Cerebos, a local investor, has announced a R85-million expansion and relocation project in the Coega Industrial Development Zone in the Eastern Cape’s Nelson Mandela metro.
Managing director Len Chandler said on Thursday the expansion meant the company would remain in the metro, retaining and even increasing jobs for the local communities.
”The expansion into the new plant will see Cerebos using innovative new technology that has never been used in Sub-Saharan Africa to produce high purity sodium chloride known as pure vacuum dried salt (PVD),” said Chandler.
This sodium chloride was of a better quality and was produced through an environmentally friendlier process.
Chandler said that the environmental impact assessment was currently under way for the installation of a six-tonne-per-hour evaporation and crystalisation plant.
Construction work of the new plant was scheduled to start in July.
”Local demand for PVD salt exceeded our supply so we had to turn some customers down, but all that will be history when the new plant is operational in September 2007,” said Chandler.
The investment was made possible through a strategic partnership with the Development Bank of Southern Africa and Khumo Bathong Strategic Investments, a black economic empowerment partner, he said. – Sapa