Displaying items by tag: Australia

Australia: Boral’s group net sales fell by 9% year-on-year to US$2.10bn in the first half of its 2021 financial year from Euro2.78bn in the corresponding period of its 2020 financial year. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 1% to US$376m from US$381m. Net profit after tax remained consistent with previous first-half levels at US$121m. The group noted good value creation from its sale of its 50% stake in USG Boral to Germany-based Knauf for US$1.02bn, which it expects to conclude in the second half of the 2021 financial year.

Chief executive officer and managing director Zlatko Todorcevski said, “While market conditions across the sector remain uncertain, we have made strong early progress to reset our portfolio of businesses, in line with our commitment to shareholders to transform Boral into a more agile, resilient and profitable company. Much work remains to be done but we are well on our way. Our half-year results were impacted, as we expected, by a decline in multi-residential and non-residential construction activity in Australia, particularly in New South Wales, and the completion of a number of major projects ahead of materials demand from new projects coming through. We are in a good position to supply demand when activity in Australia picks up.” He added that housing demand in the North American region strengthened throughout the first half of 2021.

Cement sales revenue and earnings from the group’s Boral Australia subsidiary were reported as stable. The group has also conducted a study of the US fly ash market as part of its ongoing portfolio review. It plans to strengthen its fly ash business in the long term due to expected demand growth.

Germany: HeidelbergCement, Australia-based Calix and a European consortium have chosen the Hanover cement plant in Lower Saxony for the second phase of the LEILAC (Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement) carbon capture and storage (CCS) project. The installation will capture 20% of the plant’s capacity or 100,000t/yr of CO₂. The project will take place in three phases, with design completed by June 2021, a complete demonstration installation before the end of 2023 and project completion in 2025. The group previously installed a 25,000t/yr LEILAC CCS system at its Lixhe plant near Liege in Belgium, which completed its test phase in 2020.

Chair Dominik von Achten said, "The LEILAC technology has the potential to enable the cement and lime industries to efficiently capture their process emissions on an industrial scale. The pilot project in Hanover is one of several promising CO₂ capture technologies that we are currently testing at full speed within the HeidelbergCement Group."

Indonesia: Semen Indonesia subsidiary Semen Padang’s cement and clinker exports totalled 1.6Mt in 2020. Indonesia Government News has reported that the company said that it exported 0.2Mt of cement and 1.4Mt of clinker throughout the year. The main markets for its products were Bangladesh, China, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Australia, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Semen Indonesia group senior export sales manager Fifit Abriyanto said, “There are two types of cement that we export, namely ordinary Portland cement (OPC) Type I grade 52.5N and OPC Type I grade 42.5N."

Australia: Adbri subsidiary Cockburn Cement has approved a US$152m upgrade to its Kwinana grinding plant in Western Australia. It says the investment will consolidate the cement operations at its Kwinana site. At present clinker is transported by truck from the Kwinana Bulk Terminal to cement mills at both the Kwinana grinding plant and the company’s integrated plant at Munster. It will increase its production capacity to 1.5Mt/yr from 1.1Mt/yr at present. The project is expected to save the company US$15m/yr due to better energy, transport and maintenance efficiency when the plant is commissioned by mid-2023. The producer will fund the investment through existing debt facilities.

The upgrade project includes: a bulk materials conveyor linking the Kwinana Bulk Terminal (KBT) facility to a new 110,000t clinker storage shed, incorporating an automated reclaim system, to eliminate road transport and minimise clinker handling using mobile equipment; a slag feed system that will handle granulated blast furnace slag and additives such as gypsum and limestone; a ball mill circuit with the installation of two new cement mills capable of grinding slag and clinker; and a new 21,000t finished product storage, truck loading and weighbridge infrastructure for storage and despatch.

Australia: Germany-based Flender has announced the opening of a new production and testing centre in the Perth suburb of Bayswater, Western Australia. The supplier says that the 3500m2 facility is equipped with a 1.5MW load test bench capable of testing complete drive systems up to a voltage of 6.6kV.

Chief executive officer (CEO) and general manager Kareem Emara said, “Our recent growth in Western Australia has been great and a testament to the
quality of our products, service and technical know-how. As we continue to grow, we want to reinvest in this key market and be where our customers are to offer them the combined brains trust of over 50 facilities worldwide through this new state-of-the-art centre.”

Australia: James Hardie’s group sales rose by 4% to US$1.36bn in the first half of its 2021 financial year from US$1.32bn in the first half of its 2020 financial year. Its adjusted earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) were US$288m, up by 11% from US$258m.

Jack Truong said, “Delivering these record results is a confirmation that the global strategy we launched in early 2019 to transform James Hardie into a high-performing, world-class organisation is on track and is accelerating. This is now the sixth consecutive quarter that our team has delivered growth above market with strong returns.”

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim’s like-for-like net sales fell by 2.6% year-on-year to Euro6.04bn in the third quarter of 2020 from Euro6.68bn in the same period in 2019. However, its recurring earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) rose by 10% to Euro1.35bn from Euro1.33bn. It attributed recurring EBIT margin growth to margin increase in its cement business and cost management under the ‘Health, Cost & Cash’ action plan. For the first nine months of 2020 net sales fell by 7.9% year-on-year to Euro16.0bn from Euro18.9bn in the same period in 2019. Its EBIT decreased by 7.2% to Euro2.47bn from Euro2.88bn.

