September 2024
India: As part of the implementation in India of its planned merger with Holcim, and subject to the completion of the same merger, Lafarge has signed an agreement to acquire the 14% stake held by Baring in Lafarge India for Euro270m. Following this transaction, subject to the approval of the regulatory authorities, Lafarge will hold 100% of the shares of Lafarge India.
China: Germany's AViTEQ Vibrationstechnik GmbH has celebrated the opening of a joint venture in Shanghai with China's Shanghai Finde M&E Tech Co Ltd (Finde). Finde is mainly engaged in drive and control technology business in China and has been supplied with AViTEQ magnetic vibrators for about 10 years.
Increasing domestic demand resulted in the establishment of AViTEQ Industrial Technology, which will manufacture innovative vibrating and processing systems exclusively for the Asian market. The joint venture will combine Chinese steel construction skills and German state-of-the-art drive technology. The technology will be used for screening and conveying in various sectors, including the cement industry, steel production and foundries, building and non-metallic mineral industry, chemical, pharmaceutical as well as plastic applications up to food production. Sales and services will be handled by AViTEQ Industrial Technology. The company will provide a 24 hour spare part delivery service for drives and controls from a local warehouse.
"Thanks to the cooperation with our local partners, we are able to offer our systems in China and neighbouring countries at marketable prices while maintaining the highest quality standards. In the medium-term, we are expecting the new company to gain a comparable successful market position with similar size as the German parent company," said Wolfgang Finger, CEO of AViTEQ Germany.
Vietnam: Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (Vicem) said that its cement and clinker sales in May 2015 grew by 10% year-on-year to 2.01Mt. Of the volume, 1.84Mt of cement and clinker were sold to the domestic market while 162,000t were exported.
In the first five months of 2015, Vicem's cement and clinker sales fell by 1.4% year-on-year to 9.08Mt. Of this, 8.0Mt was sold to the domestic market, up by 6.2% year-on-year, while 1.06Mt was exported, down by 34% year-on-year. Vicem produced 6.97Mt of clinker and 7.61Mt of cement in the first five months of 2015, rising by 5.1% and 4.1% year-on-year respectively. Of this, 1.47Mt of clinker and 1.82Mt of cement was produced in May 2015.
Vicem plans to produce 1.52Mt of clinker and 1.58Mt of cement and aims to sell 1.73Mt of cement and clinker in June 2015.
Dako delivers 185t cement mill to Russia 12 June 2015
Russia: According to Heavy Lift, Germany-based Dako Worldwide Transport has transported a 185t cement mill over 5700km from the manufacturer's location in Austria to a cement plant in Sterlitamak, Russia.
The mill, which measured 18.5m x 5.7m x 6m, was first loaded onto a barge in Linz, Austria for transport along the Danube River to the Romanian port of Constanta, where the cargo was loaded onto a vessel and shipped across the Black Sea to Rostov, Russia. From Rostov, the vessel travelled down the Volga-Don River system to eventually arrive at Nizhnekamsk, where the cement mill was lifted by a heavy lift port crane onto a ro-ro barge for onward transport down the Kama and Belaya rivers to Ufa, Bashkortostan.
On arrival at Ufa, the mill was unloaded using a bespoke roll-off jetty that had been designed and constructed by Dako in Russia. The company explained that this was extremely challenging due to the very low water level in the river at the time. Special steel plates were placed on the jetty and two heavy-duty prime movers were used to pull the 24-axle hydraulic trailer and its load off the barge and onto land. The same trailer was then used to transport the cement mill to its final destination in Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan by road. En route, the vehicle had to pass over several bridges, many of which had been reinforced for this transport.
Loma Negra cement assets expected to change hands 12 June 2015
Argentina: Loma Negra, the cement assets purchased in 2005 by Brazil's Camargo Corrêa Cimentos from the Fortabat family in a US$1bn deal and later incorporated into Intercement is likely to be sold, according to El Cronista. Loma Negra began 2011 with a US$400m four-year investment that includes US$250m to set up a plant at San Juan, Puerto Rico. It would be Loma Negra's 10th cement plant.
Ireland/South Korea: CRH's investment spend for 2015 looks set to surpass Euro7bn, with the company heavily linked with a Euro800m move for the number two player in South Korea's cement market, Tongyang Cement & Energy. Tongyang Cement & Energy has a market value of nearly Euro600m. Its owner is reportedly putting a 74% stake on the market, with a Euro800m price tag being touted.
CRH's Euro6.5bn purchase of assets being offloaded as part of the merger between Holcim and Lafarge is due to conclude in August 2015. CRH is set to become the third-largest building materials business in the world on the back of that deal, but management has already suggested that it won't be the limit of its 2015 spending. CRH chief executive Albert Manifold said that the group had a 'very strong' acquisition pipeline.
