Cimentos de Moçambique celebrated the opening of a new clinker production line at its Dondo plant this week. The achievements mark considerable change to the cement sector in Mozambique over the past few years and particularly so far in 2026. We have covered this market tangentially in recent months but we make it the focus this week.

China-based Huaxin Cement purchased Cimentos de Moçambique from InterCement in 2023. It bought the Brazil-based company’s operations in Africa for US$265m, including cement plants in Mozambique and South Africa. Huaxin Cement then started investing in new production lines and these have started to be commissioned in 2026. It has built new integrated production lines at the Nacala plant in the northern province of Nampula and the Dondo plant in the central Sofala province. These started operation in July 2026 and October 2026 respectively. The plants now have a production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr and 1.3Mt/yr. Note that Dondo was previously a grinding plant. Huaxin Cement has also renovated the clinker production line at the Matola plant in Maputo province. That plant has a production capacity of around 0.9Mt/yr.

At the start of the 2020s the cement sector in Mozambique was dominated by lots of grinding plants (10+). The two integrated plants run by Cimentos de Moçambique were frequently reported to have maintenance issues or be mothballed. This began to change in 2021 when West China Cement opened the 2Mt/yr Dugongo Cement plant in Matutuíne, Maputo Province. Local grinding companies accused Dugongo Cement of ‘unfair pricing’ later that year when the price of cement reportedly dropped by up 70%. More project announcements followed, including additional Dugongo Cement plants and the Clay & Gravel Holding cement plant in Chibabava, and the Huaxin Cement upgrades arrived this year. The local sector now has an estimated cement production capacity of around 5Mt/yr from integrated plants and 5Mt/yr from grinding plants. One market research company reported that cement demand reached a high of 2.8Mt in 2016 before falling to 2.2Mt in 2018 due to the so-called ‘tuna bonds’ debt scandal. West China Cement estimated that the country had a domestic demand for cement of 3.5Mt/yr in 2025.

The increase in integrated capacity in Mozambique has also started to have effects internationally. In March 2026 the Ministry of Economy said it was going to reduce by 20% a protective tariff put in place to protect new plant investments such as the Dugongo Cement plant in Matutuíne. A few months later a South African manufacturers’ association started complaining about imports from Mozambique. By September 2026 the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC) said it was investigating the alleged dumping of cement from Mozambique and Vietnam after complaints from local cement producers Afrimat, Sephaku Cement and InterCement. ITAC reached the conclusion that the dumping margin for Mozambique was determined to be 90.5%. Tariffs now look likely.

All of this looks like bad news for Mozambique’s standalone grinding plants since the country can now produce more cement that it consumes. Domestic demand has risen over the last decade but not significantly. The clinker producers look set to control the domestic market and export what they can accordingly. If or when exports to South Africa become more expensive, then the clinker producers seem likely to target other neighbouring countries. This includes Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These countries need more cement. Tanzania, however, has production overcapacity (on paper at least) and so is less likely to be a target for exports.

The race between cement production capacity and consumption is a regular story that Global Cement covers as nations develop and markets evolve. Similar themes are observable from country to country but local conditions invariably make it play out differently. A recent independent column on Reuters noted that “the cement pipeline acts as a leading indicator of Africa's broader energy needs.” It placed Mozambique in the top 20 countries building new capacity, also including Angola, Libya, Mali and Uganda. The author’s view is that Africa could lead the world’s demand for electricity, transport fuels and industrial energy in coming decades. New cement plants are the harbinger of all of this potential. And more plants are on the way in Mozambique.

Polysius launched ThyssenKrupp Polysius Solutions this week. It has described the new company as a dedicated lifecycle solutions provider. By doing so, it joins a number of other traditional cement equipment manufacturers that have also pivoted into services and retrofits over the last decade or so.

