September 2024
South Africa: ARM Cement Ltd has yet to receive its directors' approval for a plan to construct a plant in South Africa.
"We have not approved any budget or plans at our board yet," said Pradeep Paunrana, managing director of ARM Cement. Mafikeng Cement, in which ARM has a 70% stake, plans to build a 3000t/day plant in South Africa.
ARM Cement is considering selling Eurobonds to help fund a planned US$300m expansion programme that will double cement production within four years, according to Paunrana.
African nations are investing heavily in the construction of ports, railways and power generation projects that will help to accelerate economic growth. Kenya's cement consumption has surged by 60% to 85.7kg/capita since 2009, while South Africa's has increased to 300kg/capita and Egypt's has reached 500kg/capita.
Fujian Cement sells 12m shares in Industrial Bank 03 January 2014
China: Fujian Cement Inc sold 12m shares in Industrial Bank Co Ltd between 30 - 31 December 2013. Fujian Cement will earn US$14.5m from the deal and continues to hold 50.4m shares in the Industrial Bank.
Iran: Iran plans to boost cement production to 75Mt by March 2014 and 85Mt by the end of the next Iranian calendar year, which starts on 21 March 2014.
"Iran, with a cement capacity of 70Mt/yr, is the world's fourth largest producer of cement after China, India and the United States," said Abdolreza Sheikhan, secretary of the Union of Cement Industry Employers, at the Sixth International Cement, Concrete and Construction Technology Exhibition in Tehran. He added that Iran will become the world's third-largest cement producer if its 75Mt nominal capacity becomes its actual production level.
Late in November 2013, Sheikhan said the country's cement output hit 44.6Mt in the first 7 months of the Iranian calendar year (21 March to 20 October 2013), a 2% growth compared to the same period in 2012. Iran's cleaner production hit 43.4Mt during the same period with 4% growth compared to the same period in 2012. He added Iran's cement and cleaner production reached 6.19Mt and 5.89Mt respectively in October 2013.
Farmer wins case against Saurashtra Cement 02 January 2014
India: A consumer court has asked a cement company to compensate a farmer for the cost of house construction as the quality of its cement was not found up to the necessary standards.
Rahimbhai Sherasiya started construction at his farm in Dhuva village with 200 bags of Hathi brand cement that he bought from Saurashtra Cement Ltd in December 2012 for US$871. As construction proceeded he found that the cement was of very poor quality. It could not hold construction material and further construction was not possible.
Sherasiya complained to the company and the authorised dealer but did not get a proper reply. Through company officials he sent samples of the cement to the laboratory of the Gujarat Engineering Research Institute (GERI) to get the cement tested for quality. GERI's report revealed that the cement was not as per the Indian Standard.
When the company refused to pay heed to his complaint, Sherasiya moved the Rajkot Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum and demanded compensation. This included the amount he had invested in paying for transportation and labour and purchasing construction material. The company denied all charges and claimed that GERI is not a government-approved agency and that its report was misleading.
ARM announces new Kenyan plant to counter Dangote's advances 23 December 2013
Kenya: ARM Cement is set to build Kenya's largest cement plant in Kitui County, setting it up for a fight with Nigeria's Dangote Cement, which also has plans to open a U$400m plant in the same region.
ARM says that it will raise up to US$300m to fund new plants including the planned unit in Kitui, which will produce 8000t/day (~2.5Mt/yr) of cement. This will make it the single largest cement factory in the country and places the unit ahead of the planned Dangote plant, which has a planned daily capacity of 5500t/day (~1.8Mt/yr). ARM's fund-raising will be done through a mixture of bank loans, corporate bonds and rights issues.
"We plan to start construction of the Kitui plant late in 2014. It is a major development for us," said Pradeep Paunrana, ARM's chief executive, to the Daily Press.
This announcement will re-open the fight for Kitui mines, which were the subject of a fierce court battle between ARM and Bamburi Cement in 2010. The 100km2 area is rich with high-quality limestone. The East Africa Portland Cement Company (EAPCC) has also directed its management to strike a deal with Kitui County so that it can secure key raw materials and counter moves made by Dangote and local rivals.
Kenya produced 4.7Mt of cement in 2012, up from 2.8Mt in 2008, according to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. With double-digit cement market growth expected in the coming years, Kenya has caught the eye of Dangote Cement and new entrants National Cement and Mombasa Cement as well as the established players.
Karnataka cement plant wage disputes develop 20 December 2013
India: The Deputy Labour Commissioner of the Union government has convened a tripartite meeting with representatives from Vasavadatta Cements and UltraTech Cement, the Shramajeevigala Vedike and the Labour Department to find a solution to the on-going wage disputes at Karnataka cement plants.
Mr. Hiremath, trade union leader and president of the Shramajeevigala Vedike, claimed that the cement companies were spreading falsehoods about the implementation of wage board salaries to contract labourers. They continued to pay a negligible US$2.89/day against the cement wage board's recommendation to pay more than US$8.03/day. The companies also provided false information to the Labour Commissioner that the cement wage board's recommendations were being implemented and hid the fact that contract labourers were not receiving any other benefits.
Mr. Hiremath said that if the Labour Department failed to ensure that the cement plants implemented the wage board's recommendations, the employees would not have any alternative but to launch an indefinite protest in New Delhi.
Saint-Gobain sells its fibre cement siding business 20 December 2013
US: Saint-Gobain has signed an agreement for the sale of its US-based fibre cement siding business to Plycem USA, a subsidiary of Elementia of Mexico. The transaction is expected to be finalised in the first quarter of 2014, subject to standard closing conditions.
The business is part of Saint-Gobain's Exterior Products activity of the Construction Products Sector. It manufactures and sells fibre cement siding, trim and accessory products for the US and Canadian residential and commercial construction markets. The business employs close to 250 people and has three US production sites at Roaring River, North Carolina, Terre Haute, Indiana and White City, Oregon.
EAPCC chairman and board directors face probe 19 December 2013
Kenya: The Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development has recommended that the East African Portland Cement (EAPCC) directors be investigated over a chaotic annual general meeting held on 17 December 2013.
Wilson Songa, principal secretary of the Ministry of Industrialisation and Enterprise Development, said that the conduct of EAPCC chairman and board members, including chief executive Kepha Tande and directors Titus Naikuni and Hamish Keith and company secretary J Maonga should be investigated in relation to the AGM.
Songa argued that the AGM should be declared a sham and the company was directed by the CMA not to affect any of the resolutions passed at the meeting. Songa wants the CMA to order EAPCC to reconvene the AGM and an independent person nominated by the capital markets regulator to oversee the meeting. Songa also wants the CMA to confirm that the nomination and election of Didier Tresarrieu as a director was null and void since it was not carried out in accordance with articles of the company.
The current stand-off re-ignites a long-running battle for the control of the cement maker between the government and France's Lafarge. The Treasury holds a 25% stake in EAPCC while NSSF holds 27% shareholding. This gives the government a 52% stake in the company, which has seen it ranked as a state corporation.
Chemical properties and performance results of Solidia Cement™ 19 December 2013
US: Solidia Technologies has reported the chemical properties, manufacture and performance qualities of a sustainable cement that can reduce the carbon footprint of cement and concrete products by up to 70%.
Solidia Cement™is made from the same raw materials and equipment as OPC, but is adaptable to a wide variety of cement formulations and production methods, offering a sustainable and performance-enhancing alternative.
Solidia Cement clinker is produced at 1200°C, approximately 250°C lower than OPC clinker. The cement is a non-hydraulic material that is composed primarily of low-lime-containing calcium silicate phases such as wollastonite / pseudowollastonite (CaO.SiO2) and rankinite (3CaO.2SiO2). The setting and hardening characteristics are derived from the reaction between CO2 and the calcium silicates. During the carbonation process, calcite (CaCO3) and silica (SiO2) form and are responsible for the concrete strength development.
