Displaying items by tag: Export
Indonesia: Semen Indonesia has detailed its plans for future exports of cement to North America. The Investor Daily newspaper has reported that the producer and subsidiary Solusi Bangun Indonesia will target 0.5 – 1Mt of cement exports to North America in 2021, according to president director Hendi Santoso. The export plans will be carried out in partnership with Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement, which already has a US market presence and owns a 15% stake in Solusi Bangun Indonesia. Hendi said that the move aims to ‘cushion’ the decline in domestic cement sales, down by 28% bulk and 13% bagged year-on-year in 2020. The company successfully exported cement to Australia, Bangladesh, China, Fiji and Sri Lanka in 2020.
President commissioner Rudi Antara said, "The Covid-19 outbreak still colours our lives. There is no other choice but to increase business efficiency and the top line outside of our main markets."
Dangote Cement grows sales and earnings in 2020
25 March 2021Nigeria: Dangote Cement has recorded sales of US$2.52bn in 2020, up by 16% year-on-year from US$2.18bn in 2019. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 21% to US$1.17bn from US$965m. Total cement sales volumes rose by 8% to 25.7Mt from 23.7Mt and Nigerian cement sales rose by 13% to 15.9Mt from 14.1Mt. Highlights for the year included the start of clinker exports from the Apapa terminal and the commissioning of the Onne cement terminal in Nigeria. The group also commissioned a gas power plant in Tanzania.
Chief executive officer Michel Puchercos said, “Despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 was a record year for Dangote Cement across the board. Several firsts made 2020 a productive year such as our maiden clinker shipment, maiden bond issuance and successful buyback programme. We increased our capacity by 3Mt/yr in Nigeria, commissioned our two export terminals and commissioned our gas power plant in Tanzania. All this was achieved whilst we focused on protecting our people, customers, and communities from the impact of the pandemic.”
Tajikistan: Tajik cement plants produced 4.2Mt of cement in 2020. Tajikistan Newsline has reported that cement exports for the year were 1.3Mt. Uzbekistan imported 764,000t, Afghanistan imported 505,000t and Kyrgyzstan imported 42,000t. The Tajikistan Ministry of Industry and New Technologies has predicted a 46% increase in cement exports to 1.9Mt/yr by 2023.
Cemex Dominicana to recommission production line
09 March 2021Dominican Republic: Cemex Dominicana plans to recommission line 1 at its 2Mt/yr integrated San Pedro de Macorís plant. The move is expected to increase its existing clinker production capacity by more than 0.5Mt/yr. The reactivation is scheduled for the last quarter of 2021. It is part of Cemex Dominicana's growth plan, seeking to strengthen its capacity to response to both local market demand and the export market.
"At Cemex Dominicana, we reiterate our commitment to the sustainable development of the Dominican Republic, in the context of boosting the national economy, aiming with these investment plans to reduce the need for imports, promote local industry, and contribute to the generation of employment in the country," said José Antonio Cabrera, Director of Cemex Dominicana.
Pakistan’s cement sales rise by 15% to 38.0Mt in first eight months of 2021 financial year
03 March 2021Pakistan: Members of the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) recorded cement sales of 38.0Mt in the eight-month period ending on 28 February 2021 – the first eight months of its 2021 financial year – up by 14% year-on-year from 33.3Mt in the corresponding period of the 2020 financial year. The Dawn newspaper has reported that exports rose by 7% to 6.33Mt from 5.94Mt while local dispatches rose by 16% to 31.6Mt from 27.4Mt.
The association said that producers face problematically high costs due to rises in coal and energy prices.
Nuh Cement exports 4.5Mt of cement in 2020
01 March 2021Turkey: Nuh Cement exported 4.5Mt of cement in 2020, corresponding to 22% of Turkish seaborne cement and clinker exports and over 2% of global seaborne cement and clinker in the year. It says the volume is the highest recorded in any year by a Turkish cement producer. The company also delivered the highest exports to the US from Turkey.
Nuh Cement international sales and marketing and port director Abdulhamit Akçay said, “I would like to extend my gratitude first and foremost to our respected clients, my export and port team under my command, production group management, maintenance group management, the purchasing department, the finance department, the human resources department, the information technology department and all other units and colleagues whose names have not been referred to, and our general manager and lastly but especially to our group chief executive officer who has led us with a unique leadership.”
Japan/Indonesia: Taiheiyo Cement says that its board has approved and concluded its deal with Semen Indonesia to buy a 15% stake in its subsidiary Solusi Bangun Indonesia (SBI) for around US$220m. As part of the agreement, SBI’s Tuban plant will increase its export capacity by building a new jetty and silos. It will then export 0.5Mt/yr of cement to Taiheiyo Cement’s subsidiary in the US. The Japanese cement producer said that is focusing on markets in South-East Asia as part of its sustainable business development strategy in response to projected long term declining cement demand in Japan.
Spanish cement consumption falls by 10% to 13.3Mt in 2020
28 January 2021Spain: Oficemen, the Spanish cement association, reports that domestic cement consumption fell by 10% year-on-year to 13.3Mt in 2020 from 14.7Mt in 2019. Consumption at this level was last reported in 1967. The 12-month accumulated consumption figure began to fall in April 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions and the association does not expect growth in 2021 despite an improvement in December 2020. Cement and clinker exports fell by 3.4% to 5.99Mt from 6.20Mt. It has forecast anything between a 3% rise and a 3% fall in consumption in 2021, due to coronavirus-related uncertainty.
