14 November 2023

US: Martin Marietta Materials recorded sales worth US$5.17bn during the first nine months of 2023, up by 10% year-on-year from US$4.68. Meanwhile, the company’s earnings rose by 30% to US$1.23bn from US$944m. Building materials revenues in its West business rose by 10% to US$2.85bn, while those in its East business rose by 11% to US$2.08bn. Overall, the value of its cement sales rose by 21% to US$565m.

Bolivia: Empresa Publica Productiva Cementos de Bolivia (ECEBOL) commissioned its new 1.3Mt/yr Potosí cement plant at Chiutara on 11 November 2023. Local press has reported that the producer overcame previous issues regarding gas and water supplies.

India: Grasim Industries recorded sales of US$3.63bn during the three-month period up to 30 September 2023. This represents a 10% year-on-year rise from the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year. Its profit rose by 15% year-on-year, but fell by 26% quarter-on-quarter to US$140m.

Brazil: Votorantim Cimentos reported US$1.51bn in sales during the third quarter of 2023. This represents a decline of 3% year-on-year. It raised its total volume of cement sales by 1% year-on-year to 10.3Mt. Meanwhile, the group’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 9% to US$1.9bn.

CEO Osvaldo Ayres said “The positive results in both the third quarter and the first nine months of 2023 reinforce our operational leverage and our performance within our strategic mandate, with discipline and resilience. Despite the uncertain global macroeconomic scenario and market challenges, our geographic and product diversification improves the company, to face challenges and be ready to capture good opportunities.”

Italy: Cementir Holding raised its sales by 0.5% year-on-year during the first nine months of 2023, to Euro1.3bn. It sold 7.93Mt of cement, down by 3.1% year-on-year from 8.19Mt in the corresponding period of 2022. Cementir Holding attributed the decline to reduced demand, primarily in Belgium, Denmark, Egypt, Malaysia and the US. This offset an increase in consumption in China and Türkiye. The group’s operating costs dropped by 6.6% to 1.01bn, while its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 33% to Euro321m.

Poland: Cemex Polska awarded an eight-year contract to Statkraft to supply wind and solar energy for its cement plants. The parties signed a corporate power purchase agreement (CPPA), under which Statkraft will meet 30% of Cemex Polska’s plants’ energy consumption, beginning on 1 January 2025.

Cemex Polska director cement operations Tadeusz Radzięciak board member “The concluded contract is important for Cemex on several levels. The contract ensures stable supply of a large volume of electricity, while at the same time securing a guaranteed, predictable level of prices for supplied energy in the long term. This is particularly important in the context of the rapid and unpredictable changes in energy prices on the European and Polish energy markets recorded in the last several months. In addition, the partnership with Statkraft is crucial in the context of achieving the Cemex's sustainability goals. After all, sourcing energy from renewable sources enables a significant reduction in the carbon footprint of our production facilities.”

France: Ireland-based Ecocem hosted a symposium on the application of new materials technologies in cement production on 14 November 2023. Participating materials scientists published a statement calling on the global cement industry to make use of alternative materials to achieve CO₂ emissions reductions. In the statement, they said “It is no longer possible to say that we lack the technology or that the costs are prohibitive.”