Displaying items by tag: CRH
UK: CRH subsidiary Tarmac has appointed Chris Bradbury as the plant manager at its integrated Dunbar cement plant in East Lothian, Scotland. He previously worked at Tarmac’s Tunstead plant in Derbyshire. Bradbury began working in the cement industry as an apprentice in 1994 and has held many roles at plants both in the UK and in Nigeria and the Philippines.
CRH grows earnings in difficult year in 2020
04 March 2021Ireland: CRH’s consolidated earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 5% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis to US$4.6bn in 2020 from US$4.5bn in 2019. Sales fell by 2% to US$27.6bn from US$28.1bn. The group reported a net debt/EBITDA ratio of 1.3x, its lowest since 2010.
Chief executive officer Albert Manifold said, "Our 2020 performance is testament to the commitment of our people and the strength and resilience of our business model. Through the repositioning of our business in recent years and our relentless focus on continuous business improvement, we have delivered record levels of profitability, margins and cash generation. Although the near-term outlook remains uncertain, our unique portfolio of businesses together with the strength of our balance sheet leaves us well positioned to capitalise on the growth opportunities that lie ahead."
By division the group reported growth in its US cement sales volumes in 2020 on a like-for-like basis due to demand in the west, surpassing the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic elsewhere. However, volumes fell in Canada, particularly in the first half of the year. In 2020, CRH adopted the Ash Grove brand for all its North American cement businesses, unifying 12 cement plants and 42 cement terminals under one brand. In Europe sales and earnings fell due to poor markets in the west despite better conditions on the east. The group noted that it grew its profit in the Philippines due to a strong recovery in the second half and cost savings despite plant shutdowns.
Ukraine court upholds anti-dumping duties on cement from Russia, Belarus and Moldova
14 January 2021Ukraine: The District Administrative Court of Kiev has dismissed Belarusian Cement Company (BCC)’s claim against the government’s Interdepartmental Commission on International Trade for the cancellation of anti-dumping duties on cement. The duties on imported cement are 57% the value of goods from Belarus, 94% from Moldova and 115% from Russia. The commission introduced the tariffs in late May 2019 and they will expire in late May 2024.
The law firm representing third parties Dyckerhoff Cement Ukraine, HeidelbergCement Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivsk Ukraine and CRH subsidiary Podilsky Cement said "The court recognised the need to protect the violated rights of national cement producers in Ukraine from dumped imports of goods to Ukraine.” It added that the imports had caused ‘significant damage’ to national producers.
Jeremy Greenwood appointed as Chair of UK Concrete
13 January 2021UK: The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has appointed Jeremy Greenwood as the Chair of UK Concrete. He will work with Chris Leese, the Director of UK Concrete, to coordinate the work of the Concrete Centre, MPA Cement, British Ready-mixed Concrete Association (BRMCA) and British Precast on the roadmap the sector is implementing to go ‘Beyond Net Zero by 2050.’ Greenwood previously worked for Tarmac as its managing director, having been at the company since 1988.
Switzerland: Dürr is supplying a regenerative thermal oxidation system (RTO) to Jura Cement Fabriken integrated plant in Wildegg as the main stage in its air pollution control system. The upgrade is intended to enable the cement producer to comply with anticipated lower gas emission limits for carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and ammonia (NH3). The supplier says its solution combines Dürr’s Ecopure RTO multiple-chamber principle with an optimisation of the existing process technology in the calciner. It is scheduled to start operation in 2022.
Jura Cement operates two integrated plants in Switzerland. It is part of the Switzerland-based Jura Materials Group, which has been part of the Ireland-based CRH since 2000.
Eqiom wins safety awards from French cement industry union
31 December 2020France: Eqiom’s Rochefort cement plant has won the Safety Trophy from the French cement industry union (SFIC). The award recognises work to reduce all types of workplace accidents. The subsidiary of Ireland-based CRH also won a safety award for its Chelles terminal, recognising its connected approach to logistics management.
HeidelbergCement considering selling assets in California
23 December 2020US: HeidelbergCement is considering selling assets in California. Bloomberg News reports that it is working with Morgan Stanley on a potential divestment and it hopes to raise around US$1.5bn. It is reportedly approaching competitors including Martin Marietta Materials, Cemex, CRH, Summit Materials and LafargeHolcim, as well as companies in China and Latin America. The first bids are not expected until early 2021.
The Germany-based building materials company operates three integrated cement plants in California, as part of its Lehigh Hanson subsidiary, in addition to concrete and aggregates units. Divestment of these assets would focus the company instead on markets in the East Coast, Midwest and Canadian regions of North America.
