Displaying items by tag: Canada
Cemex changes its US profile
27 November 2019Cemex pushed ahead yesterday and announced that it had sold the Kosmos Cement Company to Eagle Materials for around US$665m. It owns a 75% stake in the company, with Italy’s Buzzi Unicem owning the remaining share, giving it roughly US$449m once the deal completes. Proceeds from the sale will go towards debt reduction and general corporate purposes. The sale inventory includes a 1.7Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Louisville, Kentucky as well as seven distribution terminals and raw material reserves.
The decision to sell assets makes sense given Cemex’s financial results so far in 2019. It reported falling sales, cement volumes and earnings in the first nine months of the year although much of this was down to poor market conditions in Mexico. However, the US, along with Europe, was one of its stronger territories with rising sales. Earnings were impaired in the US, possibly due to bad weather in the southeast and competition in Florida, but infrastructure and residential development were reported to be promising.
Graph 1: Portland & Blended Cement shipments in 2018 and 2019. Source: United States Geological Survey (USGS).
Graph 2: Change in imports of hydraulic cement & clinker to the US in 2018 and 2019 from selected countries. Source: USGS.
United States Geological Survey (USGS) data also supports a picture of a growing US market. Shipments of Ordinary Portland Cement and blended cements grew by 2.4% year-on-year to 66.9Mt for the first eight months of 2019 from 65.4Mt in the same period in 2018. By region growth can be seen in the North-East, South and imports. Declines were reported in the West and Midwest. The states of Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee – the area where the Kosmos plant is located – saw shipments grow by 4% to 4.77Mt from 4.58Mt. It is worth noting that Louisville is in the north of Kentucky near the border with Indiana, where shipments also grew.
The Portland Cement Association’s (PCA) fall forecast may also have helped Cemex’s decision. Ed Sullivan, PCA Senior Vice President and Chief Economist, said that he expected cement consumption in the US to continue growing in 2019 and 2020 but with a slowing trend into 2021 following general gross domestic product (GDP) predictions. The PCA’s view is that pent-up demand following the recession in 2008 was gone and the economy was gradually weakening. Crucially though it didn’t think a recession was impending. In this scenario Cemex might be taking a medium-term view with regards to the Kosmos Cement Company.
Another more general interesting data point from the USGS was the change in import origins to the US. Imports grew by 11.3% to 66.9Mt in January to August 2019. The top five importing countries and their overall share remained the same but there was some movement between them. Turkish and Mexican imports surged at the expensive of Chinese ones as can be seen in Graph 2. The go-to explanation for this would be the on-going US - China trade war. Cemex is a Mexican company with a strong presence in both the US and Mexico. This change in the make-up of the import market in the US may also have informed its decision to sell Kosmos Cement as it looked at the macro scale.
More generally the US market is looking buoyant in the short to medium term. Plants are being sold like Kosmos Cement to Eagle Cement and the Keystone cement plant in Bath, Pennsylvania to HeidelbergCement and a major upgrade project is underway on the new production line at the Mitchell plant in Indiana. In Cemex’s case, as ever with asset sales, the seller sometimes has to make the hard decision of whether to divest a plant in a growing region to help the business in other places that might not be doing so well. The growth of America’s largest locally owned producer, Eagle Cement, may also give cheer to the US’ current ‘America First’ administration.
Canadian court fines Lafarge Canada US$0.3m for worker’s death
25 September 2019Canada: Lafarge Canada has received a US$0.3m fine for failing as an employer to ensure that safety measures and procedures in the workplace were upheld. This follows the 2017 death of an employee who fell from a corroded catwalk at the company’s Beachville quarry.
Canada: The federal carbon tax, set to increase to US$37.64/t in 2022 from C$15.06/t as of January 2019, may drive Canadian businesses abroad to polities with less stringent climate laws, most notably the US. The Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan public policy think-tank, has named cement and concrete product manufacturing amongst the 13 industries most heavily affected, with a forecasted rise in production costs of 2.69%.
Lafarge Canada launches carbon capture project
26 July 2019Canada: Lafarge Canada has launched the first phase of its CO₂MENT project. The objective is to build a full-cycle solution to capture and reuse CO2 from a cement plant. The project is a partnership between Lafarge Canada, Inventys and Total.
“LafargeHolcim is committed to reducing CO2 emissions and we are excited to join forces with Inventys and Total through Project CO₂MENT. We hope to discover ways to capture emissions from our production processes and reuse them in our products, advancing a circular economy even further than today. The recent launch of the new lower carbon fuel (LCF) system at our Richmond plant aims to make the facility the most carbon efficient cement plant in Canada,” said René Thibault, Region Head North America for LafargeHolcim.
