Crown Cement, one of Bangladesh's leading cement makers, yesterday announced that it has been able to finally start commercial production at a sixth unit earlier this month on deferring it several times.

The reasons include difficulties in importing machineries for a US dollar crisis and delays by the associated suppliers for the Russia-Ukraine war, the company said in a statement on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) website.

The listed company had earlier targeted to begin production at the new unit in Mukterpur, Munshiganj, a district adjoining Dhaka, in October last year. Its previous probable schedule was February 2023.

With the sixth unit, Crown Cement's daily production capacity will reach 19,000 tonnes whereas it was 11,000 tonnes a year ago, as per the company's annual report for fiscal year 2022-23.

This takes its annual production capacity to 57 lakh tonnes.

"We have started production of the new unit from January 5. We wanted to begin production in October 2023 but we could not because of several challenges," Md Alamgir Kabir, vice chairman of Crown Cement, told The Daily Star yesterday.

The dollar crisis and the Russia-Ukraine war caused the delay, he said.

Shares of Crown Cement rose 3.46 percent before closing at Tk 77.80 at the DSE yesterday.

The cement maker produced 31.54 lakh tonnes of cement in fiscal year 2022-23 when its capacity was 33.24 lakh tonnes, meaning it had utilised 95 percent of its capacity.

In fiscal year 2021-22, its capacity utilisation was at 89 percent, according to its annual report.

The cement maker's sales in fiscal year 2022-23 stood at Tk 2,418 crore and it posted earnings, meaning after-tax net income, of Tk 60.75 crore in the same year.

It had incurred a loss of Tk 22.9 crore in the previous year.

Kabir expected Crown Cement to do good business this year because of its exports. "We will be able to utilise 30 percent of the capacity of the sixth unit this year," he added.

Bangladesh has 34 cement manufacturing companies and their combined production capacity after optimization would be around 6.8 crore tonnes. Annual demand is 4.2 crore tonnes, according to Kabir.