CRH spent Euro45m in the first four months of 2015. Manifold said that CRH currently has a separate Euro1bn US deal under consideration and a Euro700m deal, but noted that CRH typically concludes around 10% of the deals that come onto its radar. However, if all of those deals came to pass, CRH's 2015 investments would exceed Euro8bn.
While the Euro700m deal is thought to be a European target, if the Korean deal goes ahead, it would further boost CRH's Asian presence, which is already being improved via new assets in the Philippines coming on stream via the LafargeHolcim deal. CRH said that it would repackage its Asian operations into a separate grouped entity in 2015 to cater for its growing size. The South Korean market consumes about 45Mt/yr of cement from a total production capacity of around 65Mt/yr.
Ukraine: Dyckerhoff Cement Ukraine has reported a net loss of Euro8136 for 2014, a net revenue of Euro398,695. Compared to 2013, its net loss fell 7.2-fold and its revenue fell 6.6-fold.
Dyckerhoff Cement Ukraine plans to acquire the Volyn Cement plant in Rivne and the YUGcement plant in Mykolaiv. The plants are already part of Dyckerhoff and would be turned into separate divisions in order to increase sales in Ukraine. The planned production capacity of Volyn Cement is 2Mt/yr, while YUGcement produces 1.25Mt/yr of cement.
Dyckerhoff Cement Ukraine's shareholders will also consider the early termination of powers of the current supervisory board and the election of a new one.
Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan's Trend News Agency has reported that the largest cement plant in South Caucasus, Norm Sement, plans to start oil well cement production in 2016, according to Norm Sement CEO Hasan Yalcinkaya. He said that oil well cement is a very sought-after product in Azerbaijan and that by starting its production, cement imports to Azerbaijan will decrease.
"Today, the import of cement products to Azerbaijan is gradually decreasing and the share of imported cement is only 5% of the total market volume, while the share of clinker is 10%," said Yalcinkaya. Norm Sement is also preparing to export its products to the Caspian Sea countries. "Currently, we are considering the opportunities for exporting our products to Russia's south regions, as well as to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan."
Norm Sement's plant is located in the Garadagh district of Baku. It has a clinker production capacity of 5000t/day and a cement production capacity of 2Mt/yr. In 2014, the plant produced 540,000t of cement and 471,000t of clinker. Azerbaijan's domestic cement demand was 4.4Mt in 2014.
UK: According to the Daily Mail, a disused cement plant in Shoreham, West Sussex will be transformed into a Euro143m eco-friendly resort that will 'resemble the Shire from the Lord of the Rings.'
The disused Shoreham cement plant on the edge of the Sussex Downs near Shoreham is set to become one of the most environmentally-friendly holiday resorts in the UK. Plans for the 477,529m2 site will see 600 eco-friendly holiday pods with glass roofs constructed. 1.5MW solar panels mean that the on-site vehicles will not consume any petrol.
The development has been drawn up by architects at ZEDfactory, which has claimed that the project could provide 500 jobs. "It's taken a colossal amount of work and will see a significant investment," said ZEDfactory director Bill Dunster. "It will be a very beautiful place. Instead of seeing vertical chalk cliffs that look rather like a moonscape, it will be entirely green, ivied, with trees. It will look stunning." As well as the amphitheatre and 600 holiday homes, the quarry will also house 50 'earth sheltered homes' built partially underground.
"Nestled in the heart of the South Downs National Park is one of the South East's largest brown field sites. The local residents as well as the Parks Authority want to see something truly exceptional happen there," said a project spokesman. "Working with the local parish and experienced architects, we have put together a community-led proposal to redevelop the cement plant into a world-leading eco attraction showcasing and housing green businesses as well as an earth sheltered holiday park, an outdoor concert amphitheatre, natural swimming lakes and much more." The scheme has the backing of the Low Carbon Trust and the plans will be lodged later in 2015.
The brownfield site is one of three major developments in the pipeline for the area of outstanding natural beauty, according to the South Downs National Park Authority. The authority said that no formal planning application has yet been submitted for the cement plant, but said that a great deal of thought would be given to any application.
"This is an important strategic site in a very sensitive location. It will be considered as part of the Local Plan for the National Park," said a park spokesman. "'No applications have yet been submitted and there's still much work to do to ensure that any proposals safeguard the South Downs' wildlife, landscapes and heritage and can actually be delivered. The site has the potential to make a substantial contribution towards sustainable growth, but also to accommodate innovative development, which promotes National Park purposes."
US: Lafarge North America has signed a deal to build a cement trans-loading facility in Williston, North Dakota. According to local press, the storage facility and terminal will be located on a new rail spur on the east side of the town. Lafarge North America says that it will allow the company to better serve its customers amid growing demand for construction materials in North Dakota and South Dakota
Roy Sander, general manager of Lafarge Dakotas, noted that the new rail line will remove the company's existing truck traffic from US Highway 2.
North and South Dakota are growing states for cement consumption. As well as traditional construction cements for standard applications, the presence of the Bakken oil field means that the states also require oil well cements and products for soil stabilisation.