Displaying items by tag: Clinker
Carthage Cement wins clinker export contract
13 December 2017Tunisia: Carthage Cement has secured a contract to export 350,000t of clinker to sub-Saharan Africa in 2018. The deal will enable the cement producer to enter this market for the first time. Neither the name of the other company nor the exact destination has been disclosed.
Update on Chile
12 July 2017Sad news this week from the Talcahuano cement plant in Chile that is to stop producing clinker. Local media reports that the Cementos Bío Bío unit has decided to import clinker from Asia instead, which will reduce its production costs. At the same time it has laid off a third of its workforce. The plant has been producing cement since 1961.
The decision carries echoes of Holcim New Zealand’s closure of its Westport cement plant in 2016, another unit in a country on the Pacific Rim. However, in that country LafargeHolcim has purposely moved towards becoming a distribution company by opening import terminals and depots. Plus the local subsidiary benefits from the cement-trading arm of a multinational company. By contrast, local producer Cementos Bío Bío still retains two integrated plants and a grinding plant in Chile. Following the closure its production share from integrated plants will drop to 2.4Mt/yr (39%) from 3.2Mt/yr (45%). The country will retain a total production capacity of 6.2Mt/yr from its clinker producing plants.
The timing of Cementos Bío Bío’s decision is also interesting given that the Chilean competition authority (TDLC) approved Hurtado Vicuña Group to buy a controlling stake in Cemento Polpaico from LafargeHolcim in early July 2017. The deal was originally announced in October 2016 to sell LafargeHolcim’s 54.3% stake in Cemento Polpaico for US$225m. The sale includes one integrated plant with a cement production capacity of 2.3Mt/yr and two grinding plants. Hurtado Vicuña has not been required by the regulator to sell any of its cement units but it has been asked to sell parts of its concrete business and to abide to a ban on repurchasing the assets within 10 years. Hurtado Vicuña owns Cementos BSA, a subsidiary that runs the El Bosque cement grinding plant in Santiago and it has just started-up production at a new 0.95Mt/yr grinding plant at Quilicura, also near the capital.
In its 2016 annual report LafargeHolcim reported that cement sales volumes of cement fell in Chile due to a fall in the residential construction market in the second half of the year. However it did manage to raise its operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBTIDA) off the back of higher prices and lower production costs compared to the previous year. Cementos Bío Bío concurred with this assessment of the market in its 2016 report, lamenting the country’s poor economic growth since 2015 and declines in the mining and construction sectors. Despite this its cement despatches rose very slightly to 1.56Mt in 2016. The big drop in its sales occurred in 2014 when its sales fell by 10% year-on-year to 1.51Mt. More recently, Bío Bío noted a 37% decrease in its operating profit for its cement, concrete and lime division for the first quarter of 2017 due to falling sales volumes and margins in cement and lime. However, it did benefit from falling costs for energy and petcoke inputs. The group also announced plans to sell a minority stake in itself in February 2017.
These stories show another country that is realigning its cement industry to a clinker-rich world market. Chile appears to retain a ‘big three’ group of local clinker producers that has shifted with the rise of Cementos BSA and the departure of LafargeHolcim. However, the market share in the cement grinding business has changed significantly as Cementos BSA has gained both an integrated plant and a more national profile, away from the capital, with its grinding plants. Once the local market picks up it will be interesting to see whether this trend towards clinker import and local grinding continues.
Chile: Cementos Bío Bío is to stop producing clinker at its Talcahuano cement plant. The cement producer has also laid off a third of its workforce, according to Pura Noticia. It now plans to import clinker from Asia instead, which it says, will reduce its production costs by US$19/t. The company started cement production at Talcahuano in 1961.
Vietnam: Bim Son Cement has ordered a vertical roller mill to grind clinker and slag from Loesche for its 4Mt/yr plant in Thanh Hóa province. The new mill will have a throughput of 250t/hr and be able to grind input materials into Ordinary Portland Cement PCB 40. The order also includes a silo, blower, filter and a packing plant. The new mill is scheduled for commissioning in August 2017. No value for the order has been disclosed.
