Displaying items by tag: Clinker
Austria: Rail logistics company ÖBB Rail Cargo Group (RCG) says that its haulage of 80,000t/yr of granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) and clinker to and from w&p Zement's Wietersdorf cement plant in Carinthia by rail has removed 3200 trucks/yr from the road since its start in 2019. RCG's trains deliver the plant's clinker to the Peggau-Deutschfeistritz railway station in Styria, and return to the plant laden with GBFS from steel producer Voestalpine's nearby Leoben refinery.
RCG said that w&p Zement is currently working to increase its operations' reliance on rail, adding "Further innovative transport solutions are already being worked on."
China: China Resources Cement’s turnover fell by 21.5% year-on-year to US$3.08bn in the first nine months of 2022 from US$3.93bn in the same period in 2021. Its profit dropped by 65% to US$234m from US$677m. Cement and concrete sales volumes decreased by 17% to 52.5Mt and 26% to 8.04Mm3, although clinker sales volumes grew slightly. Sales by geographical region fell in all provinces, with the exception of Hunan. The company blamed falling profits on production costs and falling sales.
Thomas Gruppe acquires Opterra Zement and Opterra Beton from CRH
26 October 2022Germany: Ireland-based CRH has agreed to sell its subsidiaries Opterra Zement and Opterra Beton to Thomas Gruppe. Thomas Gruppe expects to complete its acquisition of the businesses later in 2022. Opterra Zement owns the 1.4Mt/yr Karsdorf, Saxony-Anhalt, cement plant and 0.5Mt/yr Sötenich, North Rhine-Westphalia, grinding plant, the latter of which is closed. Opterra Beton operates the Neufahrn, Bavaria, ready-mix concrete batching plant.
Thomas Gruppe said "For years, we have been pursuing a steady and long-term growth course in the field of cement and precast and ready-mix concrete. In the cement segment, our competitive position improved significantly with the purchase of the Erwitte (North Rhine-Westphalia) plant in 2017. Together with the grinding plant in Dorndorf (Thuringia), we have achieved a significantly larger area coverage in Germany, and also in the Netherlands, and benefit from synergy effects." It continued "We would like to continue on this growth course. An opportunity like the one to take over the cement plant in Karsdorf does not come often. The Karsdorf plant, with its gigantic limestone deposits, its market position of well over 1Mt/yr of cement and its experienced team, enables us better to supply our customers, and to leverage improvement potential. In addition, Karsdorf is of sufficient size for us to install CO2 separation technology in its production of clinker for the Dorndorf grinding plant." Thomas Gruppe concluded "We are convinced that cement will become a clean building material and believe in its future."
UAE: Asian Paints has partnered with Riddhi Siddhi Crusher & Land Transport and Associated Soap Stone Distributing Company in a 60:40 joint venture for the purpose of white cement and white cement clinker production. The joint venture will invest US$66.5m in the construction of a planned 265,000t/yr integrated cement plant in the Emirate of Fujairah. The project will take until October 2024 to complete. In addition, the new company plans to establish grinding units in India to serve the export market.
Riddhi Siddhi Crusher & Land Transport and Associated Soap Stone Distributing Company operates limestone mines in Fujairah.
Pakistan: Attock Cement recorded standalone sales of US$92.6m in its 2022 financial year, down by 3.6% year-on-year from US$96.1m in its 2021 financial year. The company produced 2.18Mt of clinker, down by 32% from 3.19Mt, corresponding to a capacity utilisation of 76%. The decision to reduce production came about due to high coal costs. Attock Cement sold 1.8Mt of cement, down by 10% from 2.01Mt in the 2021 financial year. The producer's cost of sales rose by 1.1% year-on-year to US$75.9m from US$75.1m. It profit after tax nonetheless grew by 1.2%, to US$5.07m from US$5.01m.
Chair Laith Pharaon said "The 2022 financial year was a challenging year for the company, as export sales remain depressed due to uncompetitive prices demanded by regional markets, which were also facing the uncertainties." He continued "Due to higher input costs owing to the significant increase in energy prices, the gross margin also declined by 4%. However, because of exchange gain on foreign receivables and dividend income received from its Iraq-based 60% subsidiary Saqr Al Keetan, operating margin improved by 3%.
Vietnam's nine-month cement and clinker exports decline
06 October 2022Vietnam: The Vietnam National Cement Association (VNCA) recorded combined national cement and clinker exports of 24.8Mt in the first nine months of 2022, down by 26% year-on-year from the same period in 2021. This corresponded to US$1.1bn in value, down by 14% year-on-year. Việt Nam News has reported that the VNCA expects to achieve total cement and clinker production of 107Mt, against a national capacity of 130Mt/yr. Domestic demand was 65Mt.
