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Eagle Materials sells aggregates and concrete operations 22 April 2020
US: Eagle Materials has sold its Western Aggregates and Mathews Ready Mix subsidiaries for a combined value of US$93.5m. Eagle’s President and chief executive officer (CEO), Michael Haack said that the transaction represented the sale of non-core assets on the heavy-side of the company that do not provide essential support to its primary cement plant network.
Moderate fall in cement activity in Qatar 22 April 2020
Qatar: The manufacturing sector of Qatar recorded a 2% month-on-month decrease in activity in February 2020 compared to January 2020. Cement and non-metallic mineral product production decreased by 1.6%.
Triple-whammy hits cement sales in Egypt 22 April 2020
Egypt: Cement sales have fallen by around 35 - 40% in Egypt. This is reported to be due a number of factors that has each taken a chunk out of demand, including coronavirus lockdown measures, the imminent onset of Ramadan and the start of the wheat harvest season. Cement sales prices are reported to have fallen as a result of the lower demand.
Japan: Taiheiyo Cement has partnered with JFE Steel and the Global Institute for Environmental Technology to develop a carbon capture and storage system. The system will use wet alkaline earth metals extracted from steel slag to produce carbonates from exhaust gases at cement and steel plants. The partners are investigating the possibility of using these carbonates, specifically calcium carbonate and magnesium carbonate, as additives in cement production at Taiheiyo Cement’s plants. Taiheiyo Cement president Masafumi Shigehara said, “With the effects of climate change becoming apparent both in Japan and overseas, the importance of global warming counter-measures is increasing.”
HeidelbergCement launches short-time working 21 April 2020
Germany: Staff of HeidelbergCement in Germany will be employed on a ‘short-time’ basis, with hours reductions of up to 100%. HeidelbergCement says that it agreed upon the measure with employee representative bodies.
HeidelbergCement’s supervisory board and management board members have waived 20% of their fixed salaries in the second quarter of 2020 due to the financial impacts of the coronavirus outbreak.