September 2024
Sephaku Cement posts US$1.37m loss in its first year 08 July 2014
South Africa: Costs relating to Sephaku Holdings' new cement business Sephaku Cement dragged the group to a loss in the year that ended in March 2014, though management has said that indications are positive for its cement venture.
Sephaku Holdings has a 36% share of Sephaku Cement, which in January 2014 completed the construction of two plants in North West Province and Mpumalanga. Nigeria's Dangote Cement is the majority shareholder in Sephaku Cement. Sephaku Holdings reported a post-tax loss of US$260,300 in the period under review, largely due to a loss from Sephaku Cement of US$1.37m.
Sephaku Holdings' latest results include little revenue from the cement business, as one of the plants began producing only in January 2014 and the other is due to begin production in July 2014. The South African cement market is currently oversupplied and is likely to remain that way for some time, but Sephaku and another newcomer, Mamba Cement, are banking on healthy demand growth and cost-efficiency advantages from their modern plants. Mamba has a plant under construction near Northam in Limpopo.
South Africa: Zambezi Portland Cement Limited has released a new cement product, Timange, which it said is suitable for the African climate.
"Zambezi Portland Cement Limited has announced another high quality cement, the Timange 32.5N Portland limestone cement," said sales and marketing manager, Isaac Ngoma. "This new product is a new generation 3-s formula product, a complete cement solution for the African climate as it requires less curing. This is a multi-purpose value addition cement with solid setting and rock strength. Timange cement has a super setting capacity with supreme sustainability."
"Good quality clinker is intermixed with limestone and gypsum while maintaining better particle size distribution to produce this low heat cement, which is ideal for road works, dams, plastering and other structural use," added Ngoma.
UK: Anglo American has announced that it plans to sell its equity in its joint venture project with Lafarge UK. Anglo American plans to use the proceeds of the sale to pay off debt.
Once it owns the entire firm, Lafarge plans to sell it to help it gain approval from competition regulators for its merger with Holcim. Lafarge and Holcim need to shed around Euro5bn in assets to persuade regulators to back the merger. Lafarge and Holcim's merger is expected to be completed in the first half of 2015.
"The sale will be subject to a number of conditions, including the completion of the Lafarge / Holcim merger, the divestment of Lafarge Tarmac being accepted as a suitable remedy, and approval of this sale transaction by the necessary regulators," said Anglo American.
Europe: Lafarge and Holcim have set up a Divestment Committee following the announcement of the planned merger on 7 April 2014, with the aim of taking forward the divestment process. The Committee has drawn up a list of proposed asset disposals to anticipate potential competition authorities' requirements. The announcement represents a major part of the total assets that the two companies aim to divest.
The two companies are proposing the following disposals:
• Austria: Lafarge's Mannersdorf cement plant;
• France: Holcim's assets in metropolitan France, except for its Altkirch cement plant and aggregates and ready-mix sites in the Haut-Rhin market; Lafarge's assets on Reunion island; except for its shareholding in Ciments de Bourbon;
• Germany: Lafarge's assets;
• Hungary: Holcim's assets;
• Romania: Lafarge's assets;
• Serbia: Holcim's assets;
• UK: Lafarge Tarmac assets with the possible exception of one cement plant.
• Canada: Holcim's assets;
• Mauritius: Holcim's assets;
• The Philippines: the associated companies of Lafarge and Holcim (Lafarge Republic Inc and Holcim Philippines Inc) are exploring the combination of their businesses other than LRI's Bulacan, Norzagaray and Iligan plants, which are considered to be divested as part of such combination;
• Brazil: Holcim and Lafarge will file soon with the Brazilian regulator (CADE) and propose a comprehensive and high quality package of divestments.
The future LafargeHolcim group will have a significant and balanced industrial base in Europe, enabling it to take advantage of the European economic recovery. Both companies will continue to consider whether divestments would be necessary where there might be overlaps or depending on regulatory requirements.
The proposed divestments are subject to review and further discussions with the regulatory authorities. The divestment process will be carried out in the framework of the relevant social processes and ongoing dialogue with the employee representatives' bodies and will be conducted in parallel to discussions with the competition authorities and potential buyers. The divestment process will be completed subject to the closing of the merger between Holcim and Lafarge.
Find out exactly which cement plants are affected by Holcim and Lafarge's proposed asset divestments in the Global Cement Directory 2014, available here.
Ghana likely to face cement shortage 07 July 2014
Ghana: Cement prices may soar in the coming weeks as manufacturers are faced with challenges hindering supply flow. Dangote Cement has suspended its imports to Ghana because of the fast depreciating Ghana Cedi, while Diamond Cement is reported to be facing challenges in importing clinker to manufacture cement in Ghana.
Austria: UNTHA Shredding Technology has launched its new XR ripper and cutter series of pre shredders for the production of refuse derived fuel (RDF) and solid recovered fuel (SRF).
