Cement prices may be manipulated in Nigeria, FCCPC says

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has said preliminary findings from an industry-wide investigation suggest possible manipulation of cement prices in the Nigerian market.

The commission said the findings were contained in 40-page field reports compiled after a three-month cross-border study by its Anticompetitive Practices Department (ACP).

“Concerns were raised over the comparatively high retail price of cement in Nigeria compared with other markets, despite the country’s substantial limestone deposits, significant domestic production capacity and reported surplus installed capacity relative to domestic consumption.

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“Significantly, all the major cement manufacturers in the country cooperated with the Commission by making their records available except one of them”.

According to a statement signed by Ondaje Ijagwu, FCCPC explained that publicly available estimates indicate that three major undertakings account for more than 90 percent of installed production capacity in the country.

“The ACP investigations extended to markets in Sub-Saharan Africa like Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa as well as Egypt, Morocco and Algeria.

“Metrics adopted included the availability of limestone, the basic raw material for cement production, as well as other variables such as population, production capacity and consumption.

“In Kenya, for instance, the 58.6 million population (76% lower than Nigeria’s) has domestic cement demand of approximately 9.3m MTPA (metric tonne per annum) in 2025. Retail price in Nairobi is $5.40 (N7,344). Kenya is endowed with limestone”.

The statement noted that in Tanzania, “with population of 66.3m (72% lower than Nigeria’s) and…