There have been a couple of big news stories this week involving major multinational cement companies making large acquisitions. Holcim completed its purchase of Xella and CRH announced that it had agreed to buy Arcosa. These deals aren’t directly about cement but let’s look a little deeper into what’s been happening.

Holcim revealed in October 2025 that it would acquire Xella for €1.85bn. The transaction was completed on Friday 19 June 2026 following approval by the European Commission (EC). The main point the commission noted about the proposed translation was that its investigation found that Holcim and Xella were leading suppliers of AAC blocks in Romania, “...with a strong market presence and well-established brands.” Subsequently, Holcim offered to divest its AAC blocks plant in Adjud, Romania.

Holcim’s pitch for the deal in the autumn of 2025 was that the deal supports Holcim’s Building Solutions product line. Xella manufactures lightweight building materials such as walling products, autoclaved aerated concrete (AAC) and calcium silicate blocks including brands such as Ytong, Silka, Hebel and Multipor. The group’s ambition is to reach a 50:50 sales split between Building Materials and Building Solutions products by 2030. In 2025 it was roughly two-thirds for Building Materials and one-third for Building Solutions. Incidentally, this is a little ahead of Amrize’s share for its Building Envelope segment in 2025, although Amrize, Holcim’s former North America division, says that it does intend to increase the properties of this segment. 

Building Materials, for Holcim, includes heavyweight building materials such as cement, concrete and aggregates. As part of the group’s plan to buy its way into the Building Solutions sector it made nine acquisitions in 2025. These were: Algimouss, Alkern Group and Société des Bétons de la Vallée de Seine in France; AMCO in Costa Rica, Comosa y Copce in Mexico; Compañía Minera Luren SA in Peru; CPC AG in Germany; Horcrisa in Argentina for ready-mix concrete; and an insulation solutions business in Poland. Note that one of these companies is a concrete producer but Holcim has classified it under its Building Solutions line in this instance. As discussed previously in this column, Holcim’s strategy to grow its Building Solutions division offers it one way to decarbonise its business.

The proposed CRH acquisition, by contrast, is based in North America and is focused on heavy building materials. It is also much bigger and is the group’s biggest acquisition to date. It has signed a deal to buy Arcosa, a US-based supplier of infrastructure-related products and services for US$8.6bn. The parts CRH has focused on in its press release are the aggregates and Engineered Structures businesses. The former operates 109 quarries and yards, nine asphalt plants, 19 terminals and delivered about 35Mt/yr of aggregate shipments in 2025. If the deal completes, CRH reckons that it will maintain its lead as the largest aggregates producer with over 265Mt/yr. The Engineered Structures business, meanwhile, further opens up the critical infrastructure market to CRH via grid modernisation, electrification and data centre construction projects.

Both the Holcim and CRH deals reflect the different market situations in the US and Europe. As ever with the big US-based acquisitions, the question remains whether CRH’s latest big deal will actually pay off. For example, should an AI-market crash happen then it might put a dent in plans to build more data centres and supporting infrastructure. Failure to draw up a US-Iran peace deal might also drag on the US construction market. One more question to consider with CRH is whether it too might want to spin-off its US-based business like Holcim did in 2025. Holcim’s acquisition of Xella, in comparison, seems more modest but it is targeted at a region with more sustainability legislation. In both of these examples the focus by cement companies on the classic heavy building materials trio of cement, concrete and aggregates continues to be challenged.

We’ve covered some stories this week about new cement plants in Central Asia. Four new plants have been announced in Tajikistan and construction has started on an integrated plant in Kazakhstan. Let’s recap what’s been happening.

The office of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon announced that four new cement plants will be built to provide 6Mt/yr of production capacity by 2029. The plan is intended to increase domestic production, create a surplus and stabilise prices. The press release noted that local production grew to 5Mt in 2025 from 0.3Mt/yr in 2014. It also admitted that there have been ‘challenges’ with industry coordination, capacity utilisation and distribution. Cement prices have risen and localised shortages have been reported in recent months. The government says it is taking action in response to this. Separate media reports from the country, in late May 2026, suggest that cement prices have doubled recently, matching the cost of imports. This has been linked to a maintenance shutdown at the Jung-Tsai Mohir Cement plant in Yovon, high local demand and mounting exports to Afghanistan.

Then, in Kazakhstan, it emerged that construction work had commenced on the QazCem Industries plant at Baikaninsky in Aktobe. The US$177m project has a production capacity of 1.3Mt/yr. It is a joint-venture between China-based Sinoma Cement Company and Primus Capital. It is intended that three-quarters of the project will be built in 2026. Once completed the plant will target demand in the south of the country, with the option for export markets too. Other recent cement plant projects in the country include a US$222m unit at Alginsky in Aktobe in connection with West China Cement, which started construction in October 2025 and International Cement Group, which opened its fourth unit in the country in late 2024.

