November 2024

Indonesia: Lafarge is planning to build a new cement plant in Langkat district in North Sumatra. The USD406m, 1.5Mt/yr plant is expected to be open for business by 2015. The head of North Sumatra Mines and Energy Office, Iskandarsyah, said "No license has been issued for Lafarge which will build cement plants in Kuala and Bahorok, Langkat." The head of the North Sumatra provincial Industry and Trade office, T Nilfan Shahari reitterated earlier announcements that new cement plants were welcome in the region.

The 300 hectares for the cement plant which will be located in Parit Bindu village, Kuala sub-district. 73 hectares are in Batu Katak village, Bahorok sub-district and another 227 hectares in Batu Katak Bahorok village, which is rich in natural limestone.

Russia: Danish cement plant supplier FLSmidth has won two recent orders to build cement plants in Russia. FLSmidth said it would build a complete cement plant for Kaluga Cement Plant LLC in the Kaluga province, 300km southwest of Moscow in a deal worth Euro150m. Last week, the company also announced a preliminary deal for a separate 8500t/day cement plant in Russia, which is expected to be worth over Euro100m. At nearly 3Mt/yr this kiln will be the largest in Europe.

FLSmidth's chief executive announced that Russia is now seen as the most promising market for such projects. "This confirms what we have long said. There is very big potential in Russia," said chief executive Jorgen Huno Rasmussen. "It is the most promising market we see at the moment."

Rasmussen also said that the big potential in Russia for cement plant sales stemmed from high economic growth, based largely on high energy prices and from the age of existing cement production capacity. "Around 85% of the existing cement capacity is outdated and needs to be replaced," Rasmussen said. The company is in contact with several other potential customers in Russia.

Egypt: The Egyptian Industrial Development Authority (IDA) has announced that it will issue 12 cement licences in the second half of October 2011 to lure new firms into the Egyptian market and boost the sector's competitiveness.

"The authority aims to offer 18Mt/yr, 1.5Mt/yr per licence," said IDA head, Ismail El-Nagdy, who added that the licences will be awarded to new producers rather than existing ones in order to offer alternatives to consumers.

The popular uprising that ousted long-time President Hosni Mubarak from power in Egypt in February 2011 has forced the government to slash its short-term economic growth forecast and deepened a crisis in the once-booming real estate sector, a major cement consumer. The IDA says that new entrants into the cement market are needed to meet an expected longer-term rise in construction, especially as the Housing Ministry builds more housing units to meet the needs of Egypt's growing population.

Germany: HeidelbergCement (HC) has published its 2009-2010 Group Sustainability Report, which contains externally audited parameters for the first time. One of these independently verified parameters was HC's overall alternative fuels rate, which reached more than 20%.

The new report contains key performance indicators from HC's cement businesses that concern occupational health and safety and environmental protection that have been subjected to an independent review. In doing so, the company increases data quality and likewise complies with the obligations of the Cement Sustainability Initiative of the WBCSD (World Business Council for Sustainable Development).

"Sustainability is a management responsibility and part of our corporate strategy," said Dr Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the Managing Board of HeidelbergCement. "By means of continuous reporting on our progress we aim at making our business activities transparent and binding so that all of our stakeholders can clearly see and understand the way in which we operate."

UK: The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has referred the proposed UK construction materials joint venture between Anglo American plc and Lafarge SA to the Competition Commission for further investigation. The companies had proposed the establishment of a 50:50 joint venture to which each of them would contribute the bulk of their construction materials businesses in the UK.

The OFT concluded that competition concerns arise in a number of markets including: overlaps in the supply of aggregates, asphalt and ready-mixed concrete in a large number of local areas (as well as particular types of aggregates at regional and national level); an overlap in the supply of bulk grey cement at a regional and/or national level, as well as, separately, an increased prospect of coordination in the supply of bulk grey cement; and a concern that the joint venture could foreclose independent ready-mix concrete suppliers by making it substantially more difficult for them to source bulk grey cement at competitive prices.

Ali Nikpay, OFT Senior Director, said - "The proposed joint venture would bring together Tarmac's and Lafarge's construction material assets in the UK. This represents a significant structural change in this sector and raises serious competition issues in several markets which need to be considered in detail by the Competition Commission. Although the parties did offer to divest a variety of assets in order to try to resolve the issues identified, we are not confident that the package proposed would clearly remove our concerns in all areas."

