Gas shortages turn Nigeria's Dangote to coal to make cement

Nigeria's Dangote Cement has turned to locally-mined coal to fire its cement plants because of gas shortages due to militant attacks on Nigerian facilities and to lower its production costs. "All our cement plants have been converted to coal," Aliko Dangote, the company's billionaire majority owner and chairman, told a business conference on Thursday, adding they would use 12,000 metric tonnes of coal each day.