September 2024
ASEC sells Algerian asset 22 May 2017
Algeria: ASEC Cement Company and ASEC Cement Djelfa Offshore have sold their 100% stake in ASEC Ciment Algerie to an Algerian investor for US$60m. ASEC Cement is based in Egypt, while ASEC Cement Djelfa and ASEC Ciment Algerie are based in Algeria.
Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has announced the appointment of Jan Jenisch as its new CEO, effective from 16 October 2017. The move follows the resignation of Eric Olsen, who will leave the company on 15 July 2017, two years after he took up the CEO role and assumed responsibility for the merger of Lafarge and Holcim. Between 15 July 2017 and 16 October 2017 Beat Hess, Chairman of the Board, will become interim CEO. Roland Köhler, currently an Executive Committee member, will be appointed Chief Operating Officer.
Jenisch, aged 50, joins from Swiss company Sika AG, a developer and producer of systems and products for the building materials and automotive sectors. He has been the CEO of Sika AG since January 2012. Under his leadership, the market capitalisation of Sika has more than tripled and the company has recently gained admission to the Swiss Market Index. Jenisch joined Sika in 1996 and has worked in various management functions and countries. He was appointed to the Management Board in 2004 as Head of the Industry Division and he served as President Asia Pacific from 2007 to 2012.
Hail Cement Company secures export licence 19 May 2017
Saudi Arabia: Hail Cement Company has obtained an export licence from the Ministry of Commerce and Investment. The licence is valid for one year from the date of issue. No significant financial impact is expected upon the financial results of the company.
Tunisia: Al Karama Holding, a state-owned company, has initiated a bidding process to sell its stake in Carthage Cement. The company has started a consultation process with investment banks and consultation firms to help it sell its direct and indirect stakes in BINA Group, that includes Carthage Cement, according to the African Manager website. The deadline for bids is 16 June 2017. The government owns an estimated 41% share of the cement producer.
Algeria: The Saoura Cement Company has chosen a MVR 5000 R-4 mill from Gebr. Pfeiffer for the new production line at its plant in Zahana. The 425t/hr raw cement mill will grind material to a fineness of 12 % R90µm and the drive will have a power of 3500kW. The expected moisture level of the input material will be 13%. The order was placed by CBMI, a subsidiary of China’s Sinoma, that is building a plant upgrade for Groupe des Ciments d’Algérie (GICA).
Africa: Denmark’s FLSmidth has signed a contract for a cement plant valued at more than Euro100m in an unspecified location in North Africa. The contract includes engineering, equipment supply, construction supervision, commissioning and training. The plant will have a production capacity of 12,000t/day. The contract will become ‘official’ once FLSmidth receives a down payment for the work.
US: Eagle Materials’ sales revenue rose by 6% year-on-year to US$1.21bn in its financial year to 31 March 2017 from US$1.14bn in the same period in 2016. The building materials producer completed its acquisition of Cemex’s Fairborn cement plant in Ohio with associated assets in February 2017 and this contributed to its cash flow in the period. Its cement sales volumes rose by 2% to 4.87Mt from 4.78Mt.
Libya: The Libyan Cement Company (LCC) plans to rebuild and reopen two cement plants in Benghazi and Hawari. Ahmed Ben Halim, the chairman of parent company Joint Libyan Cement Company (JLCC), said that the priority was getting the plants near Benghazi operational again, according to the Arab Times newspaper. The plants closed in mid-2014 and remained under militant control until mid-2016.
Unfortunately, the plants were damaged in fighting in 2016. Following a survey LCC says that extensive rebuilding will be required and this may take up at least one year. Repair work will be covered by the company’s Political Violence Insurance policy with Lloyds of London.
LCC is 90% owned by the JLCC, a joint venture between Asamar Libya and the Economic and Social Development Fund. Asamer Libya was purchased in 2015 from Asamer by Libya Holdings Group, a company run by Ben Halim. LCC also operates a third cement plant at Derna that has remained operational throughout the conflict.
Show US the infrastructure 17 May 2017
2017 has started more uncertainly for the US cement industry than 2016 did according to the latest data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Cement shipment data from just two months, January and February 2017, can only present a limited impression of the state of the industry. Yet the key trend to look for in Graph 1 is the growth in Midwestern US states against a decline in the Western ones. Previously in 2016 this region’s shipments sunk below those in the West in December and didn’t overtake them until the spring. This time round they’ve stuck closely and overtaken them already in February 2017.
Graph 1: Portland and blended cement shipments by US Census Bureau region for 2016 to February 2017. Source: USGS.
The Midwest’s cement shipments jumped by 21% year-on-year to 2.2Mt for those first two months. Buzzi Unicem concurred with this picture in the Midwest with its first quarter financial results this week, reporting a boost in deliveries in the region. HeidelbergCement agreed, reporting sales volumes increases in the north of the country and a decrease in the West. In that region the USGS data shows an 8% fall in shipments to 2.2Mt. HeidelbergCement blamed heavy rain and flooding in California and Oregon as the cause of the problems. Another potential reason that the USGS hints at are increasing imports of cement that it says have been rising faster than sales. For example, imports of cement to the US as a whole grew by 23.9% year-on-year to 0.81Mt in February 2017.
Overall though the situation for the larger cement producers has been subdued. Many of them blamed good weather in the first quarter of 2016 giving them a hard quarter to measure against in 2017. For example, LafargeHolcim’s sales volumes of cement fell by 4.5% in North America although it did report sales growth off the back of cement pricing and cost controls. HeidelbergCement may have looked good on paper following its integration of the Italcementi/Essroc assets but its cement volumes only grew by 1% in the period. Cemex too reported a similar scenario with falling sales volumes of 5% but growing sales revenue.
To put this in perspective, as the Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) chief economist Ed Sullivan says in the May 2017 issue of Global Cement Magazine, cement production in the US grew in 2016 and it is expected to continue growing in 2017 and 2018. Just like the start of 2016 (see GCW251) the potential for US construction growth in the year ahead is a quietly confident one but it isn’t assured.
Cemex points out that housing starts rose by 8% in the first quarter of 2017, as did construction spending in the industrial and commercial sector. However, it says that infrastructure spending fell by 9% in February 2017. Indeed this last point is an important one given that one of the major Trump campaign pledges in the 2016 presidential campaign was to build more infrastructure. As commentators in Washington DC including the PCA have asked: where is the Bill? Rightly, the PCA are not letting the lawmakers forget this during ‘Infrastructure week’ as the issue is discussed. The US cement industry needs this.
For further information on the US cement industry take a look at the May 2017 issue of Global Cement Magazine
Workers strike at Amazonian cement plant 17 May 2017
Brazil: Over 500 workers have gone on strike at Cimento Nassau’s Alexio cement plant in Amazonas. The dispute is over back pay and better working conditions, according to the Amazonas em Tempo newspaper. The management of the plant is attempting to start negotiations.