Ebrahim Gholamzadeh, a manager and activist in Iran’s cement industry, said: “Today, Iran’s cement industry is in a situation where it has practically become the first victim of the country’s energy crisis; an industry that became one of the country’s major, strategic, and export-oriented industries during the 1980s with great effort, the bloodlust of the managers of the time, heavy investments, and national support, is today simply exposed to erosion, closure, and destruction; as if it is of no serious importance to anyone and they treat it however they want.” He added: “It seems that there is no shorter wall than the cement industry for the consumption of the country’s produced diesel fuel, which is having trouble selling.” Unfortunately, instead of encouraging industries to use diesel fuel through incentive policies, reasonable pricing, and creating appropriate infrastructure, the Ministry of Oil has resorted to pressure and coercion, and by cutting off gas, it is forcing factories to use a fuel that is both several times more expensive than gas and has serious environmental consequences.
Gholamzadeh said: “In the meantime, some cement units are basically unable to use diesel fuel. For example, Lamerd Cement Company, due to its great distance from refining centers and lack of economic transportation infrastructure, is practically unable to provide a sustainable supply of diesel fuel, and in the past two years, due to the lack of sustainable fuel, it has produced at only about 60 percent of capacity. The result of this policy of the Ministry of Oil is nothing but the gradual closure of cement factories.”
According to him, on the other hand, the industry has not yet recovered from the shock of gas restrictions, and severe electricity restrictions are also on the way, and the sharp edge of these restrictions has been directed towards the country’s cement industry. This is while the country’s 75 active cement units account for a total of about 1.5 to 2 percent of the country’s electricity consumption, and reducing the production of this industry will not cure the pain of a 20 to 25 percent imbalance in electricity in the summer season; but it can destroy a large industry, investors, shareholders, and a chain of related industries.
This cement industry activist said: Reducing cement production is not just a problem for one factory or one industry. Cement is the basic material for many construction, building, road construction, dam construction, infrastructure projects, concrete parts, transportation, packaging, technical and engineering services, and dozens of related industries. When cement production decreases, its wave is transmitted to numerous other industries, and an important part of the country’s development chain is practically damaged.