Displaying items by tag: Production
Krasnoyarsk Cement starts making road cement
30 March 2016Russia: Krasnoyarsk Cement, a subsidiary of Siberian Cement, has started making Portland cement of CEM I type with strength class 42.5. The product is intended for the production of concrete for road and airfield paving, bridge structures and precast concrete elements for transport engineering. The material meets the requirements of GOST R 55224-2012 and GOST 30515-2013 state standards.
Production disrupted at Invecem
30 March 2016Venezuela: Production has been disrupted at the Industria Venezolana del Cemento (Invecem) cement plant due to a lack of raw materials. Despite this, a new 1Mt/yr production line at the plant was inaugurated on 3 March 2016. The upgrade cost US$168m according to the El Carabobeno newspaper. Other problems reported at the site include machine failures.
Anhui Conch confirms that production at Shaanxi subsidiary is suspended until mid-march 2016
18 February 2016China: Anhui Conch Cement has confirmed that its subsidiary in Shaanxi province, Liquan Conch Cement, has suspended its production. The decision follows Shaanxi Provincial Government legislation requiring all cement and clinker producers to adopt off-peak production. Most producers are required to stop production from 15 December 2015 until 15 March 2016 with a few exceptions. 25 cement companies, with a total of 37 clinker production lines, are based in the province.
Liquan Conch has a cement production capacity of 4.4Mt/yr, contributing 1.5% to the total production capacity of Anhui Conch. It held audited net assets worth US$96.3m at the end of 2014, representing 0.9% of Anhui Conch’s total. Anhui Conch do not expect the temporary suspension of production at Liquan Conch to adversely affect its operating results. Liquan Conch was built in 2009.
Turkmenistan increasing cement production
22 January 2016Turkmentistan: Turkmenistan produced over 3Mt of cement from January to November 2015, exceeding its annual plant according to local media. Between 2007 and 2015 the country has increased its cement production by 3.8 times.
Has China’s cement production peaked?
20 January 2016Even the Chinese premier doesn't trust his country's GDP figures. Li Keqiang reportedly told a US ambassador this in 2007. He described Chinese GDP figures as 'man-made' and unreliable. Wikileaks then made the diplomatic report public a few years later. This anecdote has been much reported this week due to the latest gloomy economic figures from China. Its economy officially grew by 6.9% in 2015, its slowest rate in 25 years.
So what can a jittery world trust? Keqiang was reported to focus on three data samples to compensate for an unreliable GDP: electricity consumption, rail cargo volume and bank lending. Global Cement Magazine suggests that he should have followed one more: cement. What can cement tell us about the Chinese economy in recent years?
Chinese cement production fell by 4.9% to 2.35Bt/yr in 2015 according to newly published figures by the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC). This is significant. Firstly, whether it is a true reflection of actual production or not, it is an admission by a Chinese state body that cement production is declining. Secondly, it signals the end of the rapid growth of the country's heavy industries through the 1990s and 2000s.
Figure 1 – Chinese cement production by quarter, 2014 – 2015
Figure 1 shows Chinese cement production by quarter in 2014 and 2015 using NBSC data. Two years are insufficient to pick out any major trends other than seasonal trends throughout each year. However, remove the slow winter months in the first quarter of each year and a steady decrease in production throughout 2014 and 2015 is apparent.
Figure 2 – Chinese cement production by year, 2005 – 2015
Figure 2 offers the context that Figure 1 lacked by comparing cement production from 2005 to 2015. Notable trends to point out are a slow down in growth in 2008, around the time of the global financial crash. Then production peaked in 2014 before falling in 2015. This data comes from the United States Geological Survey and then latterly the NBSC.
Figure 3 – Chinese cement production by year and GDP/capita, 2005 – 2015
Figure 3 shows annual growth in cement production against growth in GDP. The similarity of each line here, or the rate of growth, and where they diverge is what is interesting here. Up until the late 2000s the trend is similar until GDP/capita starts to grow faster than cement production. At this point either the Chinese economy has started to acknowledge that it can build all the infrastructure and housing it needs or perhaps the slowing growth in cement production has started to point to slowing GDP/capita growth.