The subsidiary of Vietnam National Cement Corporation (VICEM) previously commissioned a mill from Loesche in 2000. This was followed by a raw mill and a coal mill in 2006.
Bhutan: A broken gearbox at a coal mill at the Penden Cement Authority plant in Gomtu has reduced its production. The plant has had intermittent mechanical issues with the gearbox in one of its two coal grinding mills since April 2017 leading to a breakdown in May 2017, according to the Kuensel newspaper. Then in June 2017 a similar problem occurred with the main drive gear in its other coal mill. The plant has been producing cement using imported clinker since then although it shut down completely for several days in late June 2017.
So far the cement producer has been unable to procure replacement parts. It has also been reported that the company has had difficulty importing clinker from India following the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
Gabon: Morocco’s Ciments de l'Afrique (CIMAF) is planning to upgrade its cement grinding plant at Owendo with a clinker production line. The upgrade is anticipated to double the plant’s cement production capacity to 1.2Mt/yr from 0.6Mt/yr, according to Agence Ecofin. CIMAF plans to invest Euro150m in the project. Potential quarry sites at Ntoum and Nkoltang have been identified to support the initiative. The upgrade is intended to meet local demand and to provide export options to the Republic of the Congo and Cameroon. CIMAF’s grinding plant was opened in June 2016.
Saudi Arabia: Cement sales have fallen by 19% year-on-year to 22.6Mt/yr in the first five months of 2017. Clinker production decreased by 11.3%, according to a market report by Al Rajhi Capital. Northern Cement and Najran Cement recorded the highest declines in the period at 50% and 43% respectively. The report does not expect demand to pick up in the remainder of 2017. Overall it forecasts a 14% fall in sales volumes to around 47Mt in the year. Saudi Cement, Yamama Cement, Yanbu Cement and Najran Cement hold 50% of the total inventory in the sector at 4.9Mt, 4Mt, 3Mt and 2.8Mt respectively.
LafargeHolcim to import 0.25Mt of clinker into Argentina
17 April 2017Argentina: Holcim Argentina plans to import about 0.25Mt of clinker with a value of US$16.3m from May 2017 to April 2018. The product will arrive in six separate vessels carrying 41,800t each, according to the El Cronista newspaper. The cement producer says that the imports are intended to cover local demand that it can’t meet with its own production base. The company’s director Carlos Moreno added that the price of imported clinker is ‘competitive.’ The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim has a cement production of 4.8Mt/yr from plants in Campana in Buenos Aires, Malagueño in Córdoba, Puesto Viejo in Jujuy and Las Heras in Mendoza.
Clinker imports to Nepal rise rapidly in last half year
21 February 2017Nepal: Data from the Trade and Export Promotion Centre (TEPC) has shown that the value of imports of clinker has increased by nearly six times year-on-year to US$84m in the first six months of the Nepalese fiscal year to mid-January 2017 from US$14m in the same period in the previous year. Dhurba Thapa, president of the local Cement Manufacturers Association, told the Kathmandu Post that the surge in clinker imports was due to a market correction following a ban on exports imposed by India in the previous year. He added that imports of clinker from India account for around 35 – 40% of Nepal’s total consumption.
Nepal: The value of clinker imported from India into Nepal has risen by 674% year-on-year to US$60.5m in the first four months of the local financial year that started on 16 July 2016 from US$7.8m from the same period in the previous year, according to the Trade and Export Promotion Centre. Dhruba Raj Thapa, president of Cement Manufacturers Association of Nepal, in comments to the Himalayan Times attributed the surge to a lack of raw materials, including limestone, which has forced producers to import clinker from India. He added that government restrictions on opening new mines have restricted the local industry's ability to produce its own clinker.