Displaying items by tag: Algeria

Algeria: The Aïn Touta Cement (SCIMAT) plant near Batna has been awarded two conformity certificates, according to the Ministry of Industry and Mining. The subsidiary of Public Industrial Cement Group of Algeria (GICA) has earned ISO 45001: 2018, relating to the occupational health and safety management system, and ISO 50001: 2018, related to energy management.

Algeria: Fives has reported that it has installed and produced a batch of clinker with a new 6000t/day FCB kiln line at Entreprise des Ciments et Dérivés d'El Chellif (ECDE)’s integrated 1.0Mt/yr Chlef cement plant. When commissioned, the line will bring the plant’s capacity to 3.2Mt/yr.

Algeria: Public Industrial Cement Group of Algeria (GICA) subsidiary Beni Saf has announced a target of 45,000t in 2020 of clinker exported to Africa. Algérie Presse Service has reported that the recipient countries include those in the sub-Saharan region.

Algeria: Algeria sold cement and clinker worth US$59.3m in the first 11 months of 2019 – up by from US$17.5m in the corresponding period ending 30 November 2018. The country’s 40Mt/yr-capacity cement industry serves a domestic demand of 22Mt/yr. Algeria Press Service has reported that Algeria’s key trade partners for exported cement were sub-Saharan African nations, according to former Minister for Trade Saïd Djellab.

Algeria: Algeria’s estimated value of exported cement in 2019 is US$60m, up by 200% from US$20m in 2018. Algerian Trade Minister Saïd Djellab noted increases to grinding capacity in Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Gabon and Mali as a potential source of revenue from clinker exports, according to L’Expression. “Algeria can meet the needs of these markets and become their leading supplier of clinker in 2020.” The minister estimated that the total value of cement and clinker exports ‘will reach US$400m by 2021.’

Algeria: Trade Minister Said Djellab has revealed that the country’s cement exports are expected to reach a value of US$400m by 2021. Export earnings were around US$20m in 2018 and then tripled to US$60m in 2019, according to the El Mujahid newspaper. The minister made the comments at a ceremony marking an export of cement from a Ciment Lafarge Souakri (CILAS) plant. He added that the local market has a cement production capacity of 40Mt/yr and that only 22Mt/yr is required domestically. Producers are targeting countries in west Africa, including Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Gabon and Mali.

Algeria: Groupe des Ciments d’Algérie’s (GICA) Aïn el Kebira cement plant in Setif has been certified by the American Petroleum Institute (API) to produce oil well cement products. It has been award two certificates following a one-year audit, according to the El Moudjahid newspaper. Djamila Tamazirt, Minister of Industry and Mining, who was on a tour of the unit, said that the development would help the country to stop importing oil well cements. The country imports an estimated 0.2Mt/yr of oil well cement at a cost of nearly US$30m.

Two new stories from Algeria this week highlight a changing industry. Firstly, Groupe Industriel des Ciments d’Algérie (GICA) started marketing cement from its new Sigus integrated plant. The unit was commissioned earlier in the year. Secondly, clinker export figures for the sector show 10-fold growth year-on-year to a value of US$30m for the first five months of 2019.

Graph 1: Cement production and capacity in Algeria, 2012 - 2018. Source: Algerian National Office of Statistics, United States Geological Survey, Global Cement Directory 2013 - 2019. Estimates supplied for 2017 and 2018.

Graph 1 above depicts the moment that lots of new production capacity started to be ordered and then commissioned in 2017. The Global Cement Directory lists new plant projects as they are announced so the trend from 2016 to 2017 may not be as pronounced as it seems but the general destination remains the same. A Ministry of Industry and Mining report estimated that production capacity would reach 40Mt/yr in 2020. Consumption was reported at 26Mt in 2016.

To cope with this the cement industry in Algeria has been moving towards an export model over the last few years. Industry and government figures started to warn of an end to imports in 2016. This quickly flipped to prognostications of production overcapacity in 2017. This then became a stream of news stories about export operations from the local industries to places like West Africa. One consequence of this were problems for foreign exporters in Tunisia and Spain, for example, as the Algerian market was shut off. Indeed, it must have been satisfying for state-producer and market leader GICA to announce that it was exporting cement to Europe in 2018!

Notably the local market has no cement grinding plants, yet this too has started to change. In May 2019 Algematco Steel ordered a modular Ready2Grind MVR vertical roller mill from Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer. Target markets for the exports identified by the Ministry of Industry and Mining included neighbouring Mali, Libya, Mauritania and Niger. However, only two of these countries are accessible by sea. Unfortunately, Libya’s resurgence in violence since April 2019 is unlikely to help the export market. The other countries share land borders with Algeria but no rail links. An overland export operation to Niger from a plant near Adrar was reported in early 2019 but feasibility on a large scale seems unlikely given the distances involved.

LafargeHolcim said in its 2018 financial report that its net sales were down in its Middle East and African region due to price pressure and lower volumes in oversupplied markets, particularly in Algeria, Iraq and Jordan. Bloomberg reported in February 2019 that LafargeHolcim was considering divesting assets in the region. However, LafargeHolcim’s exit from Southeast Asia may have since bought it some financial breathing room.

With Algeria facing a production capacity gap of at least 10Mt/yr it seems likely that foreign-backed producers like LafargeHolcim will suffer despite potential in the local economy. Nationally, the race is on to see if the industry can bring its cement to the sea and find new export markets.

Algeria: Société des Ciments de Sigus, part of Groupe Industriel des Ciments d’Algérie (GICA), has started marketing Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) from its 2Mt/yr integrated plant at Sigus, Oum El Bouaghi. The unit started producing cement in the first quarter of 2019, according to the L'Expression newspaper. The project had an investment of around US$427m. Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions was awarded the contract to build the plant in early 2017.

Algeria: The value of clinker exports grew to US$30m in the first five months of 2019 from US$3.2m in the same period in 2018. The country is hoping to increase its exports of cement and clinker to around US$500m/yr by the mid-2020s, according to Télévision Algérienne. It is facing a significant production overcapacity with the manufacturing base expected to reach 40.6Mt/yr in 2020. Consumption was 26Mt in 2016.