In July 2020 HeidelbergCement announced that it had reduced its value of its assets by Euro3.4bn following a review. It blamed this on reduced demand for building materials due the coronavirus pandemic and the devaluation of its Hanson subsidiary in the UK, in part related to the UK’s exit from the European Union.
Opterra Karsdorf cement plant awarded Concrete Sustainability Council Gold certificate
02 December 2020Germany: CRH subsidiary Opterra’s Karsdorf cement plant has been awarded a Concrete Sustainability Council (CSC) Gold certificate for ecologically, socially and economically responsible cement production, including in its supply chains. The company says that it achieved top marks across 96% of audited areas.
Chief executive officer (CEO) Danilo Buscaglia said, “The CSC certification leads to a continuous increase in the sustainable management of the cement and concrete industry. With this in mind, the Karsdorf plant has provided evidence of responsible behaviour in an extensive auditing process. We are proud that we have achieved gold certification status. At the same time, the good results are an incentive for us to continue working on improvements in the manufacturing process and in product development.”
Update on France: November 2020
25 November 2020There were mixed feelings evoked by HeidelbergCement’s good news last week that its French subsidiary Ciments Calcia is to set to spend Euro400m on a modernisation project. Sadly, this came with the bad news that the integrated plants at Gargenville and Cruas will be downgraded into a grinding plant and a terminal respectively, and there will be a review of the company’s headquarters in Guerville. All of this will cut 160 jobs but create 20 new ones.
Make no mistake, this is serious money to invest. Euro300m alone will go towards an upgrade of the integrated Airvault cement plant in the former Poitou-Charentes administrative region. HeidelbergCement didn’t say it in its press release but French press reported that the pyroprocessing line at Airvault will be rebuilt starting in 2022 with commissioning scheduled for 2025. If correct then this certainly suits an investment on this scale for a single plant. Smaller investments in the region of Euro25 – 50m were also said be earmarked for the integrated plants at Bussac-Forêt, Beaucaire and Couvrot. These are serious commitments to HeidelbergCement’s production base in France.
Generally speaking, the French cement and construction market has done as well as expected for a country forced to implement two coronavirus lockdowns so far in 2020. Half-way through the year the major cement producers were reporting sales declines of around 10% year-on-year with business picking up again over the summer. Vicat, for example, reported a 9% fall in sales volumes in the first half followed by ‘solid business growth’ in June 2020. LafargeHolcim, CRH and HeidelbergCement all reported a similar situation for their local subsidiaries.
Looking at the wider construction industry, in October 2020 analyst company GlobalData stuck by its forecast of a contraction of construction output by 11.6% in France in 2020. It noted a 35.5% quarter-on-quarter rebound in the third quarter, although it reckoned output was still down by around 5% in the quarter year-on-year, using French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) data. With a second national lockdown initiated in late October 2020, it said that INSEE expected a contraction in the fourth quarter of 2020 even with construction sites being allowed to stay open. This follows a peak of cement production above 20Mt in the late 2000s before hitting a low of around 15.5Mt in 2015 and a gradual recovery since then, according to data from the French cement industry union (SFIC).
Ciments Calcia’s upgrade at Airvault is noteworthy for the whole of Europe because it is one of only a few new pyroprocessing line projects in the last decade. The last major one was the new 4000t/day line at HeidelbergCement’s Burglengenfeld plant in Germany that was commissioned in 2018. The trend since then has generally been one of integrated plants slowly closing as markets shrank following the 2008 financial crisis, international clinker levels boomed and environmental measures tightened. Dominik von Achten, chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement, addressed this last point directly with the announcement of the Airvault project when he said, “This is why we focus our initiatives on the main CO2-emitting plants in France.” The competitors to the larger established cement producers in France are certainly thinking about CO2. Alongside the general European trend of fewer new clinker production lines has been rise in France of the smaller cement producers with grinding and/or reduced-clinker factor models like Cem’In’Eu, Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies and Ecocem. Anyone spending Euro300m on a clinker kiln spewing out CO2 would do well to consider how much the CO2 price might be in fifty years time.
CRH increases nine-month earnings as sales fall
24 November 2020Ireland: CRH recorded earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of US$3.40bn in the first nine months of 2020, up by 2% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis from the corresponding period of 2019. The company said that it now expects full-year EBITDA in 2020 to exceed 2019 levels on a like-for-like basis at over US$4.40bn. Sales fell by 3% to US$20.6b but group added that it had “continued strong cash generation.”
Chief executive officer (CEO) Albert Manifold said, “Markets continue to be impacted by the global pandemic and, while we have seen some lower activity levels, I am pleased to report further improvement in trading performance, with an advance in both profitability and margins. The outlook for the coming months remains uncertain and visibility is limited, however I am confident that we are well positioned for the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.”