“Our third quarter results demonstrate the resilience of our business and the strength of our decentralized, empowered operating model,” said chief executive officer (CEO) Jan Jenisch. “In addition, the Group saw an increase in revenues from its branded products, which are sold across its broad distribution and retail network. For example, the company recorded a volume increase of 5% in its cement bag sales.”

Third quarter sales and earnings were either stable in improved in most regions with the exception of North America and Middle East Africa. In North America volumes were reduced by coronavirus and a slowdown in the oil and gas industry in western Canada. Overall sales fell in Middle East Africa but earnings were aided by sales volume growth in Nigeria. Elsewhere, cement market recovery was noted in Mexico and Brazil and weaker markets mentioned in the Philippines and Australia.

Australia/Indonesia: Semen Indonesia subsidiary Semen Padang says that it has dispatched a 25,000t batch of cement for Australia. Bisnis News Sumatra has reported that company is targeting total shipments of 1.58Mt to the country in 2020.

Senior manager of export sales Fifit Abriyanto said, “We are building connections with new customers. We already exported 35,000t of clinker to Bangladesh in September 2020.”

There’s no single theme this week, just a few news stories of note that may have wider significance.

Firstly comes the news that Semen Indonesia subsidiary Semen Padang has been exporting 25,000t of cement to Australia. This follows a consignment of 35,000t of clinker to Bangladesh. The company is hoping to hit a cement and clinker export target of 1.58Mt in 2020 in spite of the on-going coronavirus pandemic. It reached 1.09Mt (about 70%) of this by mid-September 2020 through exports to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Philippines, Australia, Sri Lanka and Maldives.

The wider picture here is that local sales in Indonesia fell by 7.7% year-on-year to 27.2Mt in the first half of 2020 from 29.4Mt in the same period in 2019, according to data from the Indonesian Cement Association (ASI). Cement and clinker exports are up by 32.8% to 3.7Mt from 2.8Mt. Semen Indonesia’s revenue is down but it has managed to hold its earnings up so far. During press rounds in late August 2020 its marketing and supply chain director, Adi Munandir, told local press that he expected domestic demand to fall by up to 15% in 2020 due to effects of coronavirus on private construction and government infrastructure plans. Analysts reckon that the worst of the demand slump hit in the second quarter of 2020 when government-related coronavirus restrictions were implemented, so Semen Indonesia’s third quarter results will closely scrutinised.

One of Semen Padang export targets is the Maldives. This chimes with another story this week because Oman-based Raysut Cement has just bought a majority stake in a cement terminal from Lafarge Maldives for US$8m. The 9000t capacity Thilafusi cement terminal is located on the island of Thilafusi, Kaafu and was expanded in 2015. Raysut Cement has tended to stick to markets in the southern Arabian Peninsula and the east coast of Africa, with projects planned in Madagascar and Somaliland. Yet expansion plans in places further away such as India and Georgia have also been mentioned publicly. A greater presence in the Maldives is a solid step towards Raysut heading eastwards. This would also mirror the plans of the country’s gypsum sector to dominate African and Asian markets and a general longer term shift in global markets from west to east.

One place west that has been doing well in cement though is Brazil. National Cement Industry Union (SNIC) data for September 2020 show a 21% year-on-year boom in cement sales to 5.8Mt and a 9.4% year-on-year increase to 44.6Mt for the first nine months of 2020. Earlier in the year the country’s limited coronavirus suppression methods were attributed for letting the recovering cement sector grow. Now, SNIC has directly thanked government support for civil construction. However, Paulo Camillo Penna, the president of SNIC said. “The results are surprising so far, but that doesn't give us security in the long run,” due to a bubble of real estate and commercial activity that already appears to be declining. Given the slump in cement demand from 2015 to 2018 it’s understandable that SNIC is taking the recovery cautiously.

And to finish we have two connected stories about Cemex. Following the release of its resilience strategy in September 2020, the company has now declared that its integrated Rüdersdorf cement plant in Germany will be the centrepiece of its CO2 reduction plans as part of ‘Vision Rüdersdorf.’ Details are light at present but we expect some kind of carbon capture and storage or usage project. An addendum to this – or perhaps it’s the other way round (!) – is that Cemex has also just announced further credit amendments but with sustainability-linked metrics. Cemex’s chief financial officer (CFO) Maher Al-Haffar said, “We are especially proud that this transaction represents one of the largest sustainability-linked loans in the world.” The teeth of this arrangement remain to be seen but the integration of finance and sustainability has serious implications generally.

Watch out for a research and development themed interview with Cemex and Synhelion in the December 2020 issue of Global Cement Magazine

Australia: Boral has appointed Tino La Spina as its Chief Finance & Strategy Officer. He succeeds Rosaline Ng, who will work with La Spina during a transition period and then leave Boral in early 2021.

La Spina is a qualified chartered accountant whose early career was in taxation and audit functions and who has spent the past 25 years in finance, strategy and leadership roles primarily in the airline industry. In 2019 Tino was appointed as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Qantas International, before leaving Qantas in August 2020 due to coronavirus-related industry disruption. He held a variety of strategy and financial roles before being appointed Group Chief Financial Officer in 2014. Prior to joining Qantas in 2006, he spent five years as Finance Director and Deputy CEO of the National Express Group and five years with Ansett.

He has a Bachelor of Business (Accounting) from Swinburne University in Melbourne, a Graduate Diploma Investment & Finance from the Australian Securities Institute and is a Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants.