September 2024
Zambezi Portland Cement directors deported 28 November 2012
Zambia: Two Italian managers working for Zambezi Portland Cement have had their residence permits revoked by the Zambian Immigration Department. Operations director Danielle Ventriglia and marketing director Valerio Ventriglia have both returned to Italy.
Home Affairs Minister Edgar Lungu denied that the managers had been deported. He stated that their residence permits had been revoked and consequently cancelled because the two directors based in Ndola had violated the Immigration and Deportation Act No 18 of 2010. Lungu said the government would deal with people who 'mistreat' Zambian workers and was determined to cleanse all institutions by uprooting 'bad elements'.
Zambezi Portland Cement Operations manager Mwamba Kayula appealed to the government to reverse the decision, saying that Ventriglia was behind the success of Zambezi Portland Cement. "This man has been operations director for the past two years, he was born in Luanshya and we still need to continue with his good work at the company," said Kayula.
Cemex changes downsizing plans after deal with unions 27 November 2012
Spain: Cemex España, the Spanish unit of Mexican cement company Cemex, will launch a downsizing plan for 280 employees, down from the initial intention to cut 370 jobs. The 25% reduction came as a result of an agreement reached between the company's management and trade unions.
The employees to be affected by the staff-reduction measure account for 16% of all of Cemex's 1740 employees in Spain at present. The laid-off employees will receive severance pays of 30 days per every year of work but not more than 22 monthly salaries.
Cemex's adjustment has had to be carried out due to the continued low demand for cement in the country. Cemex reported a 19% drop in its sales in Spain in 2011. The country is the company's third largest market in terms of the number of cement production plants after Mexico and the USA.
Holcim announces new Colombian plant 26 November 2012
Colombia: Swiss construction materials company Holcim has announced plans to double its cement production capacity in Colombia by investing US$600m in a new 2Mt/yr cement plant, according to an official statement.
Holcim, which currently produces around 2.1Mt/yr of cement in Colombia at its Nobsa plant, is conducting a feasibility study for the new facility. The construction phase is expected to create 1000 direct and indirect jobs.
"We're evaluating the departments of Bolívar and Antioquia as possible locations but we've yet to make a decision," said country manager, Miguel Ángel Rubalcava.
The new plant announcement comes as the Colombia government embarks on an
ambitious investment programme to develop its infrastructure. Among the plan's goals are a fourfold increase in the country's four-lane highways by 2018.
Infrastructure investments in the country are expected to reach US$10bn by 2014, compared to US$3bn in 2012.
Problems for another Vietnamese project 26 November 2012
Vietnam: Chen Liang-chuan, the Taiwanese founder of Taipei-based Lucky Cement, has had his US$160m Ninh Binh Cement plant in Vietnam thrown into doubt by the Vietnamese government changing its mind on a decision to award the plant limestone mining rights.
Liang-chuan has invested in the 4Mt/yr project since 2008 after being awarded the right by the local government to mine a 72-hectare limestone field for 49 years. The project was approved by Nguyen and related ministries. However, just as the plant's two new production lines were set to begin trial runs, the local Ninh Binh government rejected the request to begin exploiting the field, because it had designated the field part of the Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex. It plans to apply to UNESCO in September 2013 to have the complex recognised as a world heritage site.
Sources at Lucky Cement said that Vietnamese authorities were trying to find another limestone mine to replace the original field, but they were worried that a new mine location would entail additional transportation costs.
Buzzi purchases more of Dyckerhoff 26 November 2012
Italy/Germany: German cement maker Dyckerhoff has announced that its parent company, Italy's Buzzi Unicem, has agreed to buy additional ordinary and preferred shares in it, raising its total share capital in the firm by 3.6% to 96.6%.
The German company did not reveal the value of the transaction but specified that during the current year and including the most recent agreement Buzzi Unicem had bought shares in it for some Euro71.7m.
As a shareholder of at least 95% of Dyckerhoff, Buzzi Unicem is entitled, under the German law, to start a 'squeeze-out' procedure for the remaining shares that it does not already own. However, it has not yet made any final decision on such a move, according to Dyckerhoff.
Italcementi hires KHD for Rezatto upgrade 23 November 2012
Germany: Italcementi has awarded KHD a contract to upgrade and redevelop its Brescia Rezzato plant in Italy. The upgraded plant, situated in the environmentally sensitive Lake Garda region, will have to adhere to strict environmental requirements.
Italcementi has selected KHD's Clean Technology for the upgrade. It includes a KHD COMFLEX® SC 18 – 3250 system for raw material grinding, a Two-Pier PYRORAPID® Kiln 3000t/day 4.4m x 52m, a PFC PYRFLOOR® clinker cooler 635 AW and a Low NOX 5 stage Preheater 7950 PR.
KHD will also supply additional environmental equipment including selective catalytic reduction systems, a gas conditioning tower, selective non catalytic reduction systems, as well as special filter systems to reduce SOX. KHD will install much of the equipment whilst the existing kiln continues to operate.
The Rezzato plant, built in 1964, was designed by former Italcementi chairman Giampiero Pesenti, father of current Italcementi CEO Carlo Pesenti, during his tenure as an engineer. The project is scheduled to be finished in 2014, in time for Italcementi's 150th anniversary.
