Displaying items by tag: Germany
HeidelbergCement reports higher fourth quarter revenue
10 February 2015Germany: HeidelbergCement's core profit rose by 1.7% in the fourth quarter of 2014 thanks to strong demand in the US and Asia. HeidelbergCement said that the weak Euro and the mild winter in Europe had also contributed to the profit increase. Operating income before depreciation (OIBD) increased to Euro625m in the three months to 31 December 2014. Revenue grew by 6.4% to Euro3.31bn. HeidelbergCement expressed optimism in view of the economic growth forecasts, but warned of geopolitical and monetary policy risks, which are difficult to estimate.
CRH wins the race to the LafargeHolcim gold
04 February 2015CRH has made good on its intentions. This week it stumped up Euro6.5bn to buy assets from Lafarge and Holcim in four continents. The move follows preparation since at least May 2014 when the Irish building materials group announced a divestment programme. In October 2014 it announced that it would sell its brickwork division.
CRH is finding the cash through a mix of existing cash, debt and equity placing. Interestingly, back in 2012 an Irish stockbroking analyst who was interviewed reckoned that the company could spend up to Euro3.5bn on acquisitions whilst remaining within its banking agreements. Throw in the recent sales and planned divestments and the planned acquisition from LafargeHolcim doesn't seem like too much of a stretch for CRH.
If completed, the purchase will see CRH take on 24 cement plants with a production capacity of 36Mt/yr. As a back of the envelope calculation suggests the sale price of Euro6.5bn isn't far off the occasionally used price of US$200/t for western cement production. The deal also includes aggregates, ready mixed concrete and asphalt assets.
The purchase marks a change in CRH's buying strategy both in terms of scale and distribution. Much of CRH's previous acquisitions have been minority shareholdings that make it difficult to accurately report the company's position in the cement industry. For example, in our Top 100 Report CRH was reported to have a production capacity of 6.49Mt/yr for majority shareholdings with another 19.9Mt/yr for minority shareholdings. The new cement capacity being purchased blows this away because it more than doubles CRH's total capacity and it appears to be all majority owned. CRH thinks that this will propel it to become the world's third biggest building materials manufacturer after LafargeHolcim and Saint-Gobain, leapfrogging Cemex and HeidelbergCement in the process. Strangely there is no mention of the huge Chinese players in the top five manufacturers in CRH's acquisition presentation.
CRH has avoided buying plants in southern Europe but it is relying on the slowly improving growing UK market, where CRH will pick up four plants, to balance the risk. Elsewhere in Europe, the three Holcim plants in France have been suffering from continued low construction rates in that country and the two Lafarge cement plants in Romania are unlikely to have recovered from a production fall in 2013. Outside of Europe growth has been poor in Quebec in 2013 and 2014, where CRH is buying two plants from Holcim. Both Lafarge and Holcim have also seen a slowdown in Brazil. However, the Philippines does seem like a better bet for CRH, with solid cement volumes growth seen by Lafarge in 2013 and the first three quarters of 2014.
With CRH now looking like a company that wants to produce cement rather than one that owns parts of companies that produce cement, all eyes are on the construction markets. 14 of the 24 cement plants CRH are buying are in Europe. Buying at the bottom of a sustained production slump makes sense because the asking price will be low. However, has the bottom been reached yet?
Germany: HeidelbergCement expects the falling oil prices to have a positive effect on its earnings in 2015, according to a company spokesperson. Low fuel prices are expected to have a positive impact on HeidelbergCement's energy costs. It generates as much as 80% of its revenue in oil-importing countries, which should further improve its results.
N+P announces further co-operation with Dyckerhoff
09 January 2015Germany: N+P has announced that it will expand its cooperation for the delivery of high quality Subcoal® pellets with Dyckerhoff in Germany.
Subcoal is produced at the Qlyte plant in Delfzijl, the Netherlands. The Qlyte facility produces about 65,000t/yr of Subcoal pellets, consuming around 100,000t/yr of non-recyclable paper-plastic waste fractions that otherwise would have ended in landfill or waste incineration. The Subcoal is used to replace lignite dust or bituminous coal at cement kilns, power stations and lime kilns.
Dyckerhoff started to use Subcoal in 2013. N+P and Dyckerhoff have since worked together to improve the alternative fuel for optimal use in its kilns. The cooperation has led to a new Subcoal fuel that is used at the Dyckerhoff kiln in Lengerich. The kiln in Geseke will continue to use the standard Subcoal quality.
UNICEM orders Loesche Mill type LM70.4+4 with Cope drive
04 December 2014Germany/Nigeria: United Cement Company of Nigeria (UNICEM) has ordered the largest Loesche mill to date, a LM 70.4+4. The new LM 70.4+4 will have an output of 370t/hr at 4,700 Blaine in UNICEM's new line in Calabar, Nigeria. The delivery period is 14 months.
The 4+4 concept follows mill types with 2+2 and 3+3 rollers. The 4+4 grinding concept is intended to allow high throughput capacity or it can run in 2+2 roller operation, generating a mill output of 60%.
