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Lafarge Africa launches essay competition 10 December 2020
Nigeria: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge Africa has launched a national essay competition entitled “Building the Nigeria of My Dreams.” The competition is open to all primary and secondary school pupils. The producer says that it ’further affirms the company’s commitment to bridging the literacy gap in Nigeria.’ It said, “This will help improve literacy amongst young adults and also engender loyalty to the nation as they will write about their hopes and aspirations of the Nigerian nation they desire. The online essay competition aligns with reports that show that citizens do much better when they are literate as they become equipped to become better adults and even more successful in their careers.”
Chief executive officer (CEO) Khaled El-Dokani said, "We recognise that the depth and quality of a country’s human capital are as important as its physical infrastructure, hence our investment over the past seven years in enhancing the Nigerian educational sector just as we are committed to empowering Nigerians through our world class building solutions.” He continued, “One of our key sustainability priorities at Lafarge Africa is our commitment to our communities through education and we are actively collaborating with the government and the private sector to improve the country's literacy ratio towards making an impact in reducing the World Bank estimate which states that over 80% of Nigerian primary school leavers cannot read.”
Communications, public affairs and sustainable development director Folashade Ambrose-Medebem said, “We have so far impacted more than 700,000 primary school pupils in 1665 schools across 544 local government areas (LGAs). Our volunteers, who are employees of Lafarge Africa have spent over 6212hr with over 250 public primary students. This crucial involvement shows our genuine concerns about Nigeria’s literacy gap and commitment towards bridging that gap.”
ThyssenKrupp named global Climate Change A Lister 10 December 2020
Germany: The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has named ThyssenKrupp on its Climate Change A List of companies which took actions to ’cut emissions, reduce climate impacts and help build a low-carbon economy’ in 2020. 269 companies won the top status from a pool of 5800 applicants.
Chief executive officer Martina Merz said, “This is a clear endorsement of our climate strategy. ThyssenKrupp has firmly established itself as a leader in climate protection. We will continue to systematically reduce climate impacts. We see climate protection not just as an obligation but as an opportunity for new
business.”
India starts to build cement capacity again
Written by David Perilli, Global Cement
09 December 2020
Manoj Kumar Rustagi was on hand yesterday to discuss JSW Cement’s operations in the UAE at the Virtual Middle Eastern Cement Conference. At the event, jointly organised by Global Cement Magazine and the Arab Union for Cement and Building Materials (AUCBM), Rustagi mainly stuck to the development of the producer’s new integrated plant in the Fujairah Free Zone but he also gave an overview of JSW Cement’s presence in India. For example, as part of an industrial conglomerate, JSW Group, the cement producer benefits from links to steel production by JSW Steel that enables it to use blast furnace slag. Notably, JSW Cement’s Shiva Cement subsidiary announced plans at the end of November 2020 to spend around US$200m on a new 1.4Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Sundergarh district, Odisha with the clinker production line supplied by ThyssenKrupp Industries India.
JSW Cement is not alone in ordering new production capacity. This week, UltraTech Cement approved a planned increase of 12.87Mt/yr for around US$740m. This is in addition to new capacity projects of 6.7Mt/yr that are currently underway. All of these new projects are scheduled to be commissioned in a phased manner by the end of the 2023 Indian financial year (by March 2023). It is unclear at present how exactly these projects are distributed but they are centred in the Northern, Central and Western Zones of the country, and the new tranche includes the previously announced Pali plant in Rajasthan. At this price the inference is that the much of the new capacity will be in the form of grinding plants and/or upgrades to existing clinker lines. Around the same time as this, LafargeHolcim said it wants to spend US$112m on waste heat recovery (WHR) plants for six of its cement plants in India by the end of 2022.
Graph 1: Change in Indian cement production year-on-year (%). Source: Office of the Economic Adviser.
These three projects by major producers suggest that the Indian cement sector is recovering from the effects of the coronavirus lockdown in late March 2020. Graph 1 above shows the sector finally recovering in October 2020, with growth of 3% year-on-year to 26.9Mt. Kumar Mangalam Birla, the chairman of Aditya Birla Group, credited the economic situation with the Indian government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat stimulus program for his decision to commit to UltraTech Cement’s spending spree. This outlook gels with that of Fitch Ratings. The credit ratings agency has forecast in a recent report that ‘strong’ margins during the first half of the 2021 financial year (April – September 2020) are going to limit the financial risks to the larger Indian cement companies despite the lower cement sales volumes due to coronavirus. Pent-up demand helped the industry recover after the lockdown and this was further aided by lower energy/fuel costs and general cost cutting.
Needless to say all of the above is good news for the Indian cement industry after the year it has had. One thought to consider from all of this is who might UltraTech Cement order its mills and clinker lines from? Atmanirbhar, the name of the Indian stimulus plan, has been described as ‘self-reliance’ or ‘self-sufficiency’ in the local press. Unfortunately, relations have been poor between India and China in 2020 due to armed skirmishes along the Line of Actual Control on the border, amongst other issues. Ordering a new clinker production line from, say China-based Sinoma, may not look especially ‘self-sufficient’ in the current climate.
Management changes at Scheuch Group announced
Written by Global Cement staff
09 December 2020
Austria: Scheuch Group has announced a number of changes to its management, starting with the appointment of Thomas Eberl as the third managing director of Scheuch Management Holding in August 2020. He remains in his role as chief financial officer (CRO) for Scheuch Group and joins Stefan Scheuch and Jörg Jeliniewski as a managing director.
Eberl has experience from his group and investment controlling role at Vivatis and from the automotive industry, where he worked in international locations at the ZKW Group for 20 years, the final nine of which were spent as CFO.
The group has also appointed Thomas Rainer and Michael Brandl as the managing directors of Scheuch and Scheuch Components respectively. This follows the stepping down of Stefan Scheuch and Jörg Jeliniewski from their interim Business Unit management roles at the start of November 2020.
Finally, the group has made changes to its personnel in its North America subsidiaries, with the appointments of Jim Weber as Vice President of Sales at Schust and Dan Bruyn as chief operating officer (COO) at Camcorp.
Weber succeeded John Rothermel, who was recently promoted to president of Scheuch USA, Schust's parent company, in mid-November 2020. He holds nearly 25 years of sales and leadership experience. He previously served in the US Army and graduated from West Point with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering.
Bruyn started the newly created role for Camcorp from mid-November 2020. He holds 25 years of operations management experience in manufacturing environments. He was most recently Director of Operations at Garsite, where he led the business through a divestiture and financial turnaround. Earlier in his career he helped implement ‘lean’ management initiatives at Gardner-Denver, Harley-Davidson and Pentair. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri in Columbia where he earned Master of Engineering and Industrial & Manufacturing Systems qualifications, and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering.
Terex Materials Processing makes appointments at Terex Finlay, EvoQuip and Terex Materials Processing
Written by Global Cement staff
09 December 2020
UK: Northern Ireland-based Terex Materials Processing has appointed Matt Dickson as Business Line Director for Terex Finlay and General Manager of its Omagh site, and Barry O’Hare as Business Line Director for EvoQuip. Paul O’Donnell, the previous Business Line Director for Terex Finlay, will become the Director of Strategic Sourcing at Terex Materials Processing.
Dickson has led the EvoQuip business for the last four years and holds a commercial and engineering background. He previously worked for Terex Finlay in Omagh for over 10 years, eventually becoming its Engineering Director.
O’Hare holds experience in the crushing and screening industry, having worked in several positions for Powerscreen and Terex MPS over the past 12 years. Most recently, he worked on strategic and operational sales for EvoQuip and led the development and management of territory sales.