The figures suggest that capacity utilisation in the cement industry is at roughly 60% nationally, according to the El Economista newspaper. Oficemen president Víctor García Brosa said that this level ‘cannot be indefinitely maintained.’ The association called for a recovery plan committed to infrastructure development, residential construction and rehabilitation and energy efficient transport.
Cement import shortcuts
20 January 2021Cement imports were one of the themes in this week’s news, with stories on the topic from South Africa and Ukraine. The former concerned the latest chapter in that industry’s saga on slowing down imports. The International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) has started a review on tariffs imposed on cement from Pakistan that were introduced in 2015.
Local producers in South Africa have experienced mixed fortunes since 2015, such as PPC and AfriSam’s failed merger attempt or the introduction of a local carbon tax, and were starting to complain again about imports even before the effects of coronavirus in 2020. This led the Concrete Institute to lobby ITAC in 2019 about rising imports from other nations, principally Vietnam and China.
Back in 2013 cement imports from Pakistan to South Africa were 1.1Mt. This represented the vast majority of all imports to the country. Tariffs of 14 – 77% were imposed on Pakistan-based exporters in mid-2015, initially for six months, but this was then extended. Roughly a year later in mid-to-late 2016, Sephaku Holdings said that imports of cement had ‘significantly’ declined on a year-on-year basis, particularly from Pakistan. By the end of June 2016 approximately 0.16Mt had been imported compared to 0.5Mt in the previous period. However, it noted that 75% of the volume was from China. Since then imports started to creep up. Cement imports reportedly rose by 84% year-on-year in 2018 and then by 11% in 2019. Data from construction industry data company Industry Insight suggests that Vietnam accounted for 70% or 0.47Mt of the 0.68Mt of cement imported into South Africa in the first nine months of 2020. The remaining 30% or 0.20Mt came from Pakistan. In this kind of environment it seems unlikely that ITAC will do anything other than extend tariffs.
Meanwhile in the northern hemisphere, in Ukraine this week a court in Kiev dismissed a challenge by the Belarusian Cement Company to remove cement import tariffs from Russia, Belarus and Moldova that were introduced in mid-2019 for five years. Notably, a law firm representing Dyckerhoff Cement Ukraine, HeidelbergCement Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivsk Ukraine and CRH subsidiary Podilsky Cement commented favourably upon the court’s decision to uphold tariffs. These producers form UKRCEMENT, the association of cement producers of Ukraine. However, the association doesn’t include Russia-based Eurocement, which operates Ukraine’s largest cement plant at Balakleya. Relations have been poor between Russia and Ukraine since a war between the countries that started in 2014. So any trade tariffs implemented upon Russia and/or Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members will inevitably carry the whiff of geopolitics. Yet, in Ukraine’s defence, it also started an anti-dumping investigation into cement imports from Turkey in September 2020. Nationalism may be relevant but let’s not discount hard-nosed economics just yet.
Turkey’s involvement in Ukraine leads to last week’s presentation at Global Cement Live by Sylvie Doutres, DSG Consultants on cement and clinker trade in and out of the Mediterranean region. Readers can watch the presentation here but the headline story here was the trend of reducing exports away from southern European countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece, to greater exports from North African countries and Turkey over the last decade. Turkey particularly has pushed its share of exports even more in 2020 despite (or perhaps because of) a tough domestic market. The general trend here away from southern Europe has been blamed on European Union-based (EU) producers becoming less competitive often against newer plants in nearby countries.
Battles between producers and government tariff policies are a perennial feature of any market in commodities such as cement. The ebb and flow of import and export markets cover many factors including production costs, distribution networks, tariff structures and more. Distinctive features of cement trading, for example, are the high cost of transporting heavy building materials over land and the world’s chronic cement production overcapacity. In the EU’s case one reason that often gets blamed is the emissions trading system (EU ETS) and the mounting cost it is imposing upon cement production. For example, today’s story that Holcim España wants to convert its integrated Jerez plant into a grinding unit has been blamed on falling exports and a reduction in ETS credits. It is noteworthy then that the EU ETS rate breached the Euro30/t level in December 2020. This may be good news for the sustainability lobby but the exodus of exports away from Southern Europe tells its own story. What form the EU ETS carbon border adjustment mechanism takes as part of the EU Green Deal will be watched closely by producers both inside and outside the EU.
Global Cement Live continues on 21 January 2021 with Kevin Rudd, Independent Cement Consultants, presenting 'Independent or third party factory acceptance testing of major cement plant equipment and critical spare parts and the challenges of Covid’
Peruvian cement production falls by 14% to 9.14Mt in 2020
19 January 2021Peru: Cement and clinker production fell by 14% year-on-year to 9.14Mt and 39% year-on-year to 5.54Mt respectively in 2020. Data from the Association of Cement Producers (ASOCEM) shows that production fell significantly during March to May 2020 at the same time as a coronavirus-related lockdown. However, ASOCEM reports that cement sales from August to December 2020 were higher than the historical monthly averages. Exports of cement and clinker fell by 28% to 0.14Mt and 56% to 0.31Mt. Imports of cement decreased by 7% to 0.72Mt but clinker imports grew by 7% to 0.67Mt.