September 2024
Shanshui Cement management ousted as Tianrui Cement seeks control 04 December 2015
China: The management of China Shanshui Cement Group Ltd's operating unit was ousted two days after executives of its parent were dismissed, in a move analysts said underscores efforts by the company's biggest shareholder, Tianrui Group, to solidify control.
Shandong Shanshui Cement Group Ltd Founder Zhang Caikui, Chairman Zhang Bin and Chief Financial Officer Henry Li were among key managers whose positions were terminated on 3 December 2015. Tianrui's Vice Chairman Li Heping has succeeded Zhang Bin to become Chairman of the unit.
Italcementi job cuts halved ahead of takeover 04 December 2015
Italy: Labour undersecretary Teresa Bellanova has announced that layoffs at Italcementi will be 538, not 1080 as earlier reported. The deal to reduce job losses in Italcementi's workforce of 3000 in the was hammered out by government, unions and management ahead of the Euro3.7bn takeover by HeidelbergCement.
Lafarge moves to reach emissions targets with new kiln in Canada 04 December 2015
Canada: Tony Levstik returned to Lafarge to pull the plug on the oldest piece of equipment at the Lafarge cement plant in Exshaw, Alberta, Canada. He was the first operator of the kiln when it was installed in 1975. He said that shutting it down was a lot easier than starting it up.
Kiln 6 is replacing kiln 4 as part of Lafarge's plant expansion project. The new technology will help to control dust and has fewer emissions. It will be approximately 30% cleaner with sulphur dioxide emissions, 75% cleaner with nitrous oxide emissions and have 25% less greenhouse gas emissions caused by combustion. The new kiln will also have better filter technology to help improve dust control. Kiln 4 used the gravel bed filter technology, which was prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s, but kiln 6 will have a state of the art bag house to collect dust.
"You can't make cement without using a lot of energy and these kilns that we're putting in are a lot more energy efficient, so we won't use as much fossil fuel, as much power to run the new plant," said Lafarge Plant Manager Jim Bachmann. "For a lot of reasons this is an exciting day." Kiln 6 will be operational in 2016.
Used tyres to reduce costs at Irish Cement 's Limerick plant 04 December 2015
Ireland: Irish Cement will burn used tyres in a bid to cut costs and secure jobs at its Limerick plant. The company plans to switch to dry waste material such as rubber from used tyres and plastic to heat the kiln at the plant. The switch will cut costs, make the plant cleaner and more competitive, according to the company.
A spokesman for Irish Cement said that the company would shortly be lodging a planning application with Limerick City and County Council for the replacement of fossil fuels with alternative fuels and raw materials to improve the sustainability of their operations. The company will also be seeking a revision of its licence from the Environmental Protection Agency.
"Limerick is Ireland's oldest cement plant, having commenced operations 77 years ago. Its continuous operation has been sustained by continuous investment in new technologies and processes. After the recent period of reduced demand, production is once again on the increase at home and abroad for cement. This fuel replacement programme will be key to sustaining this growth," said Plant Manager Pat Robinson. "Based on experience in other cement plants in Ireland and throughout Europe, the opportunity to reduce our dependence on imported fossil fuels will prove critical to our ability to operate competitively and sustain jobs at Irish Cement Limerick into the future."
Ecocem US plant faces possible planning setback 04 December 2015
US: Irish cement maker Ecocem's proposed manufacturing plant in San Francisco Bay faces a potential planning setback after receiving almost 500 submissions challenging its environmental impact report.
Ecocem is seeking permission for a US$50m grinding plant in Vallejo, close to San Francisco, in the group's first venture in the US, but the town's residents are objecting to the proposal on environmental grounds. According to local reports, some 400 - 500 people and organisations have questioned the company's assessment of the plant's likely impact on the environment, which could force Vallejo's council to delay a decision on planning permission until 2016. The council was hoping to have cleared all planning hurdles by December 2015, but local sources have said that the volume of questions posed during a 60-day public consultation period means the deadline could be pushed back to March 2016.
