Displaying items by tag: Holcim
Argentina: Holcim Argentina has appointed Gerardo Kemnitz as its Director of Operations. He will lead Holcim’s operations in the country, where it operates three integrated cement plants and one grinding unit.
Kemnitz started working for the group in 1988 and spent the next 20 years working in maintenance roles at different plants. He later became a Health and Safety consultant for the Americas, Europe and Asia before being appointed as the director of the Tecomán plant in Mexico in 2014. More recently he worked as the manager of the Malagueño plant in Argentina.
Kenya: Bamburi Cement’s turnover rose by 3% year-on-year to US$168m in the first half of 2022 from US$164m in the same period of 2012. However, its profit before tax tumbled by 89% to US$1.03m from US$9.25m. The subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim attributed its rising turnover to mounting sales volumes and rising prices. However, it blamed its falling profit on “significant inflation of the fuel prices, logistics costs and imported clinker prices in both Kenya and Uganda.” It added that it expected the local market to improve after the Kenyan general election in August 2022 and growth in infrastructure spending in Uganda propped up by the oil industry.
India: The Adani Group is likely to launch an US$3.8bn open offer to acquire a 26% stake in each of Holcim's two Indian listed entities, Ambuja Cements and ACC, from public shareholders. The group announced that it had clinched a deal to acquire a controlling stake in the businesses for US$10.5bn in May 2022.
As per the revised schedule submitted by ICICI Securities and Deutsche Equities India, the managers of the open offer, tendering of the shares in the open will start from 26 August 2022 and end on 9 September 2022.
Brazil: The Administrative Court of the Brazilian Administrative Council of Economic Defence (CADE) has approved Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional subsidiary CSN Cimentos’ acquisition of LafargeHolcim Brasil, ‘without restrictions.’ The acquisition more than doubles CSN Cimentos’ capacity to 16.3Mt/yr, giving it the largest market share, ahead of InterCement Brasil.
Lafarge Cement ends Čížkovice cement plant's natural gas reliance through alternative fuels use
17 August 2022Czech Republic: Lafarge Cement says that it has achieved an alternative fuel (AF) thermal substitution rate of 95% at its Čížkovice cement plant. The plant's fuel mix includes contaminant fractions from local plastic recycling. As a result of the move, the plant no longer uses any natural gas in its cement production.
In 2022 as a whole, the producer plans to increase its share of reduced-CO2 cement sales, increase construction waste recycling in its products and reduce its cement's water consumption.
Adani Group receives Competition Commission of India approval for Holcim India acquisition
15 August 2022India: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has approved Adani Group’s US$10.5bn deal to acquire Holcim’s Indian business. Holcim holds a 63% stake in Ambuja Cements, which holds a 50% stake in ACC. Holcim also holds a direct 4.5% stake in ACC.
Adani Group launched a new company, Endeavour, to assume ownership of the new share capital from Holcim’s holding company Holderind Investments.
Holcim Philippines launches ECOPlanet cements in Davao
11 August 2022Philippines: Holcim Philippines has launched its ECOPlanet 30% reduced-CO2 cement range in the city of Davao on Mindanao. The producer also introduced its Balik-Plastic waste cement bag recycling programme, offering a collection service to customers in order to reuse waste bags as alternative fuels and raw materials in cement production at its Davao plant.
First half 2022 update on multinational cement producers
10 August 2022Second quarter results have been released for many of the European-based cement producers, so we’ll take a look at how they are doing so far in 2022. The general trend for the companies sampled here is that revenue is up, cement sales volumes are down and earnings are varied. Added to this, ready-mixed concrete (RMC) and aggregate sales volumes have risen for most of these organisations. Each producer did well in the US, less well in Europe and differently elsewhere. Concurrently, input costs for raw materials, energy and logistics have been rising and this has been passed on to consumers fairly consistently as price rises.
Graph 1: Sales revenue for selected European-based multinational cement producers in the first half of 2022. Source: Company financial reports.
Graph 2: Cement sales volumes for selected European-based multinational cement producers in the first half of 2022. Source: Company financial reports.
Graph 3: Ready-mixed concrete sales volumes for selected European-based multinational cement producers in the first half of 2022. Source: Company financial reports.
