Cement developments in South East Africa include a 1.1Mt/yr project start and completion of a 0.8Mt/yr expansion, both in Mozambique, in the past fortnight. The current round of cement capacity-building shows global trends of alternative raw materials substitution and electrification. It also goes to show the new geopolitical multipolarity, in the form of over US$600m of investments from China.

Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe lie at the southern end of the African Rift Valley system, between the Kalahari desert to the west and the Bushveld dry forest to the south. The three nations are connected by the course of the River Zambezi, from its source in Ikelenge district, Zambia, to its mouth 1500km away in Sofala and Zambezia provinces, Mozambique. The countries have a combined population of 74.5m people and an integrated cement capacity of 6.45Mt/yr. Over 4Mt/yr-worth of new capacity construction commenced, continued or concluded in August 2026. Additionally, the region has a proportion of planned and approved cement plant projects of uncertain status at present.

Mozambique’s cement sector is notable for its medium-sized integrated cement segment (two plants, 3.2Mt/yr) but large, diffuse cement grinding segment (10 plants, 4.75Mt/yr). The industry is shaped to take advantage of its location beside the Indian Ocean, via which it receives clinker and exports finished cement to buyers in Comoros and Madagascar, across the Mozambique Channel. An 11th, US$35m grinding plant is planned for Ancuabe in coastal Cabo Delgado province. Moçambique Dugongo Cimentos, a joint venture between SPI Gestão and China-based West International Holding, was preparing to commence the 17-month construction project in mid-2025.

Other developments indicate a shift in local industrial strategy towards greater self-sufficiency up the cement value chain. China-based Huaxin Cement subsidiary Cimentos de Moçambique successfully tripled the production capacity of its Nacala integrated cement plant in Nampula province to 1.2Mt/yr on 28 July 2026, at a cost of US$110m. Moçambique Dugongo Cimentos, meanwhile, is itself building a US$192m, 2.2Mt/yr integrated plant at Nacala, which had previously been due for delivery in 2025.

Then on 7 August 2026, Global Cement News reported broken ground at the site of a third Mozambican cement plant project. Clay & Gravel Holding’s upcoming 1.1Mt/yr Muxúnguè cement plant is reportedly under construction by China-based AVIC International Beijing. Clay & Gravel Holding is a single-parent entity, which, combined with its choice of engineering contractor, suggests Chinese ownership – perhaps by confirmed Muxúnguè plant investor China Energy Overseas Investment. Together with the Nacala plants, this is set to bring Mozambique’s cement sector to an eventual five integrated plants, with a combined capacity of 7.3Mt/yr. The Muxúnguè plant is also planned to have 0.9Mt/yr of additional clinker capacity.

In Zambia, state investment firm ZCCM Investments Holdings and China-based ​Wonderful Group launched a 45:55 joint venture, Ndola Lime, at the end of May 2026. The aim of the JV will be to restart the Ndola cement and lime plant in Copperbelt province. Wonderful Group will invest US$30m and ZCCM Investment Holdings will write off US$9.8m of historic debt attached to the Ndola facility. The restart of cement production will form Phase 2 or 3 of the planned project, following the restart of lime production, subject to local market conditions. Prior to its closure in 2018, the plant had a cement production capacity of 0.2Mt/yr. 

Zambia’s 1.55Mt/yr integrated cement industry has been 100% (China-based) Huaxin Cement-owned since it acquired regional former Lafarge assets, including Zambia’s 0.55Mt/yr Chilanga and 1Mt/yr Ndola cement plants, in 2021. Read Global Cement’s previous analysis of Huaxin Cement’s movements in Sub-Saharan Africa from the end of 2024 here. China Zambia De Jin Xin Cement has had plans for a further Zambian integrated cement plant, along with a new limestone mine and captive power plant, since November 2024. The Global Cement Directory 2026 currently lists no grinding plants in Zambia.

Zimbabwe has 1.7Mt/yr in integrated capacity across four cement plants, with six grinding plants adding a further 2.5Mt/yr in installed cement capacity. The country is due to host a new, 0.4Mt/yr grinding plant from October 2026, Global Cement News has reported, following an update from Dinson Iron and Steel Company (DISCO) on 10 August 2026. The subsidiary of China-based Tsingshan Holding Group is building the US$15m plant at its Manhize metallurgical complex in Mashonaland East province, where cement production will benefit from a captive source of granulated blast furnace slag. The plant will also source limestone from Chirumhanzu and Masvingo districts. These districts occupy a geologically rich region, hitherto only developed for ferrous and precious metals production.

