September 2024
Nigeria: According to All Africa, Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) in Sokoto will invest US$600m to expand its power plant from 12MW to 16MW.
The Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) Media head Alex Okoh said that CCNN principal manager of corporate affairs Alhaji Suleiman disclosed this while addressing BPE's post-privatisation monitoring team during a recent visit to the plant. Suleiman said that the expanded plant will be built in partnership with China's CBMI. "CCNN's plant does not generate sufficient power when the plant is run at full capacity utilisation," said Suleiman.
Biberci Insaat orders Loesche LM 56.3+3 vertical roller mill for new cement plant in Konya 24 June 2015
Turkey: Biberci Insaat is building its first cement plant in Konya, Turkey and it has ordered Loesche's LM 56.3+3 vertical roller mill for clinker grinding. Biberci Insaat specialises in infrastructure works including road construction, interchange, water conduction lines, sewerage, natural gas and other energy transfer lines.
One of Biberci Insaat's first investments for the new greenfield cement plant is the order of Loesche's LM 56.3+3 cement mill for clinker grinding. The mill will produce 200t/hr of Ordinary Portland Cement at 3,800 Blaine. The gearbox is planned with a capacity of 5400kW. Delivery is scheduled for the third quarter of 2015.
India: According to the Financial Express, Jaiprakash Associates is close to selling its 1Mt/yr capacity cement plant at Sikandarabad, Uttar Pradesh to HeidelbergCement for around US$78.6m.
If the deal materialises, it would be the fifth cement asset sale by Jaiprakash Associates in little over a year. The group is looking to sell assets, including cement and power plants, to reduce its large debt. The aggregate debt of the group at the end of the 2014 financial year, which ended on 31 March 2014, stood at around US$8.65bn. Though it has so far divested assets worth US$2.36bn, the impact of the asset sales is yet to reflect on the group's balance sheet. It aims to cut down debt further by around US$1.57bn by the end of the current 2016 fiscal year, which ends on 31 March 2016. So far, Jaiprakash Associates has divested around 13Mt/yr of its overall cement capacity and is left with around 23Mt/yr.
Unnamed sources have said that Jaiprakash Associates also plans to sell two more of its cement plants, in Baga and Bagheri in Himachal Pradesh and Balaji in Andhra Pradesh, but the matter is stuck due to valuation issues. Aditya Birla Group's UltraTech Cement and HeidelbergCement have reportedly been in talks regarding their acquisition.
Two new cement plants for Mozambique 24 June 2015
Mozambique: According to Agence de Presse Africaine, two new cement plants are planned for Mozambique in the coming years.
Turkey's Limak Holding plans to invest US$150m in a 2Mt/yr capacity cement plant in the Maputo Port area of Mozambique. Limak chairperson Nihat Ozdemir said that his company would create least 500 jobs during the first phase of the plant." Limak is also interested in entering the Mozambican energy sector and later intends to assess the viability of investment in ports, railways and tourism," said Ozdemir. Mozambique's Industry and Trade minister Max Tonela pledged the Mozambican government's support for Limak.
Meanwhile, Portugal's Cimpor Cimentos group, via its subsidiary Cimentos de Moçambique, has announced plans to build a new integrated cement plant in Nacala, Nampula for an estimated investment of around U$250m. It already owns an integrated cement plant in Matola and also operates four grinding units.
Mexico: Cementos Moctezuma, a joint venture company of Cementos Molins, Buzzi Unicem and Grupo Carso, has ordered a Loesche vertical roller mill LM 53.3+3 C for its cement plant in Apazapan, Veracruz. The mill will produce 205t/hr CPC 30 cement at 4000 Blaine or 195t/hr CPC 40 cement at 3700 Blaine.
The order also includes a LDC classifier (Loesche Dynamic Classifier), as well as the COPE gearbox, including gearbox drive motors, developed in cooperation with RENK AG. The COPE gearbox features a redundancy of eight motors. With all eight motors in operation, an output totaling 4.6MW is achieved. The customer advantage lies in the fact that the COPE gearbox can reach up to 100% of the mill capacity performance even with a reduced number of motors. The COPE gearbox has the same external dimensions as a conventional planetary gear system and thus requires no extensive enlargement of the mill foundations.
New Philippines terminal to open in early 2016 23 June 2015
Philippines: According to IHS Maritime 360, the UK's Nectar Group and Seasia Nectar Port Services Inc (SNPSI), which are in a joint venture project to build a US$185.5m dry bulk terminal in Bataan, expect the new facility to launch in early 2016.
"The current schedule is for phase one to be operational from the first quarter of 2016," said a Nectar Group official. "There are planned timeframes for the other two phases, but they are dependent on how well the first phase operates."
