Ethiopia’s Messebo Cement Company has signed a five year deal with the Egyptian Company for Solid Waste Recycling (ECARU), for the supply of waste based fuels to replace coal at its cement kins. According to ECARU – a subsidiary of Qalaa Holdings’ Tawazon – the agreement between the two companies will see it act as the technology and service provider responsible for collecting, transporting and processing local Biomass that will be converted to environmentally-friendly alternative solid fuel.
Tawazon, Qalaa Holdings’ subsidiary company for investment in the regional solid waste management industry, controls two companies: waste management firm, ECARU, and Engineering Tasks Group (ENTAG), a solid waste management technology provider. Together, these two companies form a waste management enterprise with extensive operations in Egypt and an international project book in Oman, Malaysia, Sudan, Nigeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Syria. “Biomass is a renewable, carbon neutral energy source that comes from agricultural residues that would otherwise be openly burned,” commented Hisham Sherif, CEO of ENTAG/ECARU. “This waste to energy solution for heavy industries such as cement manufacturing, is beneficial on multiple fronts,” he continued. “It helps nations solve their Biomass challenges, it reduces emissions that come from burning fossil fuels such as fuel oil, natural gas and coal, and it is a more cost-efficient and sustainable source of energy.”
ECARU noted that it has been supplying alternative Solid fuel, Biomass, as a source of energy to Egypt’s leading cement companies for the past five years. The contract with Messebo Cement, which is located in Mekelle, 780 km from Addis Ababa with a production capacity of 2 million tonnes of cement per annum, can be renewed beyond the stipulated five year time period under the same terms and conditions.
Qalaa Holdings said that it invested in Tawazon as part of its energy portfolio which also includes TAQA Arabia, Egypt’s largest private sector energy distribution company and the Egyptian Refining Company (ERC), a US$ 3.7 billion refinery, Egypt’s largest in-progress, private sector mega project.
[waste-management-world.com]