Parent company ThyssenKrupp previously tried to sell its cement plant engineering division in the late 2010s as part of a major restructuring. It didn’t manage to divest that part but it did sell its mining division to FLSmidth along the way. This had implications as the Denmark-based FLSmidth gradually turned into a mining company and eventually sold its cement engineering division to private equity. ThyssenKrupp’s cement business kept going and it later launched its sustainable process technologies as ThyssenKrupp Calvion in May 2026. That subsidiary’s intention is to specialise in sustainable process technologies for the cement, lime and other energy‑intensive industries. The rest of ThyssenKrupp Polysius said it was sharpening “its profile as a provider of single‑machine solutions, modernisations, spare parts and field services.”

Now at the start of October 2026 ThyssenKrupp Polysius has carved off a section of itself as ThyssenKrupp Polysius Solutions. Its stated aim is to help customers maximise the value of their equipment and to support them throughout the lifecycle of their plants with consultation, upgrades, retrofit equipment, digital products, spare parts and services. Around 180 employees will transfer from Polysius to the new company. The remainder of ThyssenKrupp Polysius will continue to operate in parallel to complete ongoing projects and existing contractual obligations.

Other cement equipment manufacturers have been on similar journeys in recent years, focusing less on delivering whole new production lines and more on retrofits and service. This has also tied in with the trend for sustainability and increasing digital products such as predictive maintenance. Some industry commentators have also blamed this on Chinese companies undercutting their competitors and capturing the full production line market. For example, Fuller Technologies said it was going to work on a portfolio of capital products, digital and service offerings when it was purchased (as FLSmidth Cement) by Pacific Avenue Capital Partners in late 2025. Before this, companies including KHD, Fives, Gebr. Pfeiffer and Loesche have all switched in some fashion or another to supplying parts of cement production lines and/or ongoing services, often with a focus on sustainability, efficiency and/or digital along the way.

Sinoma International Engineering summed it up in its annual report for 2025 by saying that the full-line EPC market is concentrated in ‘Belt and Road’ countries in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, while the market for technical upgrades is concentrated in the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America and Asia. It cited research by Zheng Lue Consulting that placed the value of the market for cement engineering outside of China at US$4.8bn/yr from 2026 to 2030 and just under US$1bn/yr domestically in China. With cement production having peaked in China in the 2010s, the country is now very much in the upgrade and services market. CNBM said in its 2025 annual report that its engineering and services segment, including Sinoma International Engineering, had 74 cement production lines under operation and maintenance service contracts and 326 mines.

ThyssenKrupp Polysius has followed the prevailing trends for the cement equipment market by splitting itself into a sustainability equipment company and a services-retrofit company. The next option might be to launch a digital wing, but this is probably built into both of the other sections already. It is notable that Calvion started with 40 employees but Solutions started with 180 employees. It’s a crude measure but it suggests that more money lies in servicing and retrofitting than sustainability at present. Fives confirmed some of this in its 2026 annual report when it blamed falling order intake in the cement sector, “…where efforts to reduce carbon footprint have taken a back seat in Europe (for budget reasons) and the US (for political reasons).” Building new cement production lines will become rarer in the future so keeping existing ones running is increasingly where the action is.  

One trend that Global Cement Weekly has noted in recent months has been investment by Indian cement companies in electric vehicles (EV). Producers including UltraTech Cement, JK Cement, Dalmia Cement and Wonder Cement have all enlarged their fleets. Let’s explore what’s been happening.

UltraTech Cement said in September 2026 that it was scaling up its EV fleet to over 600 trucks by December 2026. It has signed contracts with manufacturers including Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland, IPLTech, Energy in Motion, Sany and others to make it happen. The total fleet will transport about 5Mt/yr of clinker and other materials in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Odisha. It will also allow the company to avoid using 39Ml/yr of diesel. The producer started using compressed natural gas (CNG) trucks in 2021 and EVs in 2024. Its CNG and EV fleet currently surpasses 850 trucks.

