CONSTRUCTION
Cimentos de Moรงambique continues to create prosperity for the country, not only by supplying major infrastructure with high quality cement, but through generating opportunities for people and communities Writer: Tom Wadlow Project Manager: Josh Mann
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or a building material that traces back to ancient Greece and Rome, cement, it is fair to suggest, has stood the ultimate test of time. Around 2,000 years ago, human ingenuity deduced a reaction between lime and volcanic ash when mixed with water, a cementing material which formed the basis of huge swathes of construction work in Western Europe, the classic pozzolana cement gaining its name from the Italian city Pozzuoli. The Portland cement we are familiar with today was first developed in England by John Smeaton before being patented by Joseph Aspdin in 1824, who produced the material from a synthetic mixture of limestone and clay, a move which sparked an enormous spread of cement manufacturing worldwide throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Worldwide production is still on the rise today, the 4.1 billion tonnes made in 2019 markedly higher than
THE VIRTUOUS CEMENT CYCLE the 3.3 billion tonnes recorded in 2010, although slightly under the 4.18 billiontonne peak witnessed in 2014. The wider point, however, is that modern-day construction is still reliant on the production of cement in enormous volumes all over the world. In Mozambique, almost all of its
20th and 21st century infrastructure carries the cement stamp of just one organisation. For almost 100 years, state-run and now privately owned Cimentos de Moรงambique has been producing this vital building material all over the country, a defiant constant during a Africa Outlook issue 83 | 27
