September 2024
Ahangarancement hits record production in August 2015 02 October 2015
Uzbekistan: Ahangarancement, which is owned by Russia's Eurocement Group, achieved record production figures in August 2015. The company said that it produced 164,000t of cement from 127,205t of clinker in August, rises of 2.5% and 12.2% compared to the same month of 2014. The enterprise shipped 164,863t of cement to consumers in August 2015, a 1.2% year-on-year rise.
Egypt reports September 2015 cement sales 02 October 2015
Egypt: Egyptian cement production hit 969,403t in September 2015 and the total amount put forth for sale by the producing companies was 945,315t, according to a Ministry of Supply statement. The amount of cement distributed the domestic market amounted to 1.02Mt and the amount exported came to 8260t.
ThyssenKrupp merges plant technology businesses in France 02 October 2015
France: The industrial and technology group ThyssenKrupp is has announced that it is 'strengthening its plant technology capabilities in France' by merging the formerly separate entities Polysius and KH Mineral to become ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions (France). The step came into effect on 1 October 2015.
The group said that the strategic move is another 'milestone' for the plant engineering and construction company in its efforts to further promote the integration and regionalisation of its plant technology business worldwide. It said that the move pursues ThyssenKrupp's overriding goal of integrating its businesses more closely to create sustainable value as a diversified industrial group. As of today, ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions (France) employs around 300 employees at two locations in Aix-en-Provence and Sarreguemines.
Samir Abi Ramia, CEO of ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions (France), said, "On the basis of decades of experience in European, Middle Eastern and African markets, excellent engineering skills and proven technologies, we can now offer tailor-made solutions for the cement, mining and raw materials industries in general from a single source. Joining our forces in France, while at the same time benefiting from the global network of one of the world's leading engineering and construction specialists, will enable us serve our customers' needs even better."
New joint venture plant coming to Colombia 01 October 2015
Colombia: Cementos Molins has signed a deal with Grupo Colombiano Corona for US$370m to jointly produce cement in Colombia. The firms will launch a 1.35Mt/yr cement production plant in Colombia in the middle of 2018.
Cemex Nicaragua receives safety award 01 October 2015
Nicaragua: For the seventh year in a row Cemex has been awarded a national prize as a 'leading business' for its industrial safety and hygiene management procedures by Nicaragua's National Council for Work Safety and Hygiene at the Ministry of Labour.
This continued recognition is linked to its programmes that encourage workers to report poor behaviour or unsuitable conditions that could otherwise lead to accidents. Cemex Nicaragua is on the verge of reaching zero incidents through more than 14,000hr of training per year.
FLSmidth enters service contract with Norwegian plant 01 October 2015
Norway: FLSmidth has agreed with HeidelbergCement on a one year service agreement contract to support its Norcem cement plant in Kjøpsvik, Norway. The plant is the most northerly in the world. An FLSmidth team will monitor the plant and diagnose and advise the Kjøpsvik-based operators in real-time. This will enable improvement in performance, increased availability and reduced operating costs.
"Optimising equipment performance is difficult without access to a wide range of specialists," said Skage Hem, FLSmidth's vice president for Global Research and Development. "It is not easy for customers with plants in remote corners of the world to recruit specialists. We have an experienced global specialist team ready to support the customers at all
hours of the day anywhere in the world."
Service is increasingly important for FLSmidth and is a growing business. In the last quarter alone service business across FLSmidth grew by 24% compared with the same quarter of 2014. Although global growth has slowed down, the equipment of many of its existing customers still needs to be maintained and optimised in order to increase plant productivity. With more than 90% of the lifecycle cost of cement plants being operating expenditure cost, service agreements are an area of continued growth potential for FLSmidth.
Read Global Cement's visit report from the Kjøpsvik plant here.
Chinese producers and plant builders have arrived 30 September 2015
The past few weeks have been notable for the high number of cement plant projects announced. Aside from further Dangote developments in Africa, (which doesn't seem to be able to go a week without announcing some 'milestone' or another,) a growing number have been in 'new' markets, especially in Central Asia.
The list from the past month or so is impressive. In east Asia Myanmar's Ait Thit Man group has announced that it will double its capacity from 5000t/day to 10,000t/day. In the south, Shree Cement wants to build another new facility in India. In west Asia, Pakistan, a country that has not seen significant cement capacity investment in the past few years, will be getting a new plant in Salt Range courtesy of China's Yantai Yantai Baoqiao Jinhong.
Turkmenistan looks set to build a 1Mt/yr plant as part of a massive government industrial stimulus package. China's Jilong Group wants to build a 0.8Mt/yr plant in Issyk Kul, Krygyzstan. Another Chinese producer, Xinjiang Tianshan will be bringing a 1.2Mt/yr plant to Georgia. Even today (Wednesday 30 September 2015), we have heard that there will be further Chinese investment, this time by Shangfeng Cement. It has announced financing for two new plants: in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Both are set to be 1.2Mt/yr facilities.
