September 2024
Nigeria: Lafarge Africa has delayed publication of its annual results for 2018. It blamed the delay on ‘pending actions required for the resolution of key matters relating to the closure of its annual financial statement. It says it will release its audited financial statement by the end of June 2019. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim reported a net loss of US$28.8m for the first nine months of 2019 compared to an income of US$2.61m in the same period in 2017, although it managed to grow its revenue on a year-on-year basis.
Trinidad & Tobago: The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is continuing to hear arguments about whether Rock Hard Cement should be exempt from higher taxes applicable to third party goods. Both the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) and the World Customs Organisation (WCO) previously ruled that Rock Hard Cement imports from Turkey and Portugal were correctly classified as ‘other hydraulic cement,’ according to Barbados Today. However, lawyers on behalf of Trinidad and Tobago and Trinidad Cement have dismissed this classification of the imports, insisting that the classification of the World Customs Organization (WCO) and COTED were ‘unsafe, unreliable and incorrect.’ As such the imports should be classified as ‘building cement grey’ and liable to a tariff of 15% instead of 5%. The case continues.
Trabits Group and Brookhaven National Laboratory to present joint papers on self-repairing well cement product 13 June 2019
US: Trabits Group and Brookhaven National Laboratory have been selected to present joint research papers at two scientific geothermal forums on the self-repair ability of the FlexCem Lightweight Variable Density well cement product. The first presentation will be at the September 2019 meeting of the Geothermal Resources Council (GRC), which will be held in Palm Springs, California, US. The second presentation will be at the World Geothermal Congress (WGC), which will be held in Reykjavik, Iceland in April 2020.
FlexCem well cement was developed by Trabits Group following completion of a research grant from the Department of Energy Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO). It is a composite cement using Type I/II cement clinker and Ferrierite zeolite, interground in proprietary ratios.
Mondi launches web-based platform 13 June 2019
Austria: Mondi has launched ‘myMondi’ a web-based platform. It says it is the first all-in-one digital customer platform available in the paper sack industry worldwide. The sales product is intended to enable customers to view live product and stock information, place orders and track order status.
Germany/Portugal: Talleres Alquezar has been using two BHS mixers in a modular plant to produce a total volume of 400,000m3 of hydro dam concrete in Portugal since 2017. Two DKX 4.5 type twin-shaft batch mixers, each with a capacity of 4.5m3, have been integrated into the plant. Germany’s BHS says that using twin-shaft batch mixers has shown that can be utilised successfully to produce this kind of specialised concrete.
Three hydro dams are being built on the Tâmega River that are expected to generate 1760GWh for the Iberian market once they have been commissioned as part of Spanish energy group Iberdrola’s large-scale hydroelectric project in Portugal. 242,000m3 of concrete is needed in Daivões for the dam wall alone, which is planned to be 78m high and 265m long. Spain’s Talleres Alquezar is the project partner for this hydro dam. Once built, the construction in Daivões is expected to dam up to 56,200,000m3 of water.
Dust matters in India 12 June 2019
There was a glimmer of good news visible through the Delhi smog this week with the launch of a market-based emissions trading scheme (ETS) for particulate matter (PM). A pilot has started at Surat in Gujarat. The scheme will apply to 350 industries in the locality and it will be scrutinised for wider rollout in the country.
China robustly started to tackle its industrial PM emitters a few years ago although the work remains on-going. In its wake India has increasingly made the wrong sort of headlines with horrifically high dust emissions. Delhi, for example, reportedly had PM2.5 emissions of over 440µg/m3 in January 2019. To give this some context, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) annual upper guideline figure for safe human exposure is 10µg/m3. Research by the Financial Times newspaper suggested that more than 40% of the Indian population is subject to annual PM2.5 emissions of over 50µg/m3.
Air Quality Life Index (AQLI) research reckons that if India were able to meet its national PM2.5 standard of 40µg/m3 then its population would live 1.8 years longer or 4.3 years longer if it met the WHO guideline level. The current situation is an unnecessary tragedy. In strictly structural terms the country’s productivity is being thrown away by damaging the health of its workforce. For comparison amongst other major cement producing countries, AQLI data placed China’s PM2.5 emissions at 39µg/m3, Indonesia at 22µg/m3, Vietnam at 20µg/m3 the US at 9µg/m3. These figures cover all industries in different conditions and climates. If the US can do it, why not the others?