California law requires Ecocem's subsidiary, Orcem Americas, which is directly responsible for the project, to answer the questions before preparing a final environmental impact report. The city's Architectural Heritage and Landmarks Commission will have to decide whether the buildings that would be knocked to make way for the plant are historic, which is likely to happen in December 2015. The proposal will then have to pass both the Vallejo Planning Commission and then get the support of a majority of councillors before it can get the go ahead.
According to local activist Peter Brooks, a group of citizens recently began a petition to remove four council members said to favour Ecocem's project. He also said that influential US environmental group, the Sierra Club, wrote to the city's authorities expressing concerns about the plans.
Ecocem wants to build the plant on the site of an old flour mill in the city's harbour. It would grind furnace slag from iron smelting that is then used as a component in cement. The process cuts greenhouse gas emissions from normal cement manufacture by 90%.
Tajik government scouting for cement plant investment 03 December 2015
Tajikistan: The government of Tajikistan is looking for investors for construction of a 1Mt/yr cement plant near the Tuyun-Tao limestone deposit in the Shakhritus district in the south of the country, according to Avesta news agency.
The project has been included in the government's investment portfolio for implementation through direct investments, according to the Tajik State Committee of Investment and State Property Management. The project requires US$350m of investment. Some Russian, Iranian and Chinese companies earlier showed interest in the deposit. Indeed, in 2012, Chinese building materials corporation CNBM prepared a feasibility study for the project, but the project did not reach implementation phase due to its high cost and the absence of infrastructure.
Cementos Argos names Calle as new CEO 03 December 2015
Colombia: The Cementos Argos board of directors has unanimously appointed Juan Esteban Calle as the new CEO of the company as of 1 April 2016. Calle will replace Jorge Mario Velasquez, who was recently named the new CEO of Grupo Argos.
Calle holds a bachelor's degree in business from EAFIT University (Medellin, Colombia) and has a master's degree in business administration (MBA) with emphasis in finance and economics from the University of Chicago.
Since January 2012, Calle has been the CEO of the Empresas Publicas de Medellin, a residential public utilities company with operations and subsidiaries across the Americas. Throughout his career he has held positions such as senior associate for Chase Manhattan Bank of New York (today JPMorgan Chase Bank), finance director for the Antioquia Department in Colombia, foreign investment director for Proexport in its Canada office, and investment advisor for the Bank of Montreal (today, BMO Financial Group), among others.
Calle is currently a member of the board of directors for Tigo-Une Comunicaciones, Empresas Varias de Medellin, Ticsa México and ENSA Panamá. He has also served on the board of directors for Isa, Isagen and Metro de Medellin, among others.
LafargeHolcim finances and rumours down-under 02 December 2015
This week we got our first real sense of how things are going at the new global cement leader LafargeHolcim. The group released its first 'combined' results, which cover the third quarter of the year and the nine month period to 30 September 2015.
First impressions are that LafargeHolcim is having a tough time of it, struggling, as many cement industry players are, with an increasingly tricky and uneven global market. It reported a fall in net sales and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the first nine months of 2015, compared to the same period of 2014. Cement sales were also down by 1.3%. The group said that lower than expected demand was the reason behind lower sales, particularly in China and Brazil, which continue to struggle economically. It also picked out India as a country where momentum was lacking.
Of course, it's not all bad. While net sales were down, they were only down very slightly, by 0.6% year-on-year in the first nine months. Many a cement producer would love to pull in Euro20.4bn in sales and ship 189Mt of cement in just nine months! And, after a sticky start to the year, the picture is improving in some regions, with third quarter performance buoyed by improving fortunes in Asia, excluding China and India. LafargeHolcim was able to continue banking on the strong recovery in North America and parts of Europe, where some markets, such as the UK, continue to buck the otherwise depressing trend.
