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Raysut Cement acquires 75% stake in Lafarge Maldives 13 October 2020
Maldives: Oman-based Raysut Cement has announced its acquisition of a 75% stake in Lafarge Maldives for US$8m. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim operates the 9000t-capacity Thilafusi cement terminal on the island of Thilafusi, Kaafu Atoll, which it opened in June 2015.
SCG Packaging launches recycled paper packaging 13 October 2020
Vietnam: Siam Cement Group (SCG) subsidiary SCG Packaging has launched Doozypack, a Kraft paper cement bag made using recycled paper. The company “applied the circular economy principle to the product’s development, enabling consumers to live sustainably,” according to general director Ekarach Sinnarong. Viet Nam News has reported that SCG Packaging partner Vina Kraft Paper is able to recycle Doozypack bags, along with all other SCG paper cement bags, thereby “extending the circular economic principle into the next cycle of use.”
JK Cement launches 0.7Mt/yr Balasinor grinding plant 12 October 2020
India: JK Cement has started grey cement production at its 0.7Mt/yr-capacity Balasinor grinding plant in Gujarat. Accord Fintech News has reported that the plant, which dispatched its first batch of cement on 10 October 2020, brings JK Cement’s total grey cement production capacity to 4.2Mt/yr.
Steppe Cement records 5% nine-month sales growth in 2020 12 October 2020
Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement’s sales in the first nine months of 2020 were US$26.0m, up by 5% year-on-year from US$24.7m over the corresponding period of 2019. Dow Jones Institutional News has reported that cement sales volumes fell by 4% to 556,000t from 535,000t. Steppe Cement forecast full-year cement market growth of 2% to 9.0Mt in 2020 from 8.9Mt in 2019.
LafargeHolcim faces US$270m compensation claim over violation of US sanctions in Cuba 12 October 2020
Cuba/US: A court in Florida has accepted a request for damages worth US$270m from LafargeHolcim to over 20 parties from Cuba whose land was nationalised and subsequently had a cement plant built on it. The claim alleges that Switzerland-based Holderbank has held a stake in the partly-state owned Carlos Marx cement plant near Cienfuegos since 2001 via a deliberately “complex network of letterbox companies and transactions” in the Netherlands and Spain, according to the Tages Anzeiger newspaper. Holderbank later became Holcim and then LafargeHolcim.
The building materials producer’s alleged involvement may constitute a violation of the US embargo on trade with Cuba for companies active in the US. The claim has been aided by a clause in the US’s Cuban blockade law, activated by President Donald Trump, enabling Cubans to claim damages in US courts for expropriated property from private companies which profited from them.