In neighbouring Mashonaland West province, China-based Shuntai Investments reported ‘significant progress’ on construction of its upcoming 2.2Mt/yr Chegutu integrated cement plant in mid-July 2026. The plant, including a captive 50MW solar power plant and fleet of electric vehicles, is on schedule to launch in September 2026. This will more than double Zimbabwe’s integrated production capacity, to 3.9Mt/yr. This removes any need for the 35,000 – 45,000t/month of cement that Zimbabwe imported in 2026 to-date, but raises the issue of overcapacity for the landlocked country. In 2025, Zimbabwe consumed 1.8Mt of cement, amidst locally-reported shortages.

Longer-term project concepts in Zimbabwe include a ‘rehabilitation’ of the 0.7Mt/yr Manresa cement plant in Harare (following a bail-out in 2024) by Uganda-based Hima Cement and a new, 1.5Mt/yr Dangote Cement plant at an as-yet unspecified location. PPC and China-based Sinoma Overseas Development, meanwhile, are collaborating on a potential expansion to the South Africa-based producer’s 0.5Mt/yr Colleen Bawn cement plant in Matabeleland South province – capacity as yet unconfirmed. A May 2026 announcement by the partners indicated that a new integrated cement plant project may follow after. The above projects may eventually raise the number of Zimbabwean integrated cement plants to seven.

An influx of foreign cash of the kind underway in Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe is a mixed blessing. Across the region, new plants are rising up and mothballed ones are being resurrected. Companies like Tsingshan Holding Group and Shuntai Investments in Zimbabwe are signing the deals that African competitors appear to only be mulling over. At the upcoming Chegutu plant, Shuntai Investments is hiring 400 local people to work alongside its technicians. Over at Zvishvane in Midlands province, 120 people work at Zimbabwe’s newest grinding plant, opened just under a year ago in September 2025 by China-based Livetouch Investments. On 24 February 2026, the High Court of Zimbabwe found that Livetouch Investments had breached its contract with the Zvishvane plant’s coal fines supplier, locally-based Avim Investments, by not paying it.¹

Zimbabwe will celebrate its 50th and Mozambique its 55th anniversary of independence in 2030; Zambia’s 65th will be in 2029. Whether geopolitical multipolarity will be able to serve these countries better than the old extractive postcolonialism depends on the relationships between local networks on the one hand and plant managers under pressure to deliver results on the other. These relationships, however, take time.

References

1 NewZimbabwe, 'Chinese firm Livetouch ordered to pay US$380k to transporter in long-running debt saga, 24 February 2026,' www.newzimbabwe.com/chinese-firm-livetouch-ordered-to-pay-us380k-to-transporter-in-long-running-debt-saga/

International shipments of cement connect many nations around the world. The top five trade flows of cement and clinker generated revenues in the region of US$5bn in 2025. In the last week of July 2026, governments have successfully enacted or upheld tariffs to constrain the movement of cement, including along some major trade flows.

Our story this week begins in Quebec, Canada, where the former McInnis Cement built a new 2.2Mt/yr integrated cement plant at Port-Daniel between 2014 and June 2017. The plant is situated on the south coast of the Gaspé peninsula, facing out on the Gulf of St Lawrence, and beyond to the US east coast. It was strategically located to capture anticipated infrastructure-driven demand growth in the US, under prevailing free trade arrangements. At that time, US cement imports were forecast at 22Mt in 2018, more than doubling to 50Mt by 2028.¹

On 20 January 2017, Donald Trump first took office as US President, elected on a promise, among other things, to clear up ‘bad’ trade deals. In the first year of his presidency, the country imported 13.5Mt of cement and clinker.² Import volumes continued to grow at the anticipated rate over the next eight years, up to 25.4Mt in 2025. Over the same period, US cement consumption grew by approximately 12% to around 110Mt – hardly a bonanza. The nearest plant inside the US to Port-Daniel – Giant Cement Holding’s Thomaston plant in Maine – idled its kiln in 2025.

President Trump first enacted tariffs on goods from Canada on 4 March 2025, subject to the exemption of goods compliant with the preexisting US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Canadian cement is eligible to be USMCA-compliant, provided it contains all-North American raw materials and has the necessary paperwork to show it. On 20 February 2026, the US Supreme Court found Trump’s tariffs void, given that the President’s emergency powers did not extend to the imposition of tariffs. A blanket US ‘surcharge’ of 10%, and Canadian retaliatory tariffs, remained in place.