Concrete products produced with Solidia Cement are manufactured using the same mixing and forming processes as OPC-based concrete and sequester up to 300kg of CO2/t of cement. The reduced CO2 emissions, combined with the ability of the cement to sequester CO2 during concrete curing, renders a CO2 footprint (associated with both the manufacturing and use) that is reduced by up to 70%.
"For over 50 years, scientists have tried to cure concrete with CO2 knowing the resulting product would be stronger and more stable. Solidia Technologies is the first to make this commercially viable. Our current focus is testing additional applications with an even wider variety of concrete formulations and manufacture methods to facilitate adoption across the globe," said Solidia Chief Technology Officer Nicholas DeCristofaro, who co-authored the paper with principal scientist Sada Sahu.
Solidia Concrete™will be explored in a companion paper that is due to be released in January 2014.
2013 in cement 18 December 2013
As this is the last issue of Global Cement Weekly before the Christmas 2013 break, once again we will look at some of the major news stories of the year. This is a subjective summary of the year so if readers feel we have missed anything major let us know via LinkedIn, Twitter or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
China tackles pollution and overcapacity
2013 has been the year that China's central planners took action against cement production overcapacity and pollution. Consolidation plans for the industry followed falling profits for cement producers in 2012. However, record air pollution levels in Beijing in early 2013 shut the city down, raised public awareness and gave the government a strong lever to encourage further industry consolidation through environmental controls. By the middle of year profits of major producers were up but production was also up. Finally in December 2013, China started to launch its emissions trading schemes (ETS), led by Guangdong province, to create what will be the second largest carbon market in the world after the EU ETS.
India faces a sticky wicket
Meanwhile, the world's second largest cement producing country has faced poor profits and growth for cement producers blamed on paltry demand, piddling prices and proliferating production costs. Compounding that, the Indian Rupee fell to a historic low relative to the US Dollar in mid-2013, further putting pressure on input costs. Holcim reacted to all of this by releasing plans to simplify its presence in the country between Holcim India, Ambuja and ACC.
Sub-Saharan Africa draws up the battle lines
Competition in sub-Saharan Africa is set to intensify when Nigeria's Dangote Cement opens its first cement plant in South Africa in early 2014. It is the first time Africa's two largest cement producers, Dangote and South Africa's PPC, will produce cement in the same country. Future clashes will follow across the region as each producer increasingly advances toward the other.
The Kingdom needs cement... and workers
Saudi Arabian infrastructure demands have created all sorts of reverberations across the Middle Eastern cement industry and beyond as the nation pushes on to build its six 'economic' cities amongst other projects. Back in April 2013 King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia issued an edict ordering the import of 10Mt of cement. Then some producers started to report production line shutdowns in the autumn of 2013 as they buckled under the pressure, although they consoled themselves with solid profit rises. Now, cement sales have fallen following a government crackdown on migrant workers that has hit the construction sector.
Competition concerns in Europe
Europe may be slowly emerging from the economic gloom but anti-trust regulators have remained vigilant. An asset swap between Cemex and Holcim over units in the Czech Republic, Germany and Spain has received attention from the European Commission. In the UK the Competition Commission has decreed that further action is required for the cement sector following the creation of new player Hope Construction Materials in 2012. Lafarge Tarmac may now have to sell another one of its UK cement plants to increase more competition into the market. Elsewhere in Europe, Belgium regulators took action in September 2013 and this week we report on Polish action against cartel-like activity.
Don't forget South-East Asia, Brazil or Russia!
Growth continues to dominate these regions and major sporting tournaments are on the way in Brazil and Russia, further adding to local cement demand. Votorantim may have cancelled its US$4.8bn initial public offering in August 2013 but it is still has the highest cement production capacity in Brazil. Finally, Indonesia may not have had any 'marquee' style story to sum up 2013 but it continues to regularly announce cement plant builds. In July 2013 the Indonesian Cement Association announced that cement sales growth had fallen to 'just' 7.5% for the first half of 2013.
Global Cement Weekly will return on 8 January 2013