'THE GEOLOGY AND MINERAL RESOURCES OF DHUFAR PROVINCE, MUSCAT AND OMAN' [‎43r] (75/96)

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VI. INDUSTRIAL POSSIBILITIES
Cement and Lime Manufacture
91. With so much Limestone present, the first question is
whether the material is suitable for utilization on a profitable basis
and on a large scale. The analyses which have been given in
paragraph 86 , Limestones, show that the coastal Limestone, the
Miliolites, are of a quality suitable for the manufacture of Portland
Cement. This stone is from 8 to 20 feet thick (in places) but barely
20 feet above sea-level at Salalah, so that excavations up to 12 feet
may be made without water trouble. This depth may also be
regarded as the average thickness of the stone, which shows at the
surface in beds 12 to 18 inches thick, dipping gently, 5 degrees, to
the south, seawards. The material covers several square miles of
the coastal country, but probably not continuously, being better
developed between A1 Hush and Salalah to Hafa and near Takah
than at intermediate places. The deposits at Murbat are also not
very extensive and about 6 feet thick on any average. The Miliolite
limestone is porous and friable and so can be easily crushed and
made into slurry. The specific gravity of the stone is a little more
than 2-00 so that about 20 cubic feet may be reckoned to a ton (one
cubic foot per hundredweight). An area 440 yards square in
6 feet of workable Miliolite will, therefore, yield 500,000 tons of
stone. A modern cement factory An East India Company trading post. produces 500 tons of cement per
day from 750 tons of Limestone, so that the yearly consumption of
stone, reckoned at 400 days (to allow a margin), will be 300,000 tons
of Limestone. If l/16th of a square mile yields half a million tons
of stone then one square mile will yield 8 , 000,000 tons, which is a
25-year supply. The Dhufar Miliolite deposits would probably be
able to supply several cement factories of the above-mentioned
capacity. .
92. Portland Cement is being made at Dwarka, Kathiawar,
India, from exactly similar material (Miliolitic Limestone),, often
much more friable and locally spoken of as marl (which it is not,
since the term ‘marl’ assumes the presence of clay). Indeed a
considerable percentage of clay has to be added to make the correc
slurry at the Dwarka cement works, and clay will be required at any
Portland Cement works on the Dhufar plain. The Dwarka works
face the Arabian Sea without any shelter from the south-west monsoon
and thus the cement is carried westwards by rail, or to the new por
which the Government of Baroda have established 20 miles or so to