Displaying items by tag: Production
Ahangarancement hits record production in August 2015
02 October 2015Uzbekistan: Ahangarancement, which is owned by Russia's Eurocement Group, achieved record production figures in August 2015. The company said that it produced 164,000t of cement from 127,205t of clinker in August, rises of 2.5% and 12.2% compared to the same month of 2014. The enterprise shipped 164,863t of cement to consumers in August 2015, a 1.2% year-on-year rise.
Polish cement production falls by 2.3% in August 2015
11 September 2015Poland: Cement production in Poland decreased by 2.3% year-on-year to 1.47Mt in August 2015, while sales increased by 0.7% to 1.47Mt, according to the Poland's Cement Producer Association. In the first eight months of the year, cement production grew by 1.4% year-on-year to 10.3Mt, while sales grew by 2.1% to 10.5Mt.
Cement output up in Azerbaijan
24 August 2015Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan produced 1.62Mt of cement between January and July 2015, a 2.4% decrease compared to the same period of 2014.
Indonesia cement sales continue to fall
12 August 2015Indonesia: Cement sales for the first seven months of 2015 have continued to decrease. Weak demand, in addition to the Eid al-Fitr holiday period, caused national cement sales for July 2015 to fall by 4.2% year-on-year to 31.3Mt.
Regions with the largest cement consumption drop for July 2015 were Bali and Nusa Tenggara, which saw a 26.5% drop to to 214,540t, Kalimantan with a drop of 23.6% to 208,939t, Java with a 13.9% decrease to 1.79Mt and Sumatra with a drop of 3.3% to 726,000t.
Widodo Santoso, chairperson of the Indonesian Cement Association, is optimistic that cement sales and consumption will increase in the second half of 2015 as the government starts actualising its budget to boost the infrastructure sector. Santoso said that the cement industry would gain 11Mt/yr of additional production capacity from the operation of four new plants from Semen Bosowa, Holcim Indonesia, Semen Merah Putih, Semen Jawa and Semen Conch. The additional cement supply and weakening of cement demand may cause oversupply in the cement industry and create higher competition.
Meanwhile, Semen Indonesia has revised its domestic cement sales growth target to 0% from the initial target of 5%, in line with weak demand in the cement market in the first half of 2015. Agung Wiharto, corporate secretary of Semen Indonesia, said that unsupportive macroeconomic conditions, depreciation of the Indonesian Rupiah and the weakening of commodity prices affected the company's sales for the first semester. Its sales volume for the first half of 2015 decreased by 4.2% year-on-year.
"Semen Indonesia's sales volume in several regions was affected by tight competition with new players and new plants," said Wiharto. He added that he expects the domestic cement market to improve in the third quarter of 2015, in line with actual infrastructure developments to boost cement demand in the private and retail sectors. "Cement sales are expected to again grow by 6 - 8% in 2016 if infrastructure developments continue." Semen Indonesia plans to resume several cement plant expansion projects in Rembang and Padang to meet cement demand growth in the future. The plants in Rembang and Padang will each have capacities of 3Mt/yr.
Poland: Cement production in Poland increased by 1.6% year-on-year to 1.65Mt in July 2015, while cement sales were up by 1.7% to 1.71Mt, according to Poland's Cement Producer Association. Year-to-date cement production grew by 2% year-on-year to 8.84Mt while year-to-date cement sales rose by 2.3% to 9.04Mt.
Cement sales indicate good growth in the Philippines
10 August 2015Philippines: Philippine construction activity growth, which slowed to 4.4% in the first quarter of the 2016 fiscal year compared with an average 5% growth in the previous three quarters, appears to have picked up in the second quarter of fiscal 2016, which ended on 30 June 2015, as indicated by Holcim Philippines' sales over the period and reported by Dow Jones.
In the second quarter of its 2016 financial year, Holcim Philippines' net sales rose by 9.7% year-on-year to US$212m, aided by higher sales volumes and prices. Holcim president Eduardo Sahagun said that the company was improving plant efficiency and upgrading it to run longer to cover strong demand. He said that cement prices don't appear to be as big a concern as supply. "We understand that contractors are most concerned with steady cement supply and this is what we are trying to address in the second half," said Sahagun.
Brazil: Based on Brazil's 2015 GDP forecast, cement production and civil construction in Brazil are expected to remain flat in 2015 for the first time in more than a decade.
GDP rose by 7.53% in 2010, but growth dropped in the following four years to 2.73%, 1.03%, 2.49% and 0.1%, according to BNamericas data. The amount of cement produced has followed the same trend. While in 2010 production was up by 14.2%, it rose by 7.55%, 8.19%, 2% and only 1.5% in the following four years, ending 2014 at 71.2Mt. Finally, civil construction revenue jumped by 33.5% in 2010, but the industry posted increases of 12.6%, 12.9%, 7.60% and 8.48% over the next four years. The last drop in Brazil's civil construction industry occurred in 2002. As GDP estimates are pointing toward a 1.7% contraction for 2015, cement production and civil construction are unlikely to grow in 2015 if they continue to follow Brazil's overall economy.
Grey and white cement sales down in Tunisia
07 August 2015Tunisia: According to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Industry, Mining and Energy, grey cement production grew by 0.99% year-on-year to 4.75Mt in the first six months of 2015 from 4.7Mt in the first half of 2014. The amount sold locally fell by 6.29% 3.73Mt, compared to 3.98Mt in the first half 2014. Exports increased by 33.8% from 722,248t to 966,095t. In the first half of 2015, white cement production fell by 11.1% to 222,408t from 250,096t in the same period in 2014. Local sales of white cement fell by 6.69% to 96,551t from 103,476 in 2014.
Philippines: Cement sales have surged in the first six months of the year behind robust construction activities in the country, according to the Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (CeMAP).
CeMAP president Ernesto Ordoñez said that total cement sales rose by 11.1% to 11.9Mt in the first half of 2015 from 10.7Mt in the same period of 2014, according to The Philippine Star. Ordoñez said that construction activity remained strong in the first semester, fuelled primarily by growing business confidence in the country. "The weather was also exceptionally good in the first half of 2015. There were some rains, but generally the weather cooperated very well," said Ordoñez.
For the second quarter of 2015, cement sales grew by 12.5% year-on-year to 6.21Mt. This followed 9.6% growth in the first quarter. According to Ordoñez, growth was higher in the second quarter because the government accelerated its spending. The government, for its part, has been increasing the budget for infrastructure to address gaps and support economic growth. CeMAP is banking on the increase of construction activities in the country to support higher cement sales.
Uzbekistan: The State Statistics Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan said that in January – June 2015 the construction materials industry produced 2.11Mt of goods, 11.3% more than in the same period of 2014. The share of industry in total industrial production was 5.2%, according to UzReport. Compared with the first half of 2014, large enterprises in Uzbekistan have increased their production of Portland cement by 113%, gypsum by 108%, lime by 135%, non-refractory ceramic building bricks by 116% and fibre cement by 118%.