The new XR shredders offer flexibility to the final particle size by the use of two distinct cutting methods that can be configured and re-configured by the end user. The tearing motion achieves a rough shred of untreated waste, with a homogenous, pre-determined particle size between 100 - 400mm, while the final fraction size is regulated by adjustable screen bars. Load-dependent speed controls adjust the XR shredder's RPM and torque to maximise throughputs of up to70t/hr.
Key benefits of the XR shredder include:
• 45 - 50% less energy consumption, which can equate to over Euro631,066 in electricity savings over the lifetime of the machine,
• Load-dependent speed controls which adjust the RPM and torque to achieve maximum throughput of up to 70t/hr,
• Synchronous, water-cooled motors work tirelessly without overheating, guaranteeing the XR's unparalleled uptime statistics,
• Consistent particle sizes between 50mm - 400mm achievable, depending on requirements,
• Less than 75dB of noise output.
France: Italcementi has reached the ownership threshold allowing for a squeeze-out of its French arm Ciments Français SA after a share purchase. With the latest acquisition of some 1.2m shares of Ciments Français, Italcementi has surpassed 95% of the share capital of the unit, while it had already secured 95% of the voting rights of the company in June 2014.
Italcementi's buyout bid for Ciments Français, which commenced on 13 June 2014, is worth Euro79.50/share, excluding dividend. Italcementi unveiled the final price of the offer for Ciments Français on 20 May 2014. It said at the time that it held 83.83% of the share capital and 91.03% of the voting rights of the unit and that its bid had a maximum total counter-value of some Euro464m.
Italcementi announced that it would initiate a squeeze-out procedure for the rest of the shares of Ciments Français at the offer price within three months from the completion of the bid. The move would be followed by the delisting of Ciments Français from NYSE-Euronext Paris.
Update: Italcementi has announced that the squeeze-out procedure for its French arm, Ciments Français, will commence on 15 July 2014 at a price of Euro79.50/share (net of all costs).
Currently Italcementi holds 97.73% of the share capital and 98.65% of the voting rights of Ciments Français and it intends to purchase the remaining 2.27% stake from minority shareholders. As agreed with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) and in accordance with market practices, trading of Ciments Français shares have been suspended.
Malaysia: Christian Pfeiffer has received the order to erect a turnkey cement grinding plant, including silos and packing facility, for Caha Mata Sarawak (CMS) in Kuching, Malaysia. The related contract was signed on 23 June 2014. The Euro36m order comprises engineering, fabrication and supply of the entire equipment including electrical and control equipment, installation and commissioning of the grinding plant as well as the complete construction work and layout of roads. The grinding plant has a designed capacity of 1Mt/yr of cement.
The delivery includes a two-chamber ball mill with slide shoe bearing, two 10,000t silos, two big bag loading stations and a packing and palletising installation for truck loading with a capacity of 3,000 bags/hr. One of the silos is equipped with a one-chamber system. The other one with a two-chamber system. The specific energy demand of the entire grinding plant is less than 40kW per tonne of cement. The construction work will start in July 2014 and completion and commissioning are scheduled for summer 2015.
Cembureau calls for circular economy policy 04 July 2014
Belgium: Cembureau, the European cement association, believes that the European Commission's proposed headline resource efficiency target fails to capture real resource efficiency improvements by adopting the weight-based Raw Material Consumption (RMC) as a proxy.
While the cement industry is raw-material intensive by mass, it is also one of the biggest contributors to the circular economy. Cembureau believes that in order to enhance resource efficiency in the cement industry, the following factors should be ensured:
- When applying the waste hierarchy (prevention, re-use, recycling, recovery, disposal), options that deliver the best overall environmental, social and economic outcomes should be encouraged and assessed at the local level;
- Efficient use of resources throughout the value chain spanning from extraction, manufacturing, construction, use, to end-of-life stages;
- Use of resources in such a way that has the lowest environmental, social and economic burdens over the long term;
- Use of resources appropriate to the reserves available, i.e. scarcity/abundance are critical factors, which mean sustainability needs to be approached in different ways for different resources.
India: CK Birla group's subsidiary, HIL Limited, has announced that it has sold 100,000t of Charminar brand fibre cement roofing sheets in May 2014.
"This is the highest ever achieved by any brand globally," said HIL's managing director, Abhaya Shankar. He added that Charminar has been a household name, synonymous with asbestos roofing solutions across India, for nearly six decades. HIL has eight manufacturing plants, an installed capacity of 1Mt/yr and a 20% share in the US$669m market of asbestos roofing products in India.
Formerly known as Hyderabad Industries Limited, HIL launched Charminar asbestos roofing products 66 years ago. Shankar said the brand had attained market leadership some time in the late 1950s and retained that position thereafter. As a part of brand-building efforts, HIL has deployed campaign vans, relied on wall paintings and actively participated in village marts and other such events in rural areas. According to Shankar, the brand building involved three aspects: a strong relationship with distributors, a pan-Indian presence and consistent policies in respect of trade. HIL has also made use of a good supply chain and a robust system to get customer feedback. HIL spends about 2.5-3% of its revenues on brand building.