Another view on the cement market in Kazakhstan could be detected this week from Steppe Cement’s financial results for 2025. The leading cement producer in the country reported that its revenues rose by 20% year-on-year to US$101m. Its profit after tax more than tripled to US$3.3m. The company noted the contribution that residential construction growth had made to its balance sheet. Yet, it also warned of input cost inflation, negative currency exchange rate effects and competition from imports in the south of the country.

Graph 1: Cement production in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, 2018 - 2025. Sources: Qazstat, Tajstat & Uzstat, figure estimated for 2025 in Tajikistan.

Uzbekistan, meanwhile, has generally been the other big cement producer in Central Asia. As can be seen in Graph 1 above, its annual production was generally around 10Mt from 2018 to 2023 and then it jumped up to 20Mt in 2025 following the opening of a number of new plants. A review of the local sector by Avestra Investment Group reported that the country’s capacity utilisation rate fell from 92% in 2019 to 45% in 2024. It has since improved somewhat to 50% in 2025. New companies entered the sector from 2019, mostly from China, including Huaxin Cement, Namangan Cement, Fergona Yasin, Andijon WCC Cement, Toshkent Konch Cement, and China Energy JV. Overcapacity in Uzbekistan also has implications for neighbouring countries as local producers have turned to exports. Tajikistan, for example, reported a fall in cement production and exports in 2024.

Coincidentally, Uzbekistan presented the results from its first systematic assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from its cement industry at a seminar in April 2026. The event was hosted by the Center for Economic Research and Reforms (CERR) in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The country currently aims to reduce the carbon intensity of its gross domestic product by 50% by 2035, compared to 2010 levels, and is considering becoming carbon neutral by 2060. The cement sector is considering levers such as optimising cement composition, improving energy efficiency and increasing the use of alternative fuels.

Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan are the most populous countries in Central Asia. Consequently they have the largest cement industries. All three sectors have been growing in recent years as the nations develop, and as China has started financing and building cement plants overseas. This progress can be seen in the reports of new plants from Kazakhstan and Tajikistan. The aftermath is observable in Uzbekistan. Here, the new plants have been built and the industry is learning to cope with overcapacity. Its experience will be watched by its neighbours.

The opening days of June 2026 have thrown up multiple news stories about the global cement trade and its intertwined supply chains – formal or otherwise. High demand is one common thread across markets, along with predictably high prices.

In South America, authorities are looking into reasons for rising cement prices. The public prosecutor's office of Bolivia’s Oruro department launched an investigation in response to complaints from the public on 8 June 2026. In Venezuela, meanwhile, the matter will go all the way to the top, when National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez reports to acting President of Venezuela Delcy Rodríguez on his on-going talks with the Türkiye-based operators of unspecified cement assets in the country. Jorge Rodríguez is trying to find out why prices are as high as they are in cement-producing Trujillo state. When told the figure, Rodríguez reportedly remarked “It can’t be!”

Turkish investment in Venezuela’s cement industry commenced under ousted President Nicolás Maduro, before his eventual abduction in January 2026. Local news sources have described the sector and Türkiye as ‘one of the main allies’ of Maduro. Whatever the actual political dimensions, Türkiye’s transatlantic enterprises can be expected to continue to press their advantages under the watchful eye of the US government.

To the north west, Cemex subsidiary Caribbean Cement Company (CCCL) responded to a cement shortage in Jamaica by increasing its production by 50% and sales volumes by 23% month-on-month in May 2026. Sales reached a record 111,000t, 2% above the previous record month of March 2021. The group bolstered CCCL’s domestic supply with an additional 23,900t-worth of imports.

A volume of new capacity never before seen outside of China, meanwhile, is under construction across an area encompassing the entire Middle East & Africa region, east to India and north into the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) countries – read about it in the ‘Contracts’ feature of the forthcoming Global Cement July-August issue. Just yesterday, the state-owned Iraq Cement State Company invited bidders for three further cement plant projects in Iraq. The past decade of Iraqi reconstruction has relied primarily on cement from neighbouring Iran. With intermittent attacks on Iran by Israel and the US escalating on 10 June 2026, one might view the new round of capacity-building in Iraq as an investment in more than just the immediate needs of the domestic market.

Sneakiness is rarely to be encouraged, but desperate times make for desperate measures – and sometimes substantial returns. Off Bangladesh, 20 people were piloting two fishing boats loaded with 1700 bags of cement on a course for Myanmar’s war-torn Rakhine state on 2 June 2026, when the Bangladesh Navy intercepted the operation. The Myanmar government has been blockading Rakhine state since mid-2023.