It was in this Canadian retaliation that President Trump found the legal basis for his next move. A never-before-used provision of the Tariff Act 1930 permits punitive tariffs of up to 50% on any goods from countries that treat US goods ‘unequally,’ as Canada now allegedly does. On 20 July 2026, a series of Presidential proclamations enacted 50% tariffs ‘to offset discrimination’ of US exports under three headings: alcohol, automobiles and dairy products. Under the second of these – alongside hundreds of other products from animal hides to ‘bones treated with acid’ – is cement.³ The new tariffs will enter force on 20 August 2026. The anticipated effects are as follows:

1 – A decline in sales for Canadian cement producers;

2 – A rise in costs for US construction firms, passing to the end customer.

The American Cement Association previously communicated its position on Trump’s tariff measures in March 2025.⁴ At time of writing, it has yet to comment on these latest developments.

The Canada-US cement trade is not one of the major global flows, but it is nonetheless instructive due to the scale of the US market, as developments might affect its larger trade partners: Türkiye and Vietnam. These industries represent significant strategic overcapacity in their respective export spheres of the Atlantic basin and Asia-Pacific.

On 23 July 2026, the Philippines government rejected importer NCL Trading’s appeal against ‘anti-dumping duties’ on Vietnamese cement, in force until 2028. It found sufficient evidence of injury to the domestic sector to maintain a tariff of up to 23% on imports. NCL Trading already pays a special reduced rate of 2%. Cement from China and Indonesia previously also became subject to the duty earlier in June 2026.

Other tariff news followed from Serbia. The landlocked country imports cement chiefly from neighbouring countries and – overland via Bulgaria – Türkiye. On 24 July 2026, the government extended a six-month quota on cement imports of 250,000t. As in the first half of the year, importers will pay 50% tariffs on shipments above quota volume. The government apportioned the quota between trade partners based on their historical volumes of cement exports to Serbia in 2020 – 2024.

New trade flows continue to open up, even as others are winding down. In the first quarter of 2026, Senegal increased its cement exports to the Gambia tenfold year-on-year, following domestic production capacity growth in Senegal in the intervening period. West African regional cement imports rose by 39% in 2025, with Eastern Mediterranean countries being the lead established providers.

There are other options available to governments seeking to prop up their domestic cement production. In New Zealand, which is 60% reliant on Fletcher Building’s Portland cement plant for its cement supply, the government granted the producer up to US$34.7m to continue production on 20 July 2026. It justified the grant based on the ‘massive exposure’ of the country to global cement supply disruptions, if not for the Portland plant. Fletcher Building said that production was becoming untenable, due in part to New Zealand’s lack of any carbon border adjustments on imports. Foreseeably, such a ‘CBAM’ mechanism may play a part in the Pacific nation’s eventual decarbonisation (due by 2050). On 22 July 2026, however, the New Zealand Climate Commission reported that the government is off track to meet its goal without immediately doubling its pace of decarbonisation.⁵

The government of Cambodia, meanwhile, extended a specific tax exemption on domestic cement producers’ sales on 24 July 2026, until the end of 2028. The Cambodian cement industry serves 80% of domestic cement needs, with consumption forecast to chart a composite annual growth rate of 7% up to 2028.

In Mozambique, Huaxin Cement subsidiary Cimentos de Moçambique successfully tripled the production capacity of its Nacala cement plant to 1.2Mt/yr on 28 July 2026, eliminating the need for 300,000t/yr of exports. The expanded plant will, in turn, increase its exports to Madagascar.

Investing in a cement plant is always risky. The lesson of the past decade’s cement news appears to be: secure your domestic market first. In the time since McInnis Cement commenced operations at Port-Daniel, China broadly withdrew from the import of cement, and the US now shows every sign of attempting to follow it. The definite stage of the EU’s CBAM began on 1 January 2026, and the bloc is encouraging its trade partners’ efforts to replicate the measures. Rolling, temporary tariffs have served in the Philippines and elsewhere. Into the medium-term future, underserved regions like West and Southern Africa remain. As Huaxin Cement’s movements in Mozambique make abundantly clear, this may not be the case for long.

