September 2024
Cahya Mata Sarawak completes strategic restructuring 18 October 2019
Malaysia: Following 12 months of graduated succession plan implementation, Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS) is ready for the retirement of Group Executive Director Ahmad Alwee Alsree Datuk Syed. CMS chairman Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Bin Abdul Manaf accepted Datuk Syed’s retirement with an outpour of thanks for his ‘immeasurable contributions over 15 years of loyal and faithful service.’ All of Datuk Syed’s roles have now passed to successors within the company, with Isaac Lugun Dato taking over as group managing director.
Holcim Argentina opens Holcim Technical Academy at Campana plant 18 October 2019
Argentina: Holcim Argentina opened a technical training centre on 17 October 2019 at its 1.2Mt/yr Campana grinding plant. The Holcim Technical Academy will provide specialist training to managers and supervisors from Holcim’s Campana, Córdoba, Jujuy and Mendoza plants, with courses on quality, processes, maintenance and quarries.
CCNN donates cement to Wamakko communities 18 October 2019
Nigeria: Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) has made a donation of 3000 bags of cement, equalling US$22,100 in value, to impoverished communities in Sokoto State’s Wamakko Local Government Area. CCNN corporate affairs manager Alhaji Sada Suleiman said that the donation, which is to help repair mosques, graveyards, public wells and Islamic schools, was part of the company’s corporate responsibility.
Cambodia: Thai-based Thai Boon Rong Cement is conducting pilot testing at its newly constructed 1.3Mt/yr integrated cement plant in La’ang, Kampot province, with a view to it entering production in November 2019. Asia News Network has reported that the cement plant, located in the Thai Boon Rong Special Economic Zone, will be the fourth in Kampot, bringing the province’s total production capacity to 6.4Mt/yr. Fellow producer Chip Mong Insee, whose plant in Kampot, owned jointly with Siam City Cement, produces 1.5Mt/yr of cement, released a statement expressing hope that the new plant will help to “slash imports by a great amount, which means that we can be nearly 100% self-reliant.”
Including the fifth plant in Battambang, Cambodia’s cement production capacity will stand at 8.2Mt/yr as of the November 2019 inauguration of the new plant by Prime Minister Hun Sen. The figure confronts a rapidly growing domestic demand which is 7.7Mt/yr and shows no signs of slowing. Figures from Chip Mong Insee estimate that national cement demand in 2020 may be as high as 9.0Mt/yr.
Yamama Cement turns a profit in third quarter of 2019 17 October 2019
Saudi Arabia: Yamama Cement achieved a US$12.2m third quarter net profit in 2019. This compares with losses of US$12.3m in the corresponding three months of 2018. The company reported a 73% leap in revenues year-on-year to US$49.7m from US$28.7m.
China Tianrui Group Cement signs new clinker supply framework agreement with Ruiping Shilong 17 October 2019
China: China Tianrui Group Cement has secured a new agreement with Ruiping Shilong for the supply of its clinker. The company announced that under the new arrangement, valid until 31 December 2021, it will buy clinker at a rate possibly exceeding the US$74m/yr cap stipulated in the 1 April 2019 agreement which covered the same period.
Loma Negra to hire 120 for new line at L’Amali plant 17 October 2019
Argentina: Loma’s new line at its L’Amali plant in Olavarría Province, involving a kiln, two vertical mills and a bagging and palletising unit, will create 120 jobs, 80 of which will go to plant staff. The company had previously estimated that 220 people would work on the line. In a statement, it emphasised the importance of maximising gender parity in its recruitment process.
Loma Negra estimated that the upgrade will enlarge the plant’s capacity by 40% to 2.4Mt/yr from 1.7Mt/yr. The declaration follows the announced relocation of 45 staff members with the closure of the 1.5Mt/yr integrated Olavarría cement plant, also in Olavarría province.
Airstrike targets Lafarge Syria facility 17 October 2019
Syria: Two Coalition F15s performed a targeted precision airstrike on a Lafarge Syria cement terminal near Kobane on the Turkish-Syrian border. Myles Caggins, Operation Inherent Resolve spokesperson, told Sputnik that the operation succeeded in its aims of “destroying an ammunition cache and reducing the facility’s future military usefulness.” The facility had been used by Coalition and Kurdish forces, and was destroyed following the removal of all personnel and ‘essential tactical equipment’ as part of the US’s withdrawal from northern Syria.