Two trends are clear from this. 1. Land-locked Central Asian and other relatively undeveloped countries elsewhere in Asia are finally coming to the cement plant party. 2. It is the Chinese producers that have the upper hand in these markets. This is based partly on cultural, political, geographical and historic links between China and these former Soviet nations. It is partly due to the lower 'face value' cost of Chinese equipment compared to European manufacturers. (The efficiency with which the lower cost equipment is installed and its running costs remain potential pitfalls, according to the Europeans.) Finally, it has a lot to do with the collapse of domestic demand for cement plants in China itself, where the economy continues to teeter on the brink.
The steady rise of the Central Asian cement sector and the increasing international activities of Chinese cement plant manufacturers have been 'on the cards' for years. To date, they have been trends waiting to happen, but 2015 looks to be the year that these factors finally combined and translated into large numbers of projects.
For Central Asian countries the prospects that come with a larger and more dynamic cement industry should enable greater independence, accelerated infrastructure development and economic growth. For the Chinese, setting up cement plants in Central Asia is a natural expansion of its multi-billion dollar activities in the African cement sector, where Sinoma recently signed a massive deal with Dangote Cement. As noted previously in this column, Africa can't continue to add capacity at the current rate forever.
For European manufacturers of cement plants, the other side of this story is not as pretty. AGAB, the large plant manufacturing group of Germany's Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau (VDMA), has recently released its Status Report 2014/2015, which reports on activities from 2014. AGAB members' cement plant order volume fell by an incredible 63% in 2014 to Euro198m. This is a fall from Euro529m in 2013 and six times lower than the Euro1.2bn peak of 2008. Some of this is domestically driven but the vast majority of it is export markets.
The same report also shows that, for construction of all types of large industrial plants, Chinese producers have increased their global market share from 5% in 2006 to 17% in 2014. Over the same period, Western European producers have seen their share fall from 45% to 33%, although an increase in overall project volumes mean that these producers received roughly the same value of orders in each year. US suppliers, although not a major consideration for the cement sector, saw their share of orders fall from 22% to 20%. Japan also lost a third of its stake over the same period, falling from 15% of sales in 2006 to just 10% in 2014.
While AGAB's report anticipates increased competition from Chinese producers, it is by no means all 'doom and gloom' for Europe's traditional large plant manufacturers. It highlights the fact that Russia, the largest single market for heavy plant in 2014 and a significant consumer of European-made cement equipment, has decided against Chinese equipment in some cases. It also highlighted that the weakness of the Euro helps exports from Germany and the rest of the Eurozone and suggests that the sector should look to increase its service and consultation offering in order to build on its existing reputation for high quality equipment.
Brazilian cement firms pay up over Indian acquisition infringements 30 September 2015
India: Brazilian cement major Votarantim Cimentos, InterCement Austria Holding and Camargo Corrêa have settled a case with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for alleged violation of takeover protocols regarding Shree Digvijay Cement. They have paid over US$115,000 in settlement charges.
SEBI had initiated adjudication proceedings against the three companies over the violation of provisions Substantial Acquisition of Shares and Takeovers (SAST) regulations. It was alleged that the entities failed to comply with certain provisions of the SAST regulations while making an open offer for acquisition of 36.7 million shares, representing a 26% stake in Shree Digvijay Cement.
AshakaCem and Nigerian Army ramp up efforts in north east 30 September 2015
Nigeria: AshakaCem and the Nigerian Army have scaled up efforts to rebuild the Northeast part of Nigeria, which has suffered devastating damage from the Boko Haram insurgency.
Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai and Chairman of AshakaCem Alhaji Suleiman Yahaya both spoke when the latter visited the former in his office in Abuja on 30 September 2015.
Lt Gen Buratai commended the management of AshakaCem for its philanthropic activities in the region, saying the cement firm has supported the country's war against the terrorists.
He described the attacks on the company last year as unfortunate, but urged its management not to relent in its effort at rebuilding the region.
Yahayah responded that his company was impressed by the security arrangement put in place around AshakaCem, even as he said the attacks had cost his company US$23m.
He promised that his company would step up its humanitarian efforts and would soon make a major announcement on its next move. AshakaCem is the largest employer in the Northeast.
Dangote to launch Tanzanian cement plant in October 2015 30 September 2015
Tanzania: Nigeria's Dangote Cement is set to commission its new 3.0Mt/yr cement plant in Mtwara District on 10 October 2015. The company will also hold the ground-breaking ceremony for 25 hectares of jetty land at Mgao village in Mtwara District on the same day.
The commissioning of the new cement plant, which is part of the company's Africa expansion strategy, will be the fourth in the series after Ethiopia, Zambia and Cameroon. Cement plants due for commissioning this year are located in Senegal and South Africa, while construction works are ongoing in several other African countries.