- Written by Dr Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Cement Magazine
It never ceases to amaze me that you can buy a tonne of cement so cheaply. The standard worldwide price of 42.5 cement is only US$60-80/t. In a few countries it might nudge $100/t and in some out-of-the-way spots, generally land-locked and a long way from competition from importers, it will peak at past US$200/t. However, for most producers, the most they will receive for their efforts in producing this miracle material is a measly hundred bucks - max. Take away the costs of production (especially the ever-increasing costs of raw materials, electrical energy, fuel, transport, labour, maintenance and finance*) and a cement producer is lucky to manage a 10% margin. If there is competition in a particular market then margins will drop below 5% - perhaps even below 0% (and that is when the trouble starts).
- Written by Dr Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Cement Magazine
While I was out for a walk recently, I met two Asiatic ladies also taking in the fresh air - one was from Singapore and one from Malaysia. We soon found ourselves talking about the air pollution that is drifting from forest fires in Indonesia and is creating a choking haze in Singapore. They mentioned the terrible air pollution in Beijing and the fact that 6000 dead pigs had been found floating down the Huang Po, the river that flows through Shanghai. One of the ladies then told me the following joke: "Two Chinese, one from Beijing and one from Shanghai, are discussing the relative merits of their glorious cities. The Beijing resident, boasting, said "We are so lucky in Beijing; we can open the window and get free cigarette smoke!" The resident from Shanghai just snorts and says, "That's nothing. In Shanghai we turn on the taps and out comes pork soup."
- Written by Dr Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Cement Magazine
You may imagine us here at Global Cement Towers always beavering away on the next issue, collating information from around the world, updating the website, LinkedIn and Twitter and forever working on the next cement-related event and for most of the time it is indeed just like that. However, 'all work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy' and so we are sometimes forced to go away on holiday to recharge our batteries, to be able to come back to work and to toil even harder.
- Written by Dr Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Cement Magazine
As you can see from the front cover of this month's issue of Global Cement Magazine, we have launched the first-ever Well Cem Conference and Exhibition on well cements, which will take place on 13 - 14 January 2014 in Dubai. The conference will concentrate on cement production and cement performance in place. I thought that it might be useful to give a recap on the basics of well cement (including cement for oil, gas, water and geothermal wells) for prospective attendees. Technology has come a long way since Frank Hill of the Union Oil Co. first mixed and dumped 50 sacks of cement into a well to shut off water flow in a Californian oil well in 1903.
- Written by Dr Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Cement Magazine
I've recently been reading a very scary document called 'Perfect Storm - energy, finance and the end of growth'1 by Dr Tim Morgan, Global Head of Research at Tullett Prebon, an inter-dealer broker. In this alarming but well-argued and persuasive publication, Dr Morgan suggests that 'the economy as we know it is facing a lethal confluence of four critical factors: the fall-out of the biggest debt bubble in history; a disastrous experiment with globalisation; the massaging of data to the point where economic trends are obscured' and - critically - the end of cheap energy and the resultant collapse of civilisation as we know it. He makes some pretty good points and I'll try and summarise them here.