There have been other cement companies investing too. Dalmia Cement (Bharat) said at the end of September 2026 that it was working with SwitchLabs Automobiles and Energy In Motion. This project has deployed 24 EV trucks for the transportation of bulk raw materials, including petcoke, slag and gypsum from Karaikal Port to its cement plants in Dalmiapuram and Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu. Dalmia Cement and SwitchLabs have also reportedly developed a trailer-swap operating model designed to improve utilisation and reduce idle time for EV trucks. Under the model, an electric tractor can interchange trailers rather than remaining idle during loading and unloading activities.

Back in July 2026 Wonder Cement and Montra Electric announced the deployment of around 250 Rhino 5538 EV 4×2 TT EV trucks. At the time Montra Electric said that the trucks would operate across the Nimbahera - Dahej Port and Nimbahera - Tuna Port routes, covering approximately 1450km across Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. It added that this made it India's longest commercial electric freight corridor. Crucially, the supplier also mentioned charging infrastructure. This comprised 13 charging stations with 39 chargers. Some other key details to note included that the 5538 EV 4x2 TT truck has a 282kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate battery that has a range of up to 198km per charge on a one-way loaded, one-way empty duty cycle. It is also available in two configurations: a standard fixed-battery variant capable of fast-charging from 20% to 100% in about 60 minutes; and a battery-swap variant that enables a full battery replacement in under six minutes.

Finally, JK Cement also revealed in July 2026 that it has entered into a partnership with Billion Electric to deploy more than 150 EV trucks during the financial year. The arrangement will start with deployment of 20 EV trucks from JK Cement’s Muddapur plant in Karnataka. The trucks are intended to transport cement to stockyards in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. Similar to the Wonder Cement - Montra Electric deployment, Billion Electric Mobility will also be providing charging infrastructure as well as fleet operations and route planning. It was preparing to use ChargeZone’s charging network in the three states. 

Back in 2024 the Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA) and Confederation of Indian Industry released a report on how electrification could be introduced to the cement and raw material sector. It noted that using EV trucks could potentially cut logistic costs by 25 - 40% and that vehicles that operated over 8000km/month were ready to save money under energy and infrastructure prices at the time the report was published. Needless to say the reduction in CO₂ emissions would be immediate. It also said that in the 2020 - 2021 financial year road transportation represented 74 - 76% of total cement movement with most of these journeys being trips of up to 300km. For an average integrated cement plant, just under half of these trips (49%) were internal movements related to clinker production. The next 41% were outbound trips concerned with cement followed by 2% of trips related to slag and 7% with fly ash. Challenges noted to using EV trucks included the higher procurement costs for EV trucks, battery cost and maintenance issues, the necessity for charging infrastructure, reduced payload due the battery size, maintenance issues with the new vehicle types and reliance on imports for the trucks and parts.

Media commentators have pointed out that the cement sector in India is particularly suitable to adopt EVs early. This is principally due to the business generally having known routes that charging infrastructure can be built for rather than having to build a widespread network of chargers such as for consumer automotive. Throw in the cost savings suggested by the CMI and the recent wave of EV deals by cement companies in India starts to make sense. There are also a number of government policies that are aiding the transition such as the PM E-DRIVE truck incentive and various state initiatives. The other counterintuitive thing here is that diesel prices may not be the primary driver. Europe and North America have increasingly become preoccupied with mounting diesel prices. India, whilst not immune to the underlying geopolitical causes, has a large refining base and has been exporting diesel.

In conclusion, switching EV trucks appear to be making financial sense for cement producers in India and these companies are investing accordingly. The transition isn’t without its issues as mentioned above, particularly with financing and the change in logistic mindset of working around recharging a battery rather than filling a fuel tank. We intend to report back on this topic in future months as it develops, both in India and elsewhere.

Earlier this month Electrified Thermal Solutions (ETS) announced it was supplying two thermal batteries to Holcim. Then, earlier this week the European Commission (EC) published the rules for its auction of support for projects using industrial process heat. Talk about good timing! Plus, UltraTech Cement has reported that it is rolling out the use of electrical batteries at its plants to support sustainable energy usage.