References

1 Béton Provincial, Port-Daniel-Gascons Mcinnis Cement Plant, 2017, www.betonprovincial.com/en/our-projects/port-daniel-gascons-mcinnis-cement-plant/

2 US Geological Survey, ‘Cement Statistics and Information,’ February 2025, www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-center/cement-statistics-and-information

3 Executive Office of the President, ‘Imposing Additional Duties To Offset Canadian Discrimination Against the Commerce of the United States With Respect to Motor Vehicles,’ 23 July 2026, www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/23/2026-14997/imposing-additional-duties-to-offset-canadian-discrimination-against-the-commerce-of-the-united

4 American Cement Association, ‘US Cement Industry Statement on Trump Administration’s Proposed Tariffs,’ 3 February 2026, www.cement.org/2025/02/04/u-s-cement-industry-statement-on-trump-administrations-proposed-tariffs/

5 He Pou a Rangi Aotearoa, 2026 Monitoring report: Emissions reduction, 22 July 2026, www.climatecommission.govt.nz/reports-and-evidence/publications/2026-monitoring-report-emissions-reduction/

Half-year financial results from some of the major cement producers outside of China show a general positive trend in 2026 to-date. The North American market is still delivering for these companies but the focus on growth for some has shifted to aggregates. Elsewhere in the world, in developing markets, the effects of geopolitical events in the Middle East are having an effect on balance sheets. Read on for our round-up.

Figure 1: Sales of selected major multinational cement producers in first half of 2026. Source: Company financial reports. Note: Figures calculated for Indian companies.

CRH’s sales in the first half of 2026 benefited from its acquisition of Eco Material Technologies in 2025 and higher prices for aggregates. Cement sales volumes in its Americas Materials Solutions division grew but pricing slowed. Both cement volumes and prices increased in the group’s international division outside of North America. Sales volumes of aggregates were high (above 5%) everywhere. CEO Jim Mintern pointedly described the company as the “leading aggregates and critical infrastructure player in North America” in the second quarter results in connection to the June 2025 announcement that it is buying Arcosa for US$8.5bn.

Heidelberg Materials’ sales revenue from cement fell slightly in most regions with the exception of North America. Sales of aggregates, ready-mixed concrete and asphalt rose. In Europe, the group’s largest area, it said that for cement “construction activity remains subdued as a result of higher interest rates, a decline in real purchasing power and a significant rise in construction costs.” Cement and clinker volumes in North America grew modestly with a significant increase in the Midwest US and a moderate decline in the Northwest region. Cement and clinker volumes in the group’s Africa-Mediterranean-Western Asia group area fell slightly and this was attributed to poor market conditions in certain countries. Volumes did rise in Türkiye, where the company increased its stake in subsidiary Akçansa to 79% from 40% in June 2026.

Holcim reported organic growth of 5% year-on-year in the first half of 2026. However, like-for-like sales barely rose. This was due to the divestment of Amrize in June 2025. The acquisitions of Cementos Pacasmayo and Xella in the first half of 2026 were insufficient to compensate much so far. Encouragingly, much of that organic growth came from the sale of building materials. The group’s largest geographic area by revenue, Europe, reported sales driven by markets in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Greece and East Europe, with help from its acquisition of precast concrete producer Alkern in January 2026. Its Asia, Middle East & Africa segment was noticeably smaller in the first half of 2026 due to the sale of Lafarge Africa in mid-2025. 

Cemex enjoyed a strong first half with sales, earnings and cement volumes driven by good performance in Mexico. It attributed this to rising demand, cost cutting and a “pricing strategy designed to offset input cost inflation." Sales were up elsewhere but earnings fell in the US. This was blamed on rising material and freight costs, as well as bad weather in Texas. In Europe the group singled out promising cement sales volumes in Spain and the Czech Republic. It also said that the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), along with the reduction in allowances, “have been and should continue to be supportive of higher prices.”

Of the other companies covered, UltraTech Cement reported sales growth of 16% year-on-year to US$2.57bn in the first quarter of its 2027 financial year (to 30 June 2026). It noted that it had turned a net loss for its acquisition of The India Cements in the corresponding quarter in 2025 to a profit in the current one, demonstrating its “ability to rapidly stabilise, integrate and improve acquired assets.” Its cement sales volumes were up by 13% to 39.2Mt with a capacity utilisation rate of 81% from a local production capacity of around 200Mt/yr. The news it didn’t share so readily was that its costs grew by 16% in the most recent quarter compared to 8% last year. By contrast, Adani Cement’s main subsidiary Ambuja Cements did point out the effects of higher imported fuel costs, including petcoke and thermal coal, and logistics costs originating from “geopolitical developments in West Asia.” Both its sales volumes of cement and revenues fell in the first quarter of the 2027 financial year. It further warned of peak fuel cost inflation in the second quarter. The company aims to fight this with cost cutting and efficiency savings.

