Displaying items by tag: Australia

New Zealand: Fletcher Building is expecting to declare lower earnings in the half year to 31 December 2018 due to a regional slowdown, particularly in Australia. Its earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) for the six month period was around 10% lower than the same period of the 2017-2018 financial year. It is expected to be in the range of US$432-467m.

In a report Fletcher Building said, “While the company continues to target a result at the top end of this range, it is prudent at this stage in the year to highlight that the 2019 financial year EBIT will be impacted by the outage at the Golden Bay Cement plant, the slowdown in the Australian residential market and the reduction in land development earnings compared to last year.”

Australia: Jack Truong has been officially appointed as the chief executive officer (CEO) and executive director of James Hardie. He was first announced as CEO successor in September 2018. He succeeds Louis Gries, who has stepped down from the post in a structured transition process.

Truong has been President of International Operations at James Hardie since April 2017. Prior to James Hardie, he was the president and CEO of Electrolux North America and worked for 22 years at 3M Company, where he held senior leadership roles throughout the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific, including Vice President and General Manager of the Global Construction and Home Improvements Division and Global Office Supplies Division. Truong holds a PhD in chemical engineering from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York.

Australia/New Zealand: George Agriogiannis has been appointed as the chief executive officer (CEO) at Holcim Australia and New Zealand. He succeeds Mark Campbell, according to the Australian newspaper. Agriogiannis was previously the executive general manager of concrete and aggregates at Adelaide Brighton. His departure coincides with new CEO Nick Miller officially taking up the post. Agriogiannis starts the new job with the LafargeHolcim subsidiary on 11 March 2019.

Australia: Nick Miller has officially started work as the chief executive officer (CEO) of Adelaide Brighton. He succeeds Martin Brydon, who will continue with the company until 31 March 2019 at the latest.

Papua New Guinea: Australia’s Mayur Resources has completed a feasibility report looking into building an integrated cement plant near Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. The cement and lime plant project has an estimated cost of US$331m. It will produce 1.65Mt/yr of clinker, be able to grind 0.9Mt/yr of cement and produce 0.2Mt/yr of quicklime. The study also found that the project area had reserves of 78Mt of limestone and 14Mt of maiden mineral resource that could support the project for 30 years.

The company is now arranging compensation agreements with the local community and submitting a mining lease application. Award of engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) design and engineering contracts, finalise product offtake and project financing arrangements are scheduled for the second half of 2019.

Australia: Adelaide Brighton has appointed Theresa Mlikota as its chief financial officer (CFO). She will start the role on 15 April 2019. Darryl Hughes will continue as Acting CFO until then.

Mlikota holds 30 years’ experience in the resources and construction sector. She is currently the CFO of mining services company Ausdill and previously held the role of CFO with Fulton Hogan, Thiess, Macmahon and Barminco. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a member of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA).

Australia: Research by the Global Carbon Budget (GCB) forecasts that CO₂ emissions will grow by 2.7% year-on-year to a 37.1 ± 2 Gt CO₂ in 2018. This follows a rise of 1.6% to 36.2Gt after a three-year hiatus with stable global emissions. The 2018 forecast is based on preliminary data for the first 6 – 9 months indicate a renewed growth in fossil CO₂ emissions based on national emission projections for China, the US, the European Union (EU) and India and projections of gross domestic product corrected for recent changes in the carbon intensity of the economy for the rest of the world.

In 2017 the GCB estimates that cement sector constituted 4% of global fossil CO₂ emissions, a rise of 1.2% from 2016. Emissions are expected to grow by 4% in China in 2018, in part due to a 1% rise in cement production. In the EU emissions are projected to fall by 0.7% with stable cement sector emissions. In India emissions are forecast to increase by 6.3% with a 13.4% rise in cement sector emissions.

Fossil CO₂ emissions are based on energy statistics and cement production data. The research makes its estimate of emissions from the cement industry using a method adapted from a paper published by Robbie M Andrew of Norway’s CICERO Center for International Climate Research in 2017.

Australia: Nick Miller plans to start working as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of Adelaide Brighton on 30 January 2019. He succeeds Martin Brydon, who is retiring. Miller was previously announced in the role in October 2018 but his start date was yet to be confirmed.

New Zealand: Fletcher Building says that its Golden Bay Cement plant in Auckland was forced stop its cement mill for four weeks in September 2018. It said it had insurance to cover this but that its earnings for its 2019 financial year are likely to be impacted by up to US$8m. Generally, the building materials producer reported that, until the end of October 2018, its business in New Zealand had been flat. In Australia it is facing ‘challenging’ conditions with growing input prices and a slowing residential sector.

Australia: Industry groups, including cement producers, are lobbying against a new import tax, the Biosecurity Imports Levy. They allege that that new tariff will increase costs by 3000 - 5000% on the inputs for cement, steel and aluminium production, according to the Australian newspaper. The new levy was introduced in the May 2018 budget for implementation in July 2019. It intends to tighten the country’s biosecurity.

Industry lobbyists complain that it will impose a US$0.7/t levy on ‘non-containerised’ cargo for biosecurity inspections, dramatically increasing the cost of inspection for bulk imports of materials. They also deny that it will improve biosecurity outcomes.

Cement Industry Federation chief executive Margie Thomson said that the tax unfairly punished non-containerised cargoes. “It shouldn’t be a tonnage levy, when the biosecurity risk is not­associated with the product.”