The new dry bulk terminal is designed to handle shipments of coal, clinker, silica sand, cement raw materials, steel, fertiliser and other dry bulk cargo. Construction of the terminal will be completed in three phases covering 114,000m2. The first phase covers the development of the port facility with a 247m quay and a 14m draft. Once completed, the terminal will have 3Mt/yr of cargo capacity.
In addition to quayside and open storage areas, SNPSI will also build facilities for warehousing, stevedoring, lightering and other services.
Algeria moves towards cement self-sufficiency 23 June 2015
Algeria: According to All Africa, the Algerian minister of Industry and Mines Abdeslam Bouchouareb has said that the country is moving towards, "Self-sufficiency in cement and steel products thanks to the new facilities that will be operational in the short term."
Bouchouareb said that Algeria, which imports about 3Mt/yr of cement, "Will manage to cover its needs and even over produce by 2016." It will be the first time since independence from France in 1962 that the country will cease cement imports.
Two new cement plants in Biskra with a total production capacity of 4Mt/yr will, besides the national network of operating cement plants, meet the demand of the domestic cement market. Privately-owned La Biskrie des Ciments will be operational in December 2015 with an 1Mt/yr of cement production capacity.
Ireland: Ireland's competition watchdog will go to the High Court in July 2015 as part of its probe into alleged anti-competitive practices in the cement industry.
In May 2015, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) seized thousands of documents when it raided the offices of Irish Cement, a subsidiary of CRH, Ireland's largest listed company. It also visited the offices of several other companies. The CCPC will ask the court in July 2015 to rule on which of the documents seized it is allowed use to build its case, as some of the material could constitute privileged information, such as legal advice. The watchdog has launched an investigation into whether Irish Cement has abused its dominant position in the market, which the company denies.
The commission has confirmed that it seeks High Court approval to filter the material it seized from the CRH subsidiary. "When it conducts such searches, the commission is entitled to compel the target business to disclose information to it even if the target claims that the information in question contains legally privileged material," said the CCPC. The commission said it had, "Made an application to the High Court seeking a determination as to whether certain information seized from Irish Cement during the search operation on 14 May 2015 constitutes legally privileged material." The CCPC is obliged to keep the information confidential until it gets such a determination. It is understood that the documents seized have not yet been handed over to the investigating team, pending the High Court determination.
Irish Cement has previously stated that it fully-facilitated the 'raid' on its premises and is cooperating fully with the CCPC investigation. The commission's investigation is focused on the Euro50m/yr bagged-cement sector. The commission has stressed that the investigation could take some time to complete before any further legal action, if any, is taken.
The CCPC stressed that next month's planned court hearing is simply to help it filter out Irish Cement's legal advice and does not mean that it has decided to prosecute. "For the avoidance of doubt, the commission has not instituted High Court proceedings against Irish Cement for any breach of competition law," it said.
Lafarge suspends construction of Rostov cement plant 23 June 2015
Russia: According to Esmerk Russian News, Lafarge has suspended the construction of a Euro710m cement plant in Rostov. The plant was scheduled to launch in 2016. The planned capacity of the first phase was 2Mt/yr of cement.
Colombia: Cemex Latam Holdings, the Latin American arm of Mexico's Cemex, has reported unfavourable results in the first quarter of 2015 in Colombia and said that its stocks have been affected, despite the fact that the region turned towards infrastructure improvement projects. As the company's share value in Pesos has dropped by 30% and it has recorded another 35% decline due to depreciation, Cemex Latam Holdings' value in US Dollars is 70% lower.
Company president Carlos Jacks has attributed the poor results in January - March 2015 to the 25% depreciation against the US Dollar, as well as the fact that its 31% growth in 2014 was far higher than the industry average. Another factor was the decision that Colombia should return or generate the same cash flow or the same amount of US Dollars before the depreciation and so it raised its prices, thinking that there would not be a reversal of the exchange rate.
Cemex Latam Holdings will work to recover the price in June 2015 and Jacks feels more confident about the second half of the year. Better sales volumes are expected if its efforts are successful. The company hopes that its local division will return to levels prior to the depreciation of the exchange rate in terms of its cash flow in US Dollars as a result. The business anticipates some momentum in housing programmes over 2016, as well as participation in the first wave of 4G motorway projects and possibly the second wave towards the close of 2015. It projects that around US$5bn/yr will be spent on cement, or US$500m each, while the projects will require some 3.50Mt of cement. The entire market consumes 13Mt/yr of cement. Cemex Latam Holdings will invest around US$180m in 2015 and the funds will mainly be used to expand the production capacity at its plant in Maceo, Colombia or premises in Monterrey, Mexico.