Anglo American and Lafarge provided a significant quantity of information and analysis to the OFT to inform its review. The OFT also received information from around 300 customers and competitors of the two parties as part of its merger investigation. The Competition Commission is expected to report by 16 February 2012. This announcement follows the OFT's decision in August 2011 to refer the UK cement, ready-mix concrete and aggregates sectors to the Competition Commission.

Russia/Kazakhstan/Ireland: Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska is holding talks to discuss selling up to 75% of his cement production company BaselCement to Ireland's Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH). BaselCement CEO Vyacheslav Shmatov and CRH's press office declined to comment.

At present, BaselCement only has two operating facilities, one in Russia and the other in Kazakhstan. The company's plant in the Krasnoyarsk city of Achinsk produced 436,500t of cement in January to July 2011, up from 150,400t that it produced in the same period of 2010. BaselCement's plant in Kazakhstan produced 400,000t of cement in the whole of 2010.

The proposed deal could also include two cement plants with a combined annual production capacity of 3.5Mt/yr that are currently being built in the Ryazan and Novgorod regions. CRH has preliminarily estimated BaselCement's value at Euro550-600m (excluding its subsidiary BaselCement-Pikalyovo). BaselCement is forecast to have a net profit of Euro45.8m in 2011.

Vietnam: The Vietnamese finance minister, Vuong Dinh Hue, has announced that the national government will provide capital to help four cement projects to deal with their foreign debts. The four projects were among 16 in the cement sector that had government-guaranteed loans from foreign creditors worth USD1.36bn. The Hoang Mai cement project reported a total debt of USD145m, followed by Tam Diep with a total debt of USD139m, Thai Nguyen at USD59m and Dong Banh at USD45m.

Hue said that the finance ministry would assist with up to three scheduled payments for the four troubled projects, but that if they continued to miss subsequent payments, the plants would have to sell up some of their assets.

The ministry earlier proposed that the Prime Minister should ask the Ministry of Construction to review planning measures in the cement sector and suspend the issuance of guarantees for the new cement projects while waiting for the Prime Minister's decision.

India: A panel of India's environment ministry has cleared a USD98.6m proposal by Jaiprakash Associates to expand the capacity of its cement plant in Madhya Pradesh. The panel has recommended clearance, with certain riders, for the project in the Sidhi district, where the company already operates a 2Mt/yr plant. The Jaypee Group firm proposes to augment the existing capacity to 3.5Mt/yr by constructing a 1.5Mt/yr line.

The Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) recommended the proposal for environmental clearance subject to the stipulation of specific conditions that include developing a green belt in at least 33% of the area in and around the plant and earmarking at least 5% of the total cost of the project towards social commitments. Jaiprakash plans to put up the new line on 10 hectares and has plans to invest USD13.1m for the installation of pollution control measures.

The Jaypee Group has over 26Mt/yr of cement production capacity across all of its cement interests and has embarked upon expanding it to around 36Mt/yr.

Nigeria: The Ministry of Trade and Investment (MTI) has set up an institute called the Cement Technology Institute (CTI) to boost the quality of cement production in Nigeria. The Trade and Investment Minister Dr Olusegun Aganga, explained that the Institute would assist Nigeria in optimising its cement production capacity and capability, through acquisition and development of the appropriate technologies.

The announcement was made as the minister inaugurated the Board of Trustee (BoT) and the Project Implementation Team (PIT) for the CTI in Abuja. The Board is chaired by the Group President of the Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, while the Chairman of the PTI will be Alhaji Lateef G Salami, who is the Director of the Industrial Development department in the MTI. Inaugurating the BoT, the Minister pointed out that the Institute would also be the fulcrum for the positioning of Nigeria as a net exporter of cement with the capacity of meeting the needs of the Economic Community of West African States.

The CTI will carry out research and development, technology adaptation and develop human capabilities. Aganga added that the objectives of the institute were: to train and enhance manpower in cement technology and related fields especially at the middle management level; to undertake research and development in the areas of suitable alternative technologies in cement manufacturing; promoting the use of local raw materials for cement manufacturing.

Others areas to be covered include: the development of specialised cements; improving and increasing the use of mineral admixtures; and the development of cleaner and more environmentally-friendly production processes, waste management systems and energy conservation methods. The CTI will work closely with other institutes and will run as a non-governmental organisation with the BoT members drawn from both government and major stakeholders in the cement industry.

Turkey: Cement producer Adana Çimento, an Oyak Group company, says it plans to invest USD80m in a clinker production facility in the city of Iskenderun. With this investment the annual clinker production capacity of Adana Çimento will increase to 3.3Mt/yr from 2.3Mt/yr. The new facility is expected to be completed and come online by 2013.