Gebr. Pfeiffer SE to supply VRM to Togo 22 November 2012
Togo: Chengdu Design & Research Institute of Building Materials Industry, which belongs to the Chinese Sinoma Group and acting as General Contractor for a new cement production line in Togo, has ordered an MPS 5000 B vertical roller mill from Germany's Gebr. Pfeiffer SE for raw material grinding. The grinding plant will be set up in a greenfield 5000t/day cement production line owned by Scantogo, a member of HeidelbergCement.
The MPS raw mill sold will have a rated capacity of 410t/hr and has been specially designed to cope with the possibility that raw material with a high moisture content of 15% may be ground.
Apart from the supply of the core components for the grinding plant, the order includes the supply of workshop drawings to enable the local manufacture of mill components and the supervision of manufacture at Chinese workshops. Moreover, erection and commissioning on site will be supervised by staff from Gebr. Pfeiffer.
The mill is scheduled to be delivered in the third quarter of 2013.
Has the UK cement market become more competitive? 21 November 2012
Back in May 2012 we asked who would buy Lafarge's Hope cement plant in Derbyshire. The answer was, of course, a company with an Indian background: Mittal Investments.
The sale was a condition of the UK Competition Commission in response to the proposed joint venture between Lafarge and Tarmac. It also included 172 ready mix concrete plants, five aggregates quarries, two asphalt plants, one marine aggregates wharf, one rail-linked aggregates depot and the sale of Tarmac's 50% ownership interest in Midland Quarry Products. Mittal has paid Euro339m for the assets, including up to Euro37m dependent on the performance of the assets over the next three years.
At the time we predicted that it might be a company from a fast growth area, with excess cash and a desire for technical knowledge, perhaps from China or the Middle East. Far more fitting for the UK, however, was a company with Indian roots, especially considering the cultural links between the two countries dating back to the colonial era.
Originally from India but based in London, owner Lakshmi Mittal runs steel multinational ArcelorMittal and he frequently tops UK rich lists. The Mittal family even own shares in Premier League football team Queens Park Rangers. The sale follows acquisitions of well-known British brands such as car manufacturers Jaguar Land Rover and British Steel/Corus to the Tata Group.
The sale to Mittal leaves the UK cement market with four companies. Mittal's new plant in the UK joins Lafarge's four plants, Cemex's two plants, Hanson Cement's three plants and Tarmac Buxton, Lime & Cement's single plant, which is soon to join with Lafarge's plants in the joint-venture. Geographically the sale to Mittal breaks up a concentration of three Lafarge and Tarmac plants in Derbyshire in the southern Pennines. Presumably this was the aim of the Competition Commission in the first place.
Selling the Hope plant makes sense for Lafarge and Tarmac. The sale leaves Lafarge's generous spread of plants across the UK in key locations except the south of England. The combined cement production capacity of Lafarge and Tarmac will fall from 4.35Mt/yr to 3.85Mt/yr. The reduction may actually help Lafarge, given its 9% fall in cement sales volumes so far in 2012 and the pessimistic outlook for the UK cement sector in 2013. The reduction in capacity manages this decline closely at 11%.
The UK cement industry has likely become more competitive with the range between the production capacities of the four companies reduced. However the price Lafarge and Tarmac have paid the Competition Commission for their joint venture was almost certainly worth it. Lafarge-Tarmac retains Lafarge's dominant position in a streamlined shape now matching the market reality.
Update: This article was corrected on 27 November 2012. The UK temporarily has five cement producers until the Lafarge-Tarmac joint venture gains approval from the UK Competition Commission. Then it will return to four.
New chairman for PCA 21 November 2012
US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has announced that its board of directors has elected Cary O Cohrs, current president of American Cement Company, to be its new chairman during the association's autumn board meeting in Washington, DC. Cohrs succeeds Aris Papadopoulos of Titan America. John Stull, president and CEO of Lafarge North America Inc, was elected vice chairman.
"It is not only a pleasure but a great honour to serve as chairman of the board," Cohrs said. "We may be just beginning to emerge from the recession, but the prospects for cement and concrete are incredibly positive. With our shift in leadership from Skokie to Washington comes a greater focus on advocacy and government affairs. But we also must maintain our focus on national and local promotion initiatives and continue to drive gains in both market share and market size."
Cohrs has decades of experience in the cement industry. In 2000 he was appointed vice president of operations for Florida Rock Industries, where Cohrs also served as plant manager and construction manager. He also was a corporate project manager for Essroc Materials Inc, responsible for the installation and commissioning of capital projects in six cement plants and two grinding plants.
Indonesian cement sales rise 10% year-on-year 21 November 2012
Indonesia: Cement sales in Indonesia, Southeast Asia's biggest economy, rose by 10.7% year-on-year in October 2012, with the highest growth in the Moluccas and on Papua. Data from the largest cement firm PT Semen Gresik showed that October 2012 sales were up by 0.1% relative to September 2012 at 5.17Mt.
The highest consumption was, as usual, seen on Java, the main island in the archipelago. Sales in the Moluccas and Papua stood at 87,316t, rising by 68.5% year-on-year earlier.