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Vietnam: The government has adopted a cement industry development strategy under which all plants below 0.9Mt/yr capacity must make investments to improve their productivity, product quality, energy saving and environmental protection by 2025. In order to facilitate this, the government says it will improve institutions and policies and improve the efficiency of raw materials exploitation, scientific research and industrial application, promoting domestic consumption, increasing available training and tightening environmental protections, according to Việt Nam News. Plants which fail to increase productivity in the specified ways will face closure.
The government says that strategy aims, “to develop the cement industry to an advanced and modern level, to produce cement of international standard quality with economical and efficient use of energy, giving high competitiveness in the international market, while meeting the needs of the domestic market, completely eliminating out-dated, natural resource-consuming and polluting technology for production.” The measure specifically targets the country’s overcapacity issue in its efforts to develop demand and its emphasis on product quality.
Hindalco secures UltraTech Cement bauxite residue contract 21 August 2020
India: Metals producer Hindalco has won a contract to supply fellow Aditya Birla subsidiary UltraTech Cement with 1.2Mt/yr of bauxite residue from its aluminium operations, up by 180% from 250,000t in the 2020 financial year, which ended on 31 March 2020. The Economic Times newspaper has reported that UltraTech Cement will use the bauxite residue – or ‘red mud’ – in cement production at 14 of its plants across seven states. As a result of the deal, Hindalco, the world’s largest producer of rolled aluminium, will have full bauxite residue utilisation across three of its refineries. Managing director Satish Pai said, “We have been working with producers to develop high-grade inputs for the cement industry.”
CRH publishes first half 2020 results 20 August 2020
Ireland: CRH recorded a profit of US$406m in the first half of 2020, down from US$602m in the first half of 2019. Sales fell by 4.9% year-on-year to US$12.2bn from US$12.8bn. Price rises in many markets offset the general reduction in cement volumes caused by coronavirus lockdown, while volumes grew in Germany, the Benelux countries, Brazil and the US.
Chief executive officer (CEO) Albert Manifold said, “We took swift and comprehensive action in response to the Covid-19 crisis, and our ability to flex our cost base and deliver improved profitability, margins and cash generation in a rapidly evolving environment demonstrates the strength and resilience of our business. The outlook for the rest of the year and into 2021 remains uncertain and is dependent on an improving health situation across our markets.” Though the group provided no full-year guidance for 2020, it said, “The longer-term prospects for CRH remain positive, benefiting from significant financial strength and resilience together with a portfolio of high-quality assets in attractive markets.”
Uruguay’s second-quarter cement sales decline by 3.9% 20 August 2020
Uruguay: Cement producers sold 166,000t of cement in the second quarter of 2020, down by 3.9% year-on-year from 173,000t in the second quarter of 2019. The country exported 5600t of this (3%), up by 3.9% from 5380t. Domestic sales fell by 4.1% to 160,000t from 153,000t, corresponding to 84% of a domestic consumption of 190,000t, down by 4.2% from 200,000t. Imports rose by 8.8% to 30,000t from 27,400t.
SLK Cement is Sverdlovsk’s Best Taxpayer of the Year 2019 20 August 2020
Russia: The Ministry of Finance of Sverdlovsk Oblast has named Buzzi Unicem subsidiary SLK Cement amongst the winners of Best Taxpayer of the Year 2019, an award that recognises commercial contributions to the regional economy by taxpaying in order to “raise the profile of companies and increase their role in the socio-economic development of the territory.” SLK Cement paid US$23.0m in taxes in 2019, up by 2.4% year-on-year from US$22.5m in 2019.
General director Andrey Immoreev said, “Honesty and compliance with the law are one of the key values of the Buzzi Unicem business code, in accordance with which we work. In our activities, we strictly follow the legal norms in the field of labour protection, industrial, fire, sanitary and epidemiological, environmental safety, taxes and Gosudarstvenii Standart (GOST) and international cement quality standard regulations, as well as retaining a customer focus in the company. In addition, despite the external factors associated with the coronavirus pandemic, we confidently continue to implement investment projects to modernise production equipment and provide assistance to the territories in which we are present.”