Global Cement News
Search Cement News
Saudi sales rise by 24% year-on-year in December 2019 09 January 2020
Saudi Arabia: Producers in Saudi Arabia sold 4.7Mt of cement in December 2019, representing a year-on-year increase of 24%. The figure exceeded November’s sales volumes of 4.3Mt by 9.3%.
Turkey: Sabanci Holding and HeidelbergCement joint subsidiary Akçansa achieved an undisclosed Turkish record figure for nine-month cement exports over the period ending 30 September 2019. The exports included 1Mt of clinker. Akçansa general manager Umat Zenar said, “We achieved a 46% increase in our port capacity utilisation rate,” in attributing the growth to its logistics advantage over competitors and effective port management.
Production picks up - update on Russia
Written by David Perilli, Global Cement
08 January 2020
Last month Soyuzcement, the Union of Russian Cement Producers, reported that cement production was on course to grow by 8% year-on-year to 58Mt in 2019. This estimate was based on growth from January to October 2019 followed by a modest rise in November.
Graph 1: Cement production in Russia, 2010 – 2019. Source: CM Pro, Ernst & Young.
The pickup is significant because it’s the country’s first annual resumption of growth since 2014. At that time low commodity prices, a worsening economy and international sanctions broke a fairly steady growth cycle that had started in 2000. The only blip in that run was the global economic downturn around 2008. In the medium to long term Soyuzcement’s review pinpointed growth drivers as being government-backed residential housing schemes, integrated land development projects and an increase in the construction of concrete roads. This increase has been driven by consumption growth in most regions, led by a 12% rise in the Central Federal District although the Volga Federal District started to slow in the second half of 2019.
Figure 1: Russian Federal Districts by cement production in 2016. Source: Soyuzcement.ru.
Anecdotally, this change in the fortunes of the Russian cement industry can be seen in the volume of news coverage on the Global Cement website over the last few years. The mean number of news stories on the country in 2016 and 2017, increased by half in 2018 and then again in 2019. Partly this is down to our attempts to increase our coverage of the region but it also shows a general trend. In the news specifically there haven’t been many new plant projects domestically but there has been a steady stream of upgrades and maintenance related stories. For example, Eurocement subsidiary Kavkazcement reported in recent weeks that it had installed a replacement dry kiln. This has been part of a group of upgrades that Eurocement has started in 2019. On the supplier side both Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer and Italy’s Bedeschi opened subsidiaries in Russia in 2019.
One thing that didn’t seem to slow down the growth were mounting tariffs on Russian exports into Ukraine. Russia’s neighbour first blocked imports of cement from Russia in May 2019 due to, what it said was a Russian ban on imports. It then followed this with an antidumping rate of 115% for imported clinker and Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) from Russia. It also penalised imports from Belarus and Moldova, although at lower rates. Russia’s cement export rates seemed untroubled by this, rising by 13.5% year-on-year to 0.8Mt in the first 10 months of 2019. Exports hit of high of just below 2Mt/yr in 2014 but have since stabilised at around 1Mt/yr. Imports reached around 5Mt/yr in the early 2010s and have been slowly declining since then, reaching 1.5Mt in 2018.
The lowered production rate that the Russian cement industry has faced over the last five years has been noteworthy given the apparent low capacity utilisation rate. The Global Cement Directory 2019 records the country as having a production capacity of 111Mt/yr. This gives Russia a capacity utilisation rate of 48% in 2018! Unlike, say, the countries in southern Europe that have had to rationalise their cement industries following the post-2008 decline, Russia may have structural aspects to the industry that have helped protect it from lower utilisation rates. These include relatively low export-import rates and the large size of the country with limited sea access to many regions. Most of its production capacity is located in the west but a sizable minority of plants are based further east across the Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern regions. Even under subdued economic conditions, plants in these places are likely to be less susceptible to foreign imports, for example.
Looking ahead, the question is whether the current growth that the cement industry is enjoying is viable once government spending slows down. Alongside this the industry could also focus on sustainability. As the government announced in early January 2020, the country expects to face both negative and positive effects from climate change. The cement industry could be at the front of this trend if it decides to clean up production and/or move into new markets as the Arctic region opens up.
Michel Puchercos appointed as chief executive officer of Dangote Cement
Written by Global Cement staff
08 January 2020
Nigeria: Dangote Cement has appointed Michel Puchercos as its new chief executive officer (CEO) and group managing director. He succeeds Joseph Makoju, who will retire at the end of January 2020.
Puchercos holds over 20 years of experience in the cement industry, having served in various roles at Lafarge including president and CEO of Lafarge Halla Cement, Director of Strategy and Systems at Lafarge Gypsum and CEO of Bamburi Cement in Kenya, Hima Cement in Uganda and chairman at Mbeya Cement in Tanzania. His last appointment was as the Group Managing Director and Country CEO of Lafarge Africa.
Baudouin Nizet appointed as chief executive officer of McInnis Cement
Written by Global Cement staff
08 January 2020
Canada: McInnis Cement has appointed Baudouin Nizet as its president and chief executive officer (CEO) with immediate effect. He succeeds Jean Moreau, who worked as the interim president and CEO since mid-2018.
Nizet career in the cement industry, includes working at CRH Canada / Holcim Canada as Senior Vice President for Quebec and the Atlantic Region from 2006 to 2013 in Montreal, then in Toronto as president and CEO from 2013 to 2017. Until recently, he was Senior Vice President at Stuart Olson Building Group, a construction company based in Calgary. In addition to serving as a director of the Cement Association of Canada for several years, he also served until 2017 as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Canada Green Building Council, responsible for LEED certifications in eco-responsible constructions.
McInnis Cement has also appointed Alex Wojciechowski as its chief operating officer. Wojciechowski holds over 30 years of experience as a manager in the cement industry in Canada and in the US. He has held various positions ranging from Maintenance Manager to Plant Manager to Industrial Manager. His expertise covers both cement operations and constructing and commissioning industrial equipment investment projects.