Fire halts production at S. Sulawesi cement factory

A fire at the PT Semen Tonasa IV plant in Bungoro, South Sulawesi, on Monday gutted the plant's newest mill machines.

The plant, owned by PT Semen Gresik Group, has estimated a loss in output of up to 8,000 tons of cement a day.

Gresik corporate secretary Sunardi Prionomurti said production at the plant would stop for at least 10 days.

“We need maybe 10 days to repair the machine,” he said.

“I expect the total production loss for the 10 days reach 60,000 tons. We sell the cement for Rp 750,000 (US$87.75) a ton. So, we could have financial losses of around Rp 45 billion,” Sunardi said.

Burning cables at the finishing plant were believed to have triggered the fire.

“The cables burned and caused a bigger fire. The fire gutted two of our newest machines.” (lfr)