Displaying items by tag: Al Jouf

Saudi Arabia: The Saudi Industrial Exports Company (SIEC) has signed a one-year sales and marketing contract extension with Al Jouf Cement. It previously agreed with Al Jouf in November 2017 to sell 72,000t/yr to Jordan.

Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement has signed a six-month technical contract with China’s Riga Company to convert its second production line to produce white cement. The contract was signed to coincide with the arrival of the project team that will handle the conversion. No value for the upgrade has been disclosed.

Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement has signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with China’s Riga Company to convert its second production line to produce white cement. The agreement will last six months.

Palestine: Saudi Arabia’s Al Jouf Cement has signed a deal with Sanad Trading and Marketing to export 50,000t/yr of cement and clinker. The financial impact from the agreement is expected to be noticed from the middle of the fourth quarter of 2018 onwards. The deal follows a memorandum of understanding that was signed between the companies in August 2018.

Yemen: Saudi Arabia’s Al Jouf Cement says it has completed its first export to Yemen. It transported 9000t of cement. The financial impact of the shipment will be recorded in its financial report for the third quarter of 2018.

No consolidation has happened yet in the Saudi Arabian cement industry but exports have started to be announced. Yanbu Cement signed an export deal in March 2018 to despatch 1Mt of clinker and 0.5Mt of cement from one year from 1 April 2018. Prior to that, Al Jouf Cement Company started a contract to export 72.000t/yr to Jordan from late February 2018. Earlier still, Bahrain was expected to benefit from a lifting of cement export tariffs at the end of January 2018.

Its early days yet but some of sort of action is starting to happen about the country’s falling cement sales. If export deals are in the early stages of being set following the lifting of the ban, then local movements of cement have intensified. As Al Rajhi Capital reports in its latest market update, that producers have been forced by low sales and high inventory levels to take action. It says that cement companies have started to sell products in different parts of the country than they do normally leading to a ‘price war’. The financial services and analytical company has pinpointed the central region as the key battleground as company market shares have fallen over the last six months as northern producers have moved in.

Graph 1: Cement sales (Mt) by quarter in Saudi Arabia, 2015 to March 2018. Source: Yamama Cement.

Cement sales fell by 15% year-on-year to 11.8Mt in the first quarter of 2018 from 13.7Mt in the same period in 2017. This is the first time in recent years that sales did not rise from the fourth quarter to the following first quarter. Not a good sign. Despite the bad news, a few producers did mange to increases their deliveries in the first quarter, including Saudi Cement, Hail Cement, Umm Al Qura Cement and United Cement.

Bizarrely, into this sales environment, plans for the long delayed Al Baha Cement cement plant project have re-emerged. The project previously has received coverage at various stages over the years. This time it has reportedly gained a licence to set up the company and it hopes to start tendering for the build in the second half of 2018. The investors may want to leave it a little longer given the current state of the Saudi cement industry.

Jordan/Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement Company has activated a contract to export 72,000t/yr of cement to Jordan with effect from late February 2018. The company previously signed the deal with Saudi Industrial Export, according to Mubasher. The financial effect from the agreement is expected to show in the company’s results for the first quarter of 2018.

Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement has renewed its export licence for one year. The Saudi cement producer received the licence on 15 February 2018, according to Mubasher. The licence will end in February 2019 and any financial impact will be announced subsequently.

Saudi Arabia: The Saudi Industrial Exports Company (SIEC) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Al Jouf Cement Company to export its products internationally. The Saudi government lifted a ban on exporting cement in 2016.

Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement has said in a bourse statement it has launched trial operations of a second production line. The new production line will have a clinker production capacity of 5000t/day. The trial period will take three months.

Al Jouf announced in October 2013 that it had signed an agreement with Al Rajhi Bank for a US$107m loan to partially finance the construction of the new production line. The loan is to be repaid by June 2019.