Tokyo Cement invests Rs. 2.5 b in Colombo Port Bulk Terminal capacity expansion

Tokyo Cement Managing Director S.R. Gnanam (centre) together with Executive Director Christopher Fernando (left) and Group Marketing Manager Dashantha Udawatte at the commissioning of added capacity at the Tokyo Cement Colombo Terminal

Tokyo Cement Group recently commissioned operations of the newly expanded capacity at the Tokyo Cement Colombo Port Terminal in a soft opening ceremony.  

The event is the culmination of a Rs. 2.5 billion worth investment by the cement giant, held under the auspices of Managing Director S.R. Gnanam and Executive Director Christopher Fernando. This operations expansion further reiterates the company’s commitment to boost the local economy as a truly Sri Lankan organisation.

Once fully operational, the Tokyo Cement Terminal situated inside the Colombo Port will be geared to handle a total capacity of 450,000 MT of cement per annum. With the newly commissioned storage, bagging and distribution capacity expansion project Tokyo Cement provides a fresh assurance of an uninterrupted cement supply for customers in the Western Province.  

The capacity upgrade of the Tokyo Cement Colombo Terminal will come online when all three new cement storage silos, each with a capacity of 6,000 MT, become fully operational. This terminal expansion ramps up Tokyo Cement’s total bulk cement imports operation from 600,000 MT per annum  to over 1,000,000 MT per annum to supplement Tokyo Cement’s local production capacity of over 3,000,000MT p.a. 

Adding more storage and local distribution capacity to the bulk cement operation will result in better local value creation that benefits a vast network of suppliers attached to local packaging, distribution, and logistics operations as opposed to importing bagged cement as a finished product.  

In line with this expansion, the company doubled bulk cement distribution operations carried out at the Tokyo Cement Colombo Terminal from 30,000 MT to 60,000 MT during the month of December. Apart from providing a firm solution to prevent the cement shortage prevalent in the market currently, this move ensured efficient cement distribution to reach consumers in every part of the island.  

As the country’s largest cement manufacturer, this far-sighted project was initiated as part of the company’s readiness plan to cater to the growth in demand in the local construction industry. In addition, the company also laid foundations recently for a factory expansion project that will increase its manufacturing capacity by another 1 million MT. 

Through these unified efforts focused on enriching our local economy through local value addition, Tokyo Cement Group strongly reaffirms the company’s position as the leading partner in nation-building.