Finally, Dangote Cement delivered a robust result in the first half of 2026 with its international markets rebounding. Inflation may have picked up at home in Nigeria but the company still managed to increase its sales volumes of cement by 8% to 9.7Mt. Volumes and revenue jumped up elsewhere but earnings were flat. The company also noted that exports of cement from Nigeria rose by 62% to 1.1Mt. It will be interesting to see whether this once more becomes an issue for Dangote Cement should the price of cement in Nigeria be deemed too high again in the court of public opinion.

That’s it for this selective view on the first half of 2026. We will follow this up in the coming weeks with a review of the situation in China.

This week the European Commission (EC) announced its latest plan to change the emissions trading scheme (ETS). Meanwhile, in New Zealand, the government gave Fletcher Building around US$35m to keep its Golden Bay Cement Northland plant open. Read on to find out how the two stories are linked.

Following pressure from European heads of state earlier in the year, the EC published its proposal to amend the scheme. The commission has presented it as an Electrification Action Plan and an ETS review. However, the latter proposal is the main concern for the cement sector in the short term. It wants to add more free permits and slow the rate at which they are phased out. The Linear Reduction Factor (LRF) will be reduced to 3.7% for 2031 - 2035 and 1.7% for 2036 - 2040. This compares to the current LRF of 4.3% and the next one of 4.4% for 2028 - 2030. Both the amount of free permits or allowances for carbon credits and the rate at which they are phased out are a major concern for heavy emitting sectors, like cement, because it exposes them to the carbon price faster. The commission has spun this slowdown in its ambitions for the ETS as aligning it with the “domestic climate ambition level.”

Naturally, these changes come with strings attached. Free permits will be given to industry for longer but on the condition that investment is made towards decarbonisation. 80% of the value of the free permits will be given in advance but the remaining 20% will only follow once decarbonisation plans have been verified. Likewise, the free permit system will continue to operate to and the full version of the Cross Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) will start from 2038, instead of 2034 previously.

Cement Europe welcomed the proposed changes, noting that they were an “acknowledgement of the need to maintain sufficient liquidity in the carbon market beyond 2040.” It also liked the inclusion of CO₂ transport infrastructure within the definition of ETS ‘installation.’ However, it did not like the slower phase out of the free allowances for CBAM sectors, as it is seeking a “level playing field” for carbon costs for both imports and exports. It is also looking forward to any progress on electricity prices, noting that such prices in the European Union (EU) remained higher than those in many competing countries that produce cement and clinker.

Climate think tanks such as Sandbag were less enthusiastic. In response to the proposed changes it declared in a LinkedIn post that the reforms would torpedo the EU’s legally binding target of a net emissions reduction of 90% by 2040 from 1990 levels. Its view is that the ETS currently has a surplus of permits representing 1.7x the emissions reported in 2025. If the EU tries to meet an 85% target it runs the risk of having too many free permits and crashing the EU ETS price. Sandbag reckons, more realistically, that the most likely scenario, if the current proposals are enacted, is that the 1.7x surplus will endure to 2040 leading to a 75% reduction of total emissions. Or, in other words, the EU appears to be softening its emissions reduction targets.

All of this links to a cement plant in New Zealand because the owners, Fletcher Building, partly blamed the threat of closing the site on local carbon taxes. Following an ‘independent assessment’ the company said that it might have to close the integrated plant and import clinker instead by 2030. Instead, the government has made a “specific, one-time response to an exceptional set of circumstances” and local subsidiary Golden Bay Cement has committed to investing around US$87m and keeping the site open until at least 2040. As Fletcher Building pointed out in its accompanying press release, it supplies nearly 60% of the cement used in the country and 95% of the plant’s output is sold domestically. It is worth noting, that despite major differences between the two systems, the carbon price in New Zealand is currently around €50/t compared to around €80/t in the EU.

These kinds of situations are going to continue as carbon taxes grow and mature around the world. Schemes will be tweaked following political pressure and governments may have to decide whether they want to bail out heavy emitters that they might deem as essential to society. One absurdity of the current argument in the EU about the ETS is that the commission has now issued its response softening the system following a record-breaking heatwave.