Island Cement Ltd.'s president Myron Piper believes his company is the best qualified bidder to run the Dockyard Cement Facility.

The company submitted a proposal to Government to lease and operate the plant at Dockyard, as revealed in The Royal Gazette last month.

Mr. Piper said Island Cement ticks all the boxes for Government's requirements for a 100-percent Bermudian owned and operated company, as well as its mandate for black empowerment.

It is also backed by the Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU), which was gifted a 20-percent stake in Island Cement.

Furthermore, as previously revealed in a letter leaked to the Gazette, Titan Cement has proposed to supply 60,000 metric tonnes of bulk cement per year to Island Cement over 10 years, adding weight to the company's case to run the plant.

Meanwhile the facility's landlord West End Development Company (Wedco) confirmed it granted current leaseholder Maxcem a six-month extension to its deal that expired at the end of June this year.

But a decision is still to be made on who will be awarded the contract at the end of 2008.

Mr. Piper said that the shares in Island Cement would be evenly spread across the board between the shareholders, all of whom are Bermudian, with the BIU being handed a 20-percent stake in the company.

"Twenty percent of the shares in Island Cement were gifted to the Union in order to meet the criteria that Government was looking for," said Mr. Piper. "There will be four owners and the Union will be one of them with no one having any controlling shareholding in the company.

"What better way to get Bermudians involved than having 100-percent Bermudian shareholders in a company that represents their industry? We are the only ones that meet the criteria."

He welcomed the chance to discuss Island Cement's bid with Government and a decision being made on it. "A decision hasn't been made on it - as yet we are still waiting on a decision," he said.

Wedco's general manager Andrew Dias said that Maxcem had been granted a further six months to its original contract, taking it up until the start of 2009. He said: "It will be the same tenant we are still in negotiations with."

Jim Butterfield, former majority shareholder, along with six other shareholders of Bermuda Cement Company (BCC), which had been operating the facility at Dockyard for 40 years, agreed to sell their stakes in the company to Dennis Correia, husband of former PLP candidate Jane Correia, giant cement manufacturer Cemex, Christopher Shanks and Paul Simons after five years of protracted discussions.

As of January this year, Dennis Correia wais the majority stakeholder in the new company Maxcem with 48,000 shares, followed by Cemex with 46,353 shares, while Mr. Shanks owned 10,800 shares, and Mr. Simons 2,745 shares, while Michael and Anette Bierman retained the 5,622 shares and 3,815 shares they respectively previously owned, as did SAL Ltd. with 2,019 shares and Fiduciary Partners with 646 shares, according to Register of Shareholders records.

Mr. Butterfield decided to sell up because he thought it was too expensive to meet Wedco's demands to demolish the silos and rebuild the plant at a new site, estimating reconstruction costs of between $12 million and $15 million, and it was not financially viable to sign a 20-year lease, while Wedco told the BCC shareholders their lease would not be renewed.

There was no response from Maxcem at time of going to press.