Earlier in 2022, Long Son Cement commissioned a new 2.5Mt/yr integrated cement plant, raising national overcapacity to 200% from 196%.
Update on Peru, October 2022
05 October 2022Cemento Yura said it was considering expanding cement and lime production this week. The announcement, made in an interview to business newspaper Gestión, follows a strong second quarter for the subsidiary of Grupo Gloria with clinker production volumes jumping up by 36% year-on-year to 0.51Mt. Overall for the half-year its clinker and cement production rose by 12.8% year-on-year to 0.86Mt and 12.7% to 1.47Mt. The success was attributed to consistent demand from the domestic sector as well as various large-scale mining projects. Julio Cáceres, the commercial director for its Cement, Concrete and Lime Division in Peru, Chile and Bolivia, wouldn’t say where the company was considering heading next, other than that remarking that it was attentive to new markets.
As Cáceres’ job title implies Cemento Yura also operates cement plants outside of Peru. At home it runs one integrated plant in the south of the country near to Arequipa as well as a lime plant at Juliaca. Outside of Peru though it also runs two integrated plants and a grinding unit in Bolivia, via its Sociedad Boliviana de Cemento (SOBOCE) subsidiary, and two integrated plants in Ecuador, via its Union Cementera Nacional (UCEM) subsidiary. The company also has assorted concrete assets. The international aspect to Cemento Yura’s business is interesting given that the larger cement producers in Peru are dominant in different parts of the country with Cementos Pacasmayo in the north, UNACEM (Unión Andina de Cementos) in the centre around Lima and Cemento Yura in the south. Notably, UNACEM also runs a plant in Ecuador and one in Arizona, US. It is also worth mentioning that competition issues have been reported in the local market previously. In mid-2021 Peru’s competition authority, the National Institute of the Defense of Competition and Intellectual Property Protection (INDECOPI), investigated Cemento Yura.
Cemento Yura’s rise in clinker production in the second quarter of 2022 is worth considering because in a previous interview with the local press Humberto Nadal, the chief executive officer of Cementos Pacasmayo, said that importing clinker had become more expensive in 2021. Subsequently, the company started a US$70m upgrade at its Pacasmayo plant to increase its production capacity by 0.6Mt/yr. In its second quarter financial results for 2022 Cementos Pacasmayo directly credited a 27% increase in its earnings on higher operating profits arising from decreasing costs by using less imported clinker. Sure enough data from Association of Cement Producers (ASOCEM) shows that both cement and clinker imports started to fall in October 2021 and have mostly followed a downward trend since then. Clinker imports fell by 41% year-on-year to 0.66Mt from January to August 2022 compared to the same period in 2021.
Graph 1: Cement production in Peru, 2014 – present. Source. Association of Cement Producers (ASOCEM).
Looking at the wider picture in Peru, cement production has stayed fairly consistent since 2014 at around 10Mt/yr. An upward trend probably started in 2019 but then the Covid-19 pandemic cut it off in the first half of 2022 before the market surged back in the second half of that year. 2021 was a good year with production peaking at 12.9Mt. So far the first eight months of 2022 have seen production rise by 5.3% year-on-year to 8.64Mt.
In summary, cement production is rising in Peru, importing clinker appears to have become more expensive for at least one of the producers and some of the larger local companies are investing in new production capacity, considering it or thinking about acquisitions elsewhere. Local clinker producers appear to be in a good place; clinker importers, or those reliant on it, not so much.
US: The US Department of Commerce has concluded a review of anti-dumping duties of imports of grey cement and clinker from Japan. The review established that the duties are necessary to the prevention of cement and clinker dumping. The department launched its review in June 2022, in line with legal requirements. Japanese cement and clinker have been subject to anti-dumping duties in the US since 1991.
Fives to supply Pillard NOVAFLAM burner to cement plant in France
30 September 2022France: Fives has secured a contract to supply a 65MW Pillard NOVAFLAM Evolution burner to a cement producer. The customer’s aims are to continue to maximise alternative fuel (AF) use, to improve clinker quality and to reduce NOx emissions at its cement plant. The order also includes precalciner burners and a natural gas-powered 35MW Pillard hot gas generator, as well as valve trains and pumping systems.
Ramco Cements commissions Kolumigundla cement plant
29 September 2022India: Ramco Cements has commissioned its new US$366m Kolumigundla cement plant in Andhra Pradesh’s Kurnool District. The Hindu Business Line News has reported that the plant has a clinker capacity of 2.25Mt/yr. It will be equipped with a 12.2MW waste heat recovery plant, 6MW-worth of which will be commissioned in October 2022, with the remainder to follow in 2023. A dedicated fossil fuel-fired power plant and 35km-long railway siding will follow some time in the 2024 financial year.