Holcim is currently in a state of transition with responses from regulators on big divestments in India and Brazil expected in the second half of 2022 alongside its diversification into light building materials. Both North America and Europe did well for the group in the first half of 2022, particularly the former, where cement sales volumes rose, unlike the other regions. Asia Pacific was more problematic with inflation and pricing issues reported. Cement demand was also said to be ‘softer’ in China and the Philippines compared to the first half of 2021. The region’s recurring earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) also fell.
HeidelbergCement’s half-year results were less upbeat with cement sales volumes down by 2.6% on a like-for-like basis, RMC sales volumes stable and aggregates sales volumes up by 1.7%. One point to note here is that HeidelbergCement divested its business in the western US in late 2021 and the graphs above do not show like-for-like changes. However, one reason for the dour tone was that higher input costs had led to a 11.4% drop in the group’s result from current operations before depreciation and amortisation (RCOBD) to Euro€1.53bn. It blamed this on its inability to raise prices sufficiently to counter ‘significantly’ higher costs of energy and transport.
Cemex benefitted from its strong presence in the Americas but even this wasn’t enough to shield it from the negative effect upon earnings of higher energy costs and supply chain disruptions. So, net sales increased in Mexico and the US but operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell. In Mexico this was blamed on a higher base for comparison in 2021. In the US a declining EBITDA margin was attributed to higher energy costs and supply chain headwinds from maintenance, imports and logistics. Interestingly though, Cemex managed to raise both sales and earnings in its Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia despite cement sales volumes slipping. It said it was able to do this due to well executed price rises.
Buzzi Unicem reported growth in sales revenue and earnings despite falling cement sales volumes. It attributed this to a ‘strong’ increase in prices. However, it noted that the mounting energy costs had contributed to a decline in its EBITDA margin. Deliveries for the half-year grew in the US, Central Europe, Poland and the Czech Republic. They fell in Italy and, unsurprisingly, Ukraine. Also, despite the growth in deliveries in Poland and the Czech Republic in the reporting period, Buzzi Unicem said that a slowdown in Europe had become evident in the second quarter of 2022 and was particularly evident in Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic. In Ukraine the group reported that activity had resumed at its Volyn plant in the north-west of the country following the Russian invasion in February 2022. The Nikolayev plant, in the south, though continued to remain idle. Sales volumes halved in the country year-on-year. Given the circumstances it seems amazing that they didn’t fall by more frankly.
Finally, Vicat had a tougher time of it than some of the other companies featured here. Its sales revenue grew significantly, as a result of higher prices, but earnings tumbled. The latter was blamed on a high base for comparison in the first half of 2021 and the energy situation. A few non-recurring capital intensive projects at various plants, including the start-up of the Ragland plant’s new kiln in the US, didn’t help either.
Much of the above leaves an uncertain outlook for the second half of 2022. All of the cement producers here expect to increase their sales revenue and raise their prices. Most of them though are rather more circumspect or downright pessimistic about what the state of their earnings will be. The companies covered here are multinational but with a focus on Europe and the US. We have omitted plenty of regional producers elsewhere around the world in this roundup that have already published their results, such as India-based UltraTech Cement or Nigeria-based Dangote Cement. The other big market that is missing is China, where the producers are mostly yet to publish their half-year results. We will return to cover these topics in future weeks.
Doppelmayr Transport Technology supplies RopeCon ropeway conveyor for Aggregate Industries' Bardon Hill quarry restoration
10 August 2022UK: Doppelmayr Transport Technology says that a 1000t/hr RopeCon ropeway conveying system is in operation at Aggregate Industries' Bardon Hill quarry in Leicestershire. Doppelmayr Transport Technology supplied the equipment to help move overburden from a new quarry extension for emplacement in an area where mining has finished. The total 600m-long system consists of one 500m section and one 100m section.
India: Holcim subsidiaries ACC and Ambuja Cements, along with Dalmia Cement, Shree Cement, UltraTech Cement and 15 other Indian cement producers, have violated antitrust laws through price collusion and supply restriction, a Competition Commission of India (CCI) investigation has uncovered. Reuters News has reported that regular price rises in the Indian cement market were the outcome of collusion between producers, which set target prices by district and carried out twice weekly inspections of participant companies’ operations. Senior executives from ACC and UltraTech Cement, among other companies, served as state-wide coordinators. They planned and carried out their deception by means including messaging platform WhatsApp.
ACC and UltraTech Cement, along with ACC’s fellow Holcim subsidiary Ambuja Cements, declined to comment, however Holcim said “The Indian companies are managing this matter responsibly and we expect them to continue to do so accordingly."