation” as well as “commercial and logistic improvement”.
For South Africa, Lafarge Africa expects the country’s economy to grow in 2018. The overall goal is to create shareholder value by returning Lafarge Africa’s SA business to profitability through improved margins.
