MONTEGO BAY, St James — Suppliers of pre-mixed concrete and some of the major projects to which they provide the construction material are reeling from a cement shortage that is wreaking havoc on their ability to plan effectively.

“We constantly have to be calling customers to rearrange pours, hoping we will get cement. [Last] Friday we couldn’t do any work because we didn’t have any cement. It will affect the deadline [of projects] , depending on the customer’s deadline and how much lead time they have in their schedule. It will affect every customer,” production manager of Jamaica Concrete Premix Limited Shervin Graham told the Jamaica Observer on Monday.

The US$450-million luxury residential resort in St James, The Pinnacle, is among Jamaica Concrete Premix Limited’s customers. Yangsen Li, the CEO of LCH Developments, which is behind the project, confirmed that the cement shortage will hurt.

“It is going to delay the project if the cement short,” he told the Observer. “If the country is short on cement everybody will be affected.”

According to Jamaica Concrete Premix Limited’s Graham, smaller players — for example, someone building a house — will be among the most severely impacted. He said they tend to direct their anger at his company, not Caribbean Cement Company Ltd (CCCL) which supplies 90 per cent of the local market and has indicated it is having a shortage in supply.

“A lot of people going to tell you that they rent board [used in setting concrete] and they can’t get [mixed cement to] pour. It usually come on us because we are the ones who are supposed to pour the job and we are not pouring it. So a lot of people complain about their deadlines and they have to send back rental of board and all of that,” Graham explained.

In a release last Saturday, CCCL said it was “aware that some customers are experiencing delays in obtaining cement” and promised there would be relief soon. It said the supply was impacted by a combination of an interruption due to routine maintenance of a kiln and unexpected demand to meet post-hurricane related construction.

CCCL promised inventory would return to normal “during the coming days”.

It added, “Notwithstanding these challenges, the company continued to deliver products to the market. We recognise the importance of our operations to the construction industry and are working diligently to replenish inventories as quickly as possible for our valued customers.”

That is good news for managing director of OW Hardware and Construction Oliver Warren. On Monday he told the Observer his Trelawny-based business had been hit hard by the cement shortage for more than a week.

“Business is slow at the hardware. We can’t make any money. Without cement there is no hardware. It affects me bad,” Warren complained.