The Philippines government announced safeguard measures of its own against Chinese and Indonesian cement imports on 2 June 2026, after they each exceeded the current thresholds as a share of total import volumes for exemption from import duties. China was the source of 23% of the Philippines’ first-quarter imports of cement in 2026 and 8% came from Indonesia. Both were behind Vietnam, with a 63% share.

Growth attracts regulation. In an effort to rationalise taxation of minerals, the provincial government of Pakistan’s Punjab province is attempting to implement raw materials royalties on cement ex-factory at a rate of 6%. The matter came to court on 5 June 2026, with judges warning that cement prices can be expected to rise proportionally.

Five-month 2026 data from Argentina and Brazil, published this week, strike a dissonant chord. Though ‘confidence remains high,’ the construction sector faces labour shortages, high interest rates, inflation and cost pressures connected to the Iran War. Five-month consumption was 27Mt in Brazil, up by 1% year-on-year, and 3.87Mt in Argentina, down by 3%.

Through good times and bad, producers and distributors will find ways of extracting maximum value for their product. Whatever barriers are set in the way, cement will continue to find a way through the cracks.

An updated version of the Green Cement Technology Tracker was released this week. The summary is that carbon capture utilisation and/or storage (CCUS) projects are now commercial but that less than 2% of total global emissions from the cement industry are expected to be captured by 2035. With the Global CemCCUS Conference due to take place in Hamburg in early June 2026, we take stock of what’s been happening.

The Green Cement Technology Tracker maps more than 175 projects around the world, at various stages of development, covering both carbon capture and calcined clay kilns. It is run by the Leadership Group for Industry Transition (LeadIT), an initiative that was launched by the governments of Sweden and India at the United Nations Climate Action Summit in 2019. Another perspective on this can be viewed in Global Cement’s own listing of industrial scale CCUS projects in the cement sector.

Graph 1: Total carbon capture project announcements in cement plants by year and continent. Source: Green Cement Technology Tracker/LeadIT.

Two trends can be seen in Graph 1 above if we focus on CCUS. Firstly, the number of projects being announced fell to 12 in 2025 from 19 in 2024. The numbers are small but this is the first fall in the data since it started recording these schemes in 2015. Secondly, the number of projects outside of Europe outnumbered the ones from within it for the first time since 2019. Notably, the number of CCUS projects in Asia grew to seven in 2025. Aaron Maitais, the Policy Lead at LeadIT, interpreted this as follows: “…the successful delivery of first-of-a-kind large-scale projects is more significant for building confidence and unlocking future investments, rather than the number of announcements.” Analysis by LeadIT noted that both access to government finance and to CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure has proved vital for the early projects. It forecasts that around 58Mt/yr of CO₂ is likely to be captured by 38 commercial-scale CCUS projects in 2035.

So far, the signs suggest that a deceleration of new CCUS projects looks set to continue in 2026. Two key projects have stalled. These are Holcim’s project at its Obourg cement plant in Belgium and Heidelberg Materials’ project at the Slite plant in Sweden. Neither of these projects has been cancelled, but their future remains uncertain. LeadIT was also anticipating the commissioning of Heidelberg Materials’ Edmonton CCS project in late 2026 but announcements on this one have been scarce although it is progressing. A presentation by the cement producer at the Global CemCCUS Conference 2025 suggested a commissioning date in 2028 instead. Smaller demonstrations such as Ash Grove Cement’s project with Carbon Upcycling at its Mississauga plant in Canada and Heidelberg Materials’ Leilac demonstration at its Ennigerloh plant in Germany are likely to start by the end of 2026.

Notably, most of those Asia-based projects flagged by LeadIT were pilots in India. This roughly fits with growing preparation for net-zero in the country such as the government issuance of emission intensity targets and the launch of a National R&D Roadmap for CCUS. The government then set aside just over US$2bn in its budget in early 2026 for investment on CCUS in hard to abate sectors, including cement. It is likely that early movers in the local cement sector are jockeying to capture some of that funding.

Co-incidentally another CCUS project was announced this week by the Thai Cement Manufacturers Association (TCMA). From July 2026 a mobile CCUS unit supplied from Canada-based Clean Energy Technologies Research Institute (CETRI) will be rotated between cement plants in the Saraburi Sandbox. The pilot is intended to validate performance under diverse operational conditions and prepare for commercial-scale deployment.

To finish, carbon capture isn’t getting any easier for the cement sector. The key problems of de-risking early large projects through government funding and connecting to CO₂ infrastructure remain. As the flagship projects start to arrive, we may now face a credibility gap between government encouragement and market acceptance. Debate and information exchange on the topic at this stage now becomes more important than ever. Provided that net-zero policies remain in place, then research and deployment of CCUS by the cement sector is likely to continue. This can be seen as the projects keep coming from different parts of the world.

The 3rd Global CemCCUS Conference will take place in Hamburg, Germany on 9 - 10 June 2026.