21 May 2018

India: UltraTech Cement has agreed an acquisition schedule to buy the cement assets of Century Textiles & Industries. The cement production subsidiary of BK Birla Group comprises three integrated plants in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra respectively with a combined production capacity of 11.4Mt/yr and a 1Mt/yr grinding plant in West Bengal.

The takeover has been arranged via a demerger process whereby Century Textiles’ shareholders will be given shares in UltraTech Cement. The deal is subject to approval from shareholders, creditors, competition bodies and others. It is expected to be completed by early 2019.

India: UltraTech Cement has won the Deora-Sitapuri-Udipyapura limestone mining block in Madhya Pradesh in a state auction. The block has a reserve of around 54Mt and it is spread over an area of 345 hectares. The company said that the block is near to the existing limestone quarry of its recently commissioned Dhar Cement plant. It added that the new limestone reserve would be useful in augmenting the capacity of the plant in the future.

India: Dalmia Bharat's subsidiary OCL India plans to build a new cement plant in Odisha. The new unit will have a production capacity of around 1.7Mt/yr and it will include a waste heat recovery system. It will bring the cement producer’s total cement capacity up to around 8Mt/yr in the states of Odisha and West Bengal. The project is estimated to cost around US$545m. The plant is expected to be completed by mid-2020.

India: Jaiprakash Associates’ sales have nearly halved following the sale of much of its cement business to UltraTech Cement in mid-2017. Its sales dropped to US$1.14bn in the year to the end of March 2018 from US$2.19bn in the same period in 2017. The company said that its annual results were not comparable due to the sale of six integrated cement plants and five grinding plants.

Nepal: Hongshi-Shivam Cement has started trial production at its new plant near Dumkibaas in Nawalparasi district. The joint venture between Nepal’s Shivam Holdings and Hong Kong Red Lion Cement No 3, a subsidiary of China’s Hongshi Group, plans to start commercial production by the end of June 2018, according to the Kathmandu Post. The Chinese company owns a 70% stake in the joint venture. The unit has a production capacity of 6000t/day.

In September 2017, the Investment Board of Nepal had signed a US$359m project investment agreement with Hongshi-Shivam Cement to build the plant. A 10km road was built to connect the site to the main local highway and another 22km road was built to link up a limestone quarry at Palpa. The company plans to double the unit’s production capacity to 12,000t/day by 2020.

Philippines: Holcim Philippines plants to spend US$45m towards increasing production capacity. Its new chief executive officer John Stull told The Manila Times newspaper that the company is looking to improve efficiency at its plants to improve logistics and cut energy costs. It is also planning to hasten its equipment maintenance schedule. The cement producer set a target to increase its cement production capacity to 12Mt by 2019.

Zambia: The Ventriglia family has been awarded full ownership of Zambezi Portland Cement by the High Court of Zambia. The resolution follows a 10-year battle between the Ventriglias and businessman Rajan Mahtani, according to the Times of Zambia. Mahtani’s company Finsbury Investments claimed a majority share in the cement producer but the Ventriglia family objected, asserting full ownership of the company.

Cuba: A new railway cement terminal is being built at Ciego de Ávila. The unit will have five silos with a total storage capacity of 1600t, according to the Invasor newspaper. The terminal should be compelted by the end of 2018. The site is intended to support hotel construction, infrastructure projects and general housing in the region.