September 2024
Belarus: President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has demanded that the local cement industry improve its efficiency and increase its exports. He made the comments following the approval of the appointment of Alyaksandr Dawhala as the new chief executive officer of Belarusian Cement, according to the Belapan news agency. He noted that export sales were improving with a focus on the European Union although key markets also include Poland, Latvia and Ukraine.
Philippines: The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) expects San Miguel Corporation’s acquisition of a majority stake in Holcim Philippines to reduce the price of locally produced cement. Trade Secretary Ramon M Lopez said that he expected operational synergies and economies of scale to ‘hopefully’ bring down prices, according to the BusinessWorld newspaper. He also noted that import duties on imports of cement could also provide a ‘healthy competitive environment.’
San Miguel Corporation agreed to purchase LafargeHolcim’s 85.7% share in Holcim Philippines in early May 2019. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.
France: Fives Group has tested using its FCB Rhodax cone crusher to process concrete wastes resulting from the demolition and deconstruction industry. During an internal innovation competition, the crusher was used to sort hydrated cement paste from the aggregates and sand. The development will enable cement producers to reuse the paste as a cement additive. Ready mixed concrete producers will be able to make new concrete using the recycled aggregates and sand allowing for a reduction in CO2 emissions. Fives hopes to turn demolition concrete waste into a valuable commodity.
India: The Container Corporation of India (CONCOR) plans to invest around US$140m towards developing dry ports and related infrastructure as well as buying more railway wagons. The government-controlled organisation, under the remit of the Ministry of Railways, intends to target the cement industry, according to the New Indian Express newspaper. V Kalyana Rama, the chairman and managing director of CONCOR, said that the company wants to increase transportation of bulk cement in the country to reduce inefficiencies.
Mali: Ibrahima Dibo, a director of Diamond Cement Mali has denied that his company is responsible for recent price rises. At a press conference on the issue he explained that the cement producer has had fixed prices in conjunction with the government at its units at Astro and Dio Gare since 2012, according to the Le Républicain newspaper. Instead he blamed traders for exploiting cement shortages and poor roads. Dibo added that the company produced 0.73Mt of cement in 2016 from its two units in the country but that its sales have fallen since then. As a whole the country has an estimated 3Mt/yr demand for cement.
South Korea/Thailand: Austria’s Unitherm Cemcon has commissioned a MAS kiln burner at a cement plant in South Korea. The order was issued in late 2018 for three MAS burners. The first burner was delivered in February 2019 and the other two in March 2019. In May 2019 Unitherm Cemcon says it supported the commissioning of the first burner.
The scope of supply included two 43MW MAS/4/KO SO type burners for coal and heavy oil and one 87MW MAS/7/KO SO.X type rotary kiln burner for coal, heavy oil and solid secondary fuels. All three burners have been executed with a divisible burner jacket tube. One MAS/7/KO.SO.X is already successfully operating in another line, firing up to 6t/hr of coal and around 10t/hr of solid secondary fuel.
The burner manufacturer has also been awarded a contract to supply a hot gas generator for a plant in Thailand. The scope of supply includes: engineering and manufacturing drawings for the hot gas generator combustion chamber; a combined 45MW oil and coal burner; a primary air fan; a gas electric pilot burner; a flame monitoring device; and an oil valve train with burner management system.
Myanmar: 17 residents have been injured in a protest against the Alpha Cement Plant at Patheingyi in the Kyaukse district or the Mandalay region. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the protestors, according to Radio Free Asia. The local residents were complaining about compensation for a road that is being built as part of the project. Concerns have also been raised over the use of Chinese nationals at the site.
The Alpha Cement Plant, previously known as Myanmar Conch Cement, is a joint venture between Myanmar's Myint Investment Group and China's Anhui Conch. The unit is currently being upgraded to a production capacity of 5000t/day. Construction work started in late 2017.
Jenisch ejects LafargeHolcim from Southeast Asia 15 May 2019
Jan Jenisch and the team at LafargeHolcim only went and bloody did it! Apologies for readers not wanting yet more column inches on LafargeHolcim but when the world’s largest cement producer leaves an entire sub-continental market it deserves mention.
First Indonesia, then Malaysia and now the Philippines. LafargeHolcim will soon no longer produce clinker in Southeast Asia. That’s a region with 651 million inhabitants or around 8% of the world’s total population. All of those people need cement and other building products as their nations build houses, infrastructure and so on. And LafargeHolcim is no longer there.
The reason, of course, is local production overcapacity in many of these countries and rampageous importers pulling in cheaper product from elsewhere. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) includes Thailand and Vietnam, two of the world’s largest cement exporters. The region also borders China, the place which could produce 40% of the world’s cement if it so wanted. So, understandably, LafargeHolcim pulled the plug. Note that the recent divestments in the region didn’t include its seabourne trading wing, LafargeHolcim Trading. Oh no! Clearly, if you can’t beat them, you join them instead.
So, what to say about the Philippines sale? Unlike the divestments in Indonesia, this sale has valued the production base more highly. LafargeHolcim’s integrated production capacity, including the upgrade at its Bulacan plant, is being sold for over US$175/t with the partial share factored in. And that’s not even including the grinding plant at Mabini. The sale in Indonesia was US$120/t or lower. The Duterte administration’s infrastructure drive (Build, Build, Build) and muscular government action on imports have doubtless played their part here. Yet still LafargeHolcim sold. In the words of chief executive officer (CEO) Jan Jenisch the area was ‘hyper competitive.’
Back home at the group’s headquarters in Switzerland, the potential revenue of over US$4bn from the three ASEAN divestment is poised to trickle onto the balance sheets for 2019. If it were all to go towards debt reduction then these proceeds could pile drive the group’s net financial debt to below Euro10bn. This would be good place to be if the on-going Chinese-US trade tiffs became a little hotter, say, or in the case of a fresh banking crisis. Alternatively the group could pick a new region for development and start all over again or focus on diversifying its business along the building materials chain. And let’s not forget the potential legal bill from the on-going investigation into Lafarge Syria’s conduct during the Syrian civil war.
Throughout this whole exercise, from the outside looking in at LafargeHolcim’s actions, the thought has persistently been: what do they know that everyone else doesn’t? The answer, it may turn out to be, nothing. Yet, rightly or wrongly, we’re marvelling at the bravado of it all.
Japan: Toshihiko Onishi has been appointed as Representative Director, Executive Vice President of Sumitomo Osaka. He succeeds Yushi Suga. The final decision on the promotion will be made in late June 2019 at the company’s annual general meeting. Onishi, aged 61 years, is currently a Senior Managing Executive Office for Sumitomo Osaka. He joined the group in 1981 and became a director in 2016.
Europe/Singapore: ZAG International has appointed Daniel Ulestig as Managing Director, Head of Global Shipping and European Business operation. He will have responsibility for all of ZAG’s shipping activities around the world as well as leading the company’s business interests in Europe.
Ulestig started his career as a trainee at Holcim Trading in Madrid, Spain in 1998. In 2003, he joined Belden Shipping as a market analysts and moved to Singapore in early 2004 later becoming its Commercial Director. Belden Shipping was subsequently acquired by Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Skipsrederi of Bergen, Norway in late 2006. In 2008, Ulestig was named Assistant Vice President of KGJC Cement (Singapore), with responsibility for all chartering activities east of the Suez. In 2010, he assumed oversight of the Singapore office and was named to the entity’s board of directors in 2011. In 2014, Ulestig was made Vice President of KGJ Cement in Singapore. He moved back to Sweden in late 2017 where he continued to serve as KGJ Cement’s Vice President Chartering.