While these results will be a concern they are by no means horrific. However, they have already given rise to (or at least sped up) LafargeHolcim's future divestment plans. According to Dow Jones, LafargeHolcim plans to raise Euro3.23bn in 2016 from selling off assets, around half as much as Lafarge and Holcim had to sell to allow the merger to go through. The company has reportedly started discussions with interested parties, including private-equity firms and industry rivals about some of the assets. The proceeds will be returned to shareholders through dividends or share buybacks, according to CEO Eric Olsen.
Which assets will be divested remains to be seen. However, it reportedly won't involve LafargeHolcim's assets in Australia and New Zealand, at least in the short term. In the past week or so local media has reported that LafargeHolcim's assets in the two countries were to be sold off. However, since then Holcim Australia's Chief Executive Mark Campbell said the company was 'not currently being sold.' Campbell also added that he couldn't rule out a possible sale in the future.
So, while being clear that LafargeHolcim has no plans to sell its Australian and New Zealand assets at the moment, what could happen if it did? The starting point is complex, especially in Australia. According to the Global Cement Directory 2016, there are six operational integrated cement plants and 12 grinding plants in the country, which share a combined 13.9Mt/yr of cement capacity. LafargeHolcim has a 50% interest in Cement Australia's 4.0Mt of cement capacity, giving it 2Mt/yr of capacity and around 14% of national capacity. The other 50% of Cement Australia is owned by HeidelbergCement. Other major players include Adelaide Brighton, which has 2.3Mt/yr in its own name and a 50% stake in Independent Cement, and Boral Cement, which owns 2.3Mt/yr of capacity outright and 50% of SunState Cement's 1.5Mt/yr of capacity. In New Zealand there are two integrated plants, one operated by Golden Bay Cement and one by LafargeHolcim. The latter, however, is due to be closed in 2016.
If LafargeHolcim was to leave the mix in Australia, it is possible that neither Adelaide Brighton nor Boral would be able to take over its share, due to their already-large market presences. This may leave the door open for other regional players, perhaps a Chinese player looking to exit that country's rapidly-declining domestic market? Cemex is contracting and still heavily indebted, leaving it out of the running. While it is also possible that assets could be sold to private equity firms, another interested player could be Ireland's CRH, with 'cash to burn' and recent disappointment from its failure to buy Lafarge and Holcim's former assets in India.
Of course, if the assets aren't for sale, it won't be possible to buy them, meaning that for now the above is just speculation. However, the quick analysis above does highlight the relative lack of viable cement industry suitors in this region. If LafargeHolcim does ever decide to sell in this region, it might find the assets hard to shift.
Italcementi and Grupo Puma to launch joint plant in Morocco 02 December 2015
Morocco: Spanish mortar producer Grupo Puma and Italian cement maker Italcementi have signed an agreement for the construction of a plant in Morocco.
The companies have set up a joint venture named Meastro Drymix, which will distribute the products in Morocco. Meastro Drymix was incorporated in May 2015 by FYM, the Spanish subsidiary of Italcementi, and Grupo Puma.
Al Khalij Cement Company adds new cement line 02 December 2015
Qatar: Al Khalij Cement Company has added a duplicate production line to take its total cement production capacity to 15,500t/day, which will help Qatar meet rising cement demand in view of the strategic infrastructure projects being undertaken ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
"We can say that we are now the largest producer of Ordinary Portland Cement in Qatar," said Al Khalij Cement Company's Managing Director Faisal bin Abdullah al-Mana. Highlighting that the estimated total cement demand in Qatar is 20,000 - 22,000t/day, al-Mana said that, with the addition of production capacity from Al Khalij, the country will be able to meet the growing demand domestically.
In 2013, Denmark's FLSmidth won a US$95.9m order for the supply of a complete cement production line for Al Khalij's plant in Umm Bab. The production line is identical to the existing line, which was supplied by FLSmidth in 2007. The strategy to have identical production lines, according to al-Mana, will make the maintenance and sourcing of spare parts easier.