Back on trading schemes, the famous ETS at the moment is the European one for CO2 emissions. Similar schemes are slowly appearing around the world as governments look at what the European Union (EU) did right and wrong. For example, South Africa started up a carbon tax in early June 2019. Yet as the supporting documents by the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB) point out there have been a variety of ETS systems’ over the years. The US’s Acid Rain Program is generally seen to have achieved significant reductions in SO2 and NOx emissions although the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) has continued this work. Chile even ran its own PM ETS in the 1990s although the outcomes have been disputed.
One problem with a CO2 ETS, and anthropomorphic or man-made climate change in general, is that it is intangible. Even if sea levels deluge major coastal cities, rising mean temperatures reduce agricultural yields and human populations contract sharply, people will still be arguing over the research and the causes. The beauty of a PM ETS is that if it works you can literally see and feel the results. A famous example here is the UK’s Clean Air Act in the 1950s that banished the fog/smog that London used to be famous for.
The Gujarat PM ETS is a pilot, the results of which will be considered by researchers from a number of US-based universities and the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. Explicitly, the study plans to use a randomised control trial to compares its results against the command and control style approach used in the rest of the country. On the cement-side various Indian news stories have emerged as state pollution boards have increasingly started fining producers for emission limit breaches. Clearly the government is taking dust emissions seriously. Reduction is long overdue.
Cyprus: Vassiliko Cement has appointed George Savva as its general manager with effect from 1 August 2019. In addition, Antonios Antoniou, the executive chairman of the company, will retain his position as chief executive officer (CEO) for a transitional period of five months until 31 December 2019. After the end of the transition period, he will retain the position of the executive chairman.
Savva, aged 48 years, is a Cypriot national. He holds a bachelors degree in Accounting and Finance from London South Bank University in the UK and later became a Chartered Certified Accountant with membership of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Cyprus (ICPAC). He has also attended the LEAP Executive Programme of INSEAD Business School.
He worked for Deloitte in auditing and business advisory for four years before working as an internal auditor for two years. He became the chief financial officer (CFO) for Vassiliko Cement in 2001 and became the deputy general manger in 2017.
Christoph Beumelburg appointed Head of Group Communication & Investor Relations at HeidelbergCement 12 June 2019
Germany: HeidelbergCement has appointed Christoph Beumelburg as Director Group Communication & Investor Relations. He succeeds Andreas Schaller, who has left the organisation.
Beumelburg started his career at BASF in 1995. He has since held different management positions both domestically and abroad, including Director Investor Relations USA. In 2010 he moved to the automotive and industrial supplier Schaeffler, where he held the position of Senior Vice President Communications, Marketing and Investor Relations. He holds an Industrial Engineering degree from the University of Kaiserslautern.
Thomas Schmidheiny reduces stake in LafargeHolcim 12 June 2019
Switzerland: Thomas Schmidheiny says he has reduced his share in LafargeHolcim to 7.2% from 10.9% to diversify his investment portfolio. He said that the decision was part of his ‘retirement and heritage’ planning, according to Reuters. He has no plans to minimise his stake any further.
Schmidheiny was made honorary chairman of LafargeHolcim in 2018 when he stepped down from the board. He began his career at Holcim in 1970. He became a member of the executive committee six years later and served as chief executive officer (CEO) between 1978 and 2001. After joining the board of directors in 1978 he was chairman of the board of directors from 1984 until 2003. Later, he was a key part of the merger between Holcim and Lafarge that completed in 2015.
France/Syria: Lafarge SA and three of its former executives are appealing against accusations of crimes against humanity. The Court of Appeal is expected to address the indictment in late June 2019, according to the Agence France Press. The former executives involved include Bruno Lafont, former chief executive offcier (CEO) of Lafarge, former safety director Jean-Claude Veillard, and one of the former directors of its Syrian subsidiary, Frédéric Jolibois. The Presecutor General has supported some arguments of the defence team.
If the appeal is succesful the legal case will focus instead on the financial aspects of Lafarge’s conduct in Syria between 2011 and 2014. It has been accussed of financing terrorism through indirect payments to extremist groups to keep its Jalabiya cement plant operational after the outbreak of war in Syria.