Update on Brazil – 2019 16 October 2019
SNIC, the Brazilian national cement industry union, was being cautious this week but signs of improvement were there. Its cement sales data showed a 3% year-on-year rise to 40.5Mt for the first nine months of 2019 from 39.4Mt in the same period in 2018. SNIC President Paulo Camillo Penna was keen to pour cold water over the figures with a reminder that the truck driver’s strike and an economic slowdown in 2018 had unnaturally depressed industry sales. He didn’t want to ruin the party too much though. Comments followed about a National Confederation of Industry (CNI) survey forecasting growth for the next six months and market research supporting growing residential construction.
Graph 1: Cement sales in Brazil for Q1 – 3, 2014 – 2019. Source: SNIC.
As Graph 1 above shows the local industry has been through the wringer in recent years. Cement sales peaked in 2014 before the national economy was hit by falling commodity and oil prices that contributed to a recession as well as the Petrobras political crisis. At the start of 2017 Camillo Penna described the situation as the worst in the industry’s history. From the peak to the trough cement sales plummeted by 27%.
Camillo Penna’s caution now may have something to do with his previous prediction that the industry was going to recover from the second half of 2018. The sales may not have perked up but merger and acquisition activity did, with the European multinationals Buzzi Unicem and Vicat buying stakes in BCPAR (Grupo Ricardo Brennand) and Cimento Planalto (Ciplan) respectively. So far in 2019 it has been quietly optimistic but not without the odd hiccup. There have been a few new plant project announcements from Brennand Group, Votorantim and CSN Cimentos. Yet, InterCement converted its integrated Pedro Leopoldo plant in Minas Gerais to a terminal. Cimento Tupi reportedly ran into trouble with its investors when it tried to merge with its parent company following defaulting on loan payments in 2018. Notably, the country’s two cement associations also released a Cement Technology Roadmap to 2050 in April 2019. It plans to reduce specific CO2 emissions by over 30% from 2014 to 375kg CO2/t of cement in 2050 amongst other ambitions.
On the corporate side, Votorantim’s domestic sales rose by 3% year-on-year to US$771m in the first half of 2019 from US$745m in the same period in 2018. It attributed the growth to improved prices. Other news of note included the acquisition of a mortar plant in Belém, Pará state and plans to upgrade its clinker grinding unit at Pecém in Ceará. InterCement’s cement and clinker sales volumes rose by 6.8% to 4.04Mt from 3.78Mt. It declared that this was way ahead of the industry average of 1.5%. Sales revenue fell slightly, possibly due to high production overcapacity and competition on prices. Earnings were also reported as having improved in the second quarter partly due to a ‘significant’ reduction in its cost structure.
On the supplier side, refractory manufacturer RHI Magnesita reported that its margin recovery was ‘going quite well’ in Brazil during the first half of 2019. Stefan Borgas, RHI Magnesita’s chief executive officer (CEO) forecast that the margin in that country would help drive its business in the second half of 2019 and that the business was returning to the global average. RHI Magnesita also announced a Euro57.1m upgrade to its plant at Contagem, Belo Horizonte in Minas Gerais this week, including building a new regional headquarters for its South American business.
Everything seems to be coming together slowly for Brazil’s cement industry. Yet Camillo Penna and SNIC are right to be careful for another reason. The United Nations (UN) and various analysts are warning about the growing risk of global recession in 2020 based on indicators like the US yield curve. This could be especially devastating for an economy like Brazil’s that is heavily dependent on commodity markets. History may not repeat itself but the strength of that recovery may be tested sooner than anyone would like.
UAE: The board of Sharjah Cement and Industrial Development elected Othman Mohammed Sharif Abdullah as its new chairman at a meeting on 12 October 2019. Mubasher has reported that the company, which is based in the UAE, and also listed in Kuwait, also appointed Salah Abdulla Al Noman to its board.