Photo caption: From left, Group Executive Director, (Strategy, Capital Projects & Portfolio Development) Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin; President/Chief Executive, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote; and Chairman Oriental Energy Resources, Mohammed Indimi; during a facility tour of Dangote Oil Petroleum, petrochemical Projects, Lekki Lagos on Saturday, July 10, 2021.
To address challenges related to the ease of distribution and availability of products across the country, especially among its value-chain service providers, Dangote Cement Plc and Dangote Fertiliser have acquired over 2,500 trucks for distribution services.
A statement by Dangote Group, on Sunday, said the cement firm made an investment of $150m trucks, trailers, bulk tankers, tippers, cargo trucks, and bulk cement tankers to meet the expected increase in demand for transportation of cement across the country while creating over 4,000 jobs in Nigeria.
Dangote Fertiliser, the statement added, has already taken delivery of 500 trucks from Dangote Sinotruk West Africa Limited (a joint venture between Dangote Industries Limited and Sinotruk China) for the distribution of Urea to different states of the country.
The newly acquired trucks are expected to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Dangote Cement Logistics network of distribution nationwide, as the company plans to commission its new cement plant in Okpella Edo state in a few weeks.
“We have acquired the new trucks in line with our new expansion capacity in Obajana, Ibese, Gboko, and the new cement plant at Okpella. The acquisition is due to the growing needs of the business, especially as regards the increased trucking demands encountered lately, due to the surge in the demand for cement,” the statement quoted Alhaji Abdu Dantata, Group Executive Director – Logistics and Distribution, Dangote Industries Limited.
According to him, “the establishment of our clinker export terminals at Apapa and Onne Port led to the purchase of heavy-duty tippers for haulage of clinker from the plants to the terminals.
“The introduction of these trucks would improve customers’ demand, improve on job creation in the country, as well as promote the economic development of Nigeria.”
Dantata said the company takes seriously the issue of safety of truck drivers and road users, which necessitated the collaboration between the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) and the company to attain zero tolerance to road crashes in the country. He said the company has embarked on adequate training on effective driving techniques.
The collaboration, he explained, involves recertification of drivers, pre-trip and post-trip inspection, drug test, real-time tracking of vehicles, root cause analysis, convoy movement, checkpoint policy, and sanctions among several others.
The locally assembled Sinotruk Howo trucks came in as semi-knocked-down kits (SKD), which were effectively assembled and commissioned for operations.
Dantata assured that the Dangote Sinotruk would continue the importation of semi-knocked-down kits into the assembling plant to support customers’ demand and improve job creation in the country.