ETS’ release in mid-September 2026 did not say which Holcim cement plant (or plants) would be using its products. Although the US-based company did open its European office in Amsterdam in April 2026 “to scale across EU industry.” At the time it noted that, “in Scandinavia, and parts of Western Europe, off-peak electricity pricing combined with high natural gas costs make the Joule Hive Thermal Battery (JHTB) cost-competitive with natural gas and other fossil fuels, without requiring subsidies. In larger industrial markets like Germany and France, the volatility of natural gas prices, exacerbated by geopolitical supply disruptions, has underscored the need for more predictable energy alternatives.” The obvious deployment locations might be a Holcim plant somewhere with access to plentiful renewable energy, with highly variable electricity prices, with access to government subsidies and/or one of the group’s flagship NextGen locations.

It did reveal that the initial deployment would consist of two JHTBs as part of Holcim’s electrification roadmap. The cement company will invest in ETS as part of the arrangement. The batteries convert and store electricity as heat, delivering heat of up to 1800°C from 480V to 100kV electricity. When Global Cement Magazine interviewed ETS’ CEO Daniel Stack for the March 2026 issue, he pointed out that a typical cement plant requires around 150MWth and that each JHTB provides 5MW. The units can be used in an array to target the calciner, the preheater tower or the kiln. With this in mind it will be instructive to see where Holcim decides to target in the pilot. 

Holcim has not commented on these developments. However, it invested in SaltX Technology in mid-2025. This Sweden-based company has developed a method to use electric plasma technology for high temperature applications, such as making clinker, using its Electric Arc Calciner. In its 2025 sustainability report Holcim said it was aiming to establish the world’s first plant for all-electric cement production. Readers can find out more about SaltX in the September 2024 issue of Global Cement Magazine.

ETS opening an office in Europe and Holcim ordering heat batteries coincides with the EC finalising the rules this week for its second Europe-wide auction for projects decarbonising industrial process heat. Heat batteries don’t necessarily have to be powered by process heat, but it is one way to do it. The auction has a planned budget of €1bn, sourced from revenue created by the European Union Emissions Trading System. The categories covered include: electrified options such as heat pumps, thermal storage, plasma torches and electric boilers; direct renewable heat from solar thermal or geothermal sources; and nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors. It is expected to open to bidders in early December 2026. Successful bidders will then receive a fixed premium subsidy that is linked to the related CO₂ emissions reductions for up to five years. 65 projects were selected at the first auction, although this did not include any cement companies.

Elsewhere, UltraTech Cement announced this week that it had reached a new decarbonisation milestone with the news that its 3.3Mt/yr Kukurdih cement plant in Chhattisgarh had met 100% of its electricity requirements through ‘green’ energy since April 2026. It has done this through a mixture of using renewable energy sources and a waste heat recovery system. The cement company says that nearly a third of its 76 plants have sourced over 50% of their electricity from sustainable sources in this time period. Notably, UltraTech is also progressively deploying its Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS). One example of this was a 7.5MW project with Gentari at the Sewagram cement plant Gujarat in mid-2025 bringing together solar and wind generation with battery storage. More such projects have followed. We have reported on another example of electrical battery storage today with the news that CleanMax and Nuvoco Vistas have announced a partnership to develop a wind - solar hybrid energy project in Bhikamkhore, Rajasthan, including a 2MW BESS.

Global Cement Weekly has covered heat batteries and energy storage now and then over the years. Other industrial heat battery companies include Rondo Energy, Antora Energy and Brenmiller Energy. Rondo Energy, for example, launched a 33MWh battery at one of SCG’s plants in Saraburi, Thailand in late 2025. How popular they become and/or whether a default deployment method emerges remains to be seen. Yet, the hope of EU funding for these kinds of projects may yield more projects in Europe. Meanwhile, UltraTech Cement is showing everyone what can be done with electrical batteries and renewable power sources.