2015 could be a blip if growth resumes in 2016. Yet the other heavy industry metrics suggest otherwise. Electric power and steel production also fell for the first time in 2015. Coal production dropped for the second year in a row. The Chinese housing market started to slow noticeably in 2014, cement production followed by slowing down and now the country's GDP growth has also slowed. Alongside this the industry's capacity reduction programme officially started in late 2013. Cement consumption per capita for China has long suggested that Chinese growth was due to slow. It is reassuring to finally see the official production figures reflect this. The real question though is what happens next.
Ahangarancement increases cement production by 4.1%
20 January 2016Uzbekistan: Uzbekistan's Ahangarancement JSC increased its cement production by 4.1% to 1.77Mt in 2015. Its clinker production grew by 3.4% to 1.28Mt. In 2015 the company sold 1.77Mt of cement, a 3% year-on-year increase.
Vietnam expects 74 - 75Mt of cement consumption in 2016
15 January 2016Vietnam: Around 74 – 75Mt of cement is expected to be sold in 2016, some 3Mt more than that in 2015. In 2016, no new plants will be put into operation, as the capacity of current plants will meet demands.
According to Le Van Toi, Head of the Building Materials Department under the Ministry of Construction, total output of cement will rise in 2016, as a plant of the Cong Thanh Cement Group increased its capacity by 3.6Mt/yr in late 2015.
In 2015, two cement projects were put into operation, raising the number of production lines to 76 with a total designed capacity of 81.5Mt/yr. Over 72Mt of cement is estimated to have been sold in 2015, up by 3% compared to 2014. Some 16.3Mt was shipped abroad, down by 17.3% year-on-year, but domestic consumption rose by 11.1% to 56.5Mt.
Gas shortage cripples 35% of Iran's cement production
04 January 2016Iran: About 35% of Iran's cement kilns, or 30 – 35 of a total of 97 kilns at 71 cement plants, are not working due to the gas shortage and technical problems, reported Abdolreza Sheikhan, Secretary of Iran's Cement Industry Employers Association on 2 January 2016.
Iran's cement sector is suffering a gas shortage, according to Sheikhan. He said that the country's cement output has decreased by 10 – 12% in 21 March 2015 – 21 November 2015. Sheikhan has forecast that Iran's annual cement output will fall by some 12% compared to the preceding fiscal year, which ended on 21 March 2015. During the year, Iran produced over 61Mt of cement.
The National Iranian Gas Company has stopped supplying gas to a number of cement plants due to a wave of cold weather. However, the ongoing problem is not due to output shortage, but because of a delay in inaugurating a projected compressor station, according to Iranian media. It was already planned that the country's gas transmission capacity would increase by 80Mm3/day in 2016 by installing five compressor stations en route to the transmission pipeline, but the stations have not become fully operational yet.
Capacity utilisation of China's cement industry falls to 65%
16 December 2015China: China's cement industry has been trapped in sharp profit decline and its actual capacity utilisation has declined to 65%, according to an Economic Information Daily report.
Industry insiders believe that previous high speed development has overdrawn the demand for cement and that closing obsolete cement capacity and promoting mergers and restructures will be the new orientation for the industry. At least 500Mt/yr of low-grade cement capacity will be eliminated.
The number of loss-making cement companies has reached 1339 and accounted for 40% of the total, according to Kong Xiangzhong, Executive Vice President and Secretary General of the China Cement Association. Cement companies lost US$2.63bn in the first three quarters of 2015 and among the profit-making producers, many were suffering invisible losses.
Cong Thanh Group launches new line in Vietnam
27 November 2015Vietnam: Cong Thanh Group held a ceremony to mark the first batch of cement made by its second production line at its cement plant in Thanh Hoa. The new line has a capacity of 12,500t/day of clinker or 3.6Mt/yr of cement.
The line will help contribute to the province's industrial production growth and contribute US$26.7m to the provincial budget. Vietnam now has 76 cement production lines with a combined output of 81.6Mt/yr. The ministry has estimated that Vietnam's cement and clinker sales in 2015 will reach 71.5 - 72Mt in 2015, fulfilling the year's target, including 55 – 55.5Mt of domestic sales, rising by 9 - 9.5% year-on-year. Clinker exports are likely to fall by 19% to 16.5Mt, meeting 85% of the whole-year target.