Nigeria set to have international cement research centre

Nigeria is set to become one of the six countries to have international cement research centres from Lafarge, a global leader in cement, aggregates and concrete making.

The country is on the verge of joining France, China, Brazil, India and Algeria as host to Lafarge’s development laboratory, which is targeted at developing new solutions and business opportunities to consumers through guaranteeing strong orientation towards products applications and construction systems, while deepening understanding of local constructive modes specificities.

Gilles Rochard, prospective research and development (R&D) director, Lafarge Group, disclosed this in Lyon, weekend, during a media tour of the Group’s facilities in France.

“There will be one in Nigeria,” Rochard said, while explaining the Group’s plan to launch the state-of-the-art research facility in Africa’s largest economy.

“I know Bruno Lafont (Group’s CEO) is pushing for that. In our business, we try to be active in innovations. We don’t research for the sake of it; we research to create products that will add value for our customers,” he said.

Lafarge Group operates in 62 countries and has 64,000 employees. Its annual sales worldwide total 15.2 Euros, while production sites are 1,636 in number. The Group’s research centre is occupied by 240 researchers, 60 percent of whom have PhDs in different disciplines. Its cutting-edge research is in collaboration with the world’s best teams of researchers from institutions such as Princeton University, Massachutes Institute of Technology (MIT), Ecole Nationale des Ponts and Chaussees, and the Navier Laboartory, Tsinghua University (Peking), as well as Swiss Federal Laboratory for Materials Science and Technology, among others.

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