Loesche will use the Cope gearbox, which was developed in cooperation with Renk and offers a redundancy of up to eight motors at the motor end. With all eight motors in operation, a capacity totaling 8.8MW is achieved. The new Cope gearbox contributes the feature of working without a variable speed drive and operating with a reduced number of motors
HeidelbergCement announces FRITZ & MACZIOL as ‘preferred supplier’
25 November 2014Germany: The IT logistic solution VAS, of FRITZ & MACZIOL, has become an integral part of the 'Logistic Efficiency Optimisation' (LEO) initiative initiative of HeidelbergCement.
Within the project, an integrated material-flow management will be introduced that will lead to a considerable cost reduction in the fields of logistics. Globally, several plants in the cement, aggregates as well as concrete businesses will be equipped with VAS. The implementation of VAS will lead to a significant optimisation of the dispatch and related logistical processes, as the increased level of automation will result in a much faster execution of many activities within the plants.
In this context, FRITZ & MACZIOL has also been announced as a 'preferred supplier' by HeidelbergCement. "FRITZ & MACZIOL reflects an ideal partner for us in the fields of IT logistics," said Tanja Hofmann, HeidelbergCement's group purchasing spokesperson.
HeidelbergCement currently runs the IT-Logistic solution VAS at four of its German cement plants. The solution will now be further implemented in its remaining German plants. At the same time both sides will work on the international roll-out.
HeidelbergCement operating income rises by 10% to Euro866m in Q3
12 November 2014Germany: HeidelbergCement has reported that its operating income before depreciation (OIBD) increased by 10% to Euro866m in the third quarter of 2014 from Euro789m in the same period in 2013. It attributed the rise to price increases, declining energy prices and improvement in the performance of the building products business in North America and the UK.
"In the third quarter, we generated the best operating income since the financial crisis started in 2008," said chairman of the managing board Bernd Scheifele.
The Germany-based construction materials producer's revenue rose by 4% to Euro3.81bn. Cement and clinker sales rose by 3.3% to 23.1Mt for the quarter. For the year to date increases in profit, revenue and cement sales volumes have been broadly similar to the third quarter. However, net profit fell by 40% to Euro368m in the third quarter of 2014 due to a one-off effect related to tax expenses.
Haver & Boecker launches Roto-Packer Adams Mini system, G600 palletising series and Feige PalletFill Type 16
06 November 2014Germany: Haver & Boecker has recently launched its new Roto-Packer Adams Mini packing system, the new G600 palletiser series and the Feige PalletFill Type 16.
The Roto-Packer, based on Adams technology, fills powder-type bulk materials into compact polyethylene bags at speeds of up to 600bags/hr and over a steplessly adjustable weight range of 1 – 10kg. Haver Innovation Management are working to increase the packing speed to 1200bags/hr.
The new G600 palletiser series from Newtec Bag Palletizing, a Haver & Boecker subsidiary, has also been launched. To increase capacity, the G600 series palletisers work using two lifts to convey the bags. Control of the palletisers is done via a human-machine-interface, which allows the user to operate the machine. The operator can perform a product changeover or switch to a maintenance mode with only a few adjustments. A VPN connection for remote maintenance ensures ongoing support by specialists of Newtec Bag Palletizing and allows a reduction in maintenance time.
'Plug & Fill' and 'ATEX compliance' are the key functions of the Feige PalletFill Type 16, a swivel-type pallet filling station. Feige, a Haver and Boecker company launched the product. The pallet-filling station is used for the automatic and calibrated filling of drums and pails on pallets. The mobile design allows filling directly at the tank without first having to pump the product from the tank system to a fixed filling system. 255 dosing-parameter settings for a variety of products can be entered. The control and operating systems are placed directly at the filling station.
Germany: Hendrik Rahms will be supporting Loesche ThermoProzess GmbH (LTP) in technical sales and in the product development of thermal applications. After working as a process engineer and project manager for several years at Brinkmann Industrielle Feuerungs-Systeme GmbH, Rahms is very familiar with the products of burner and process technology as well as the customer requirements in the industry.
Cemex and Holcim agree on series of transactions in Europe
03 November 2014Europe: Cemex has signed binding agreements with Holcim regarding the series of transactions that was originally announced on 28 August 2013.
The main scope of the transactions in Germany and the Czech Republic remain unchanged: Cemex will acquire all of Holcim's assets in the Czech Republic and will divest its assets in western Germany to Holcim. In Spain, Cemex will acquire Holcim's 0.85Mt/yr capacity Gador cement plant and its 0.9Mt/yr capacity Yeles cement grinding plant. Holcim will keep all of its other operations in Spain.
As part of these transactions, Cemex will pay Euro45m in cash to Holcim. Once the transactions are closed, Cemex expects a recurring improvement in its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), including synergies, of about US$20m to US$30m. These transactions are expected to close during the first quarter of 2015.