Over the next four years, Project CO₂MENT will demonstrate and evaluate Inventys’ CO₂ Capture System and a selection of LafargeHolcim’s carbon utilization technologies at its Richmond cement plant in British Columbia. The project has three phases and is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2020. Subject to the pilot’s success, the vision is to scale up the project and explore how the facility can be replicated across other LafargeHolcim plants.
During the first phase the partners will work on purifying the cement flue gas in preparation for CO2 capture. The second phase will focus on the separation of CO2 from flue gas using a customised for cement version of Inventys’ carbon capture technology at pilot scale. As part of the final phase, the captured CO2 will be prepared for reuse and support the economical assessment and demonstration of CO2 conversion technologies onsite, such as CO2 injected concrete and fly ash.
McInnis Cement closes US$380m refinancing deal
18 July 2019Canada: McInnis Cement has closed a US$380m refinancing deal. US$230m will be provided by an increase McInnis Cement’s senior loan from a syndicate of 11 Canadian and international banks and the remaining US$150m comes in the form of a loan by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and Beaudier. This refinancing also makes it possible to repay a bridge loan granted by BlackRock in 2016.
The cement producer also provided details on various projects it is undertaking. Two new cement silos will be built at the company’s integrated cement plant at Port-Daniel–Gascons. Nearly 200 workers will be mobilized on the site during the peak construction period of the two silos, during the autumn of 2019.
Its Bronx Terminal in New York, US has doubled its loading capacity for customers. A second truck-loading lane is now fully operational. A new 40,000t warehouse is currently under construction at its Providence Terminal in Rhode Island, US bringing the total storage capacity to 75,000t. A new truck-loading lane will also be added and commissioned in time for the 2020 spring construction season. McInnis Cement has also confirmed the charter of the NACC New Yorker, a 24,000t self-unloading vessel, in conjunction with Nova Marina Carriers. It will join other vessels in its fleet including the NACC Quebec (14,000t), the Cielo di Gaspesie (35,000t) and the Resolute unloading barge.
Lafarge Canada to test carbon capture plans with Inventys and Total at Richmond cement plant
29 May 2019Canada: Lafarge Canada plans to develop and demonstrate a full-cycle solution to capture and reuse CO2 from a cement plant. Project CO2MENT will demonstrate and evaluate Inventys' CO2 capture system and a selection of CO2 utilisation technologies at Lafarge's Richmond cement plant in British Colombia over the next four years. This project is being led by Inventys in partnership with Lafarge Canada and Total. It also received financial support from CCP (CO2 Capture Project), the Province of British Colombia and Canada's federal government through the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP).
"At Inventys, we see a real opportunity to build a CO2 marketplace where tonnes of CO2 are traded between emitters and users," said Inventys president and chief executive officer (CEO) Claude Letourneau.
Phase I of Project CO2MENT, the Contaminant Program, will attempt to reduce harmful organic and inorganic substances, such as sulphur dioxide, dust and soot, as well as nitrogen oxides, from cement flue gas. Phase II, the CO2 Capture Program, will separate the CO2 from flue gas using a customised-for-cement version of Inventys' carbon capture technology at pilot scale. Phase III, the CO2 Reuse Program, will prepare post-combustion CO2 for reuse and support the economical assessment and demonstration of CO2 conversion technologies onsite, such as CO2-injected concrete and fly ash.
Funding for the first two phases is complete and development of Phase I is underway. Phase I will begin operation in 2019 followed by Phase II and III in 2020.
Canada: Sean Monkman, Senior Vice President of Technology Development at CarbonCure Technologies, has been named as Canada’s inaugural Mission Innovation Champion at the fourth annual Mission Innovation Summit (MI4) and 10th annual Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM10) summit hosted by Canada in Vancouver, British Colombia in late May 2019.
Mission Innovation, a global initiative involving 22 countries and the European Commission, has identified carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) as one of eight Innovation Challenges that are key to achieving substantial emissions reductions. Mission Innovation Champions were selected from member countries to celebrate individuals with a track record of progressing creative new ideas that drive the pace and scale of the clean energy revolution.
David Redfern appointed chief executive officer of Eastern Canada division of Lafarge Canada
03 April 2019Canada: Lafarge Canada has appointed David Redfern as the chief executive officer (CEO) of its Eastern Canada operations. Previously Product Line General Manager for Western Canada Aggregates and the Greater Vancouver area, Redfern joined LafargeHolcim in 1999 and has held numerous roles of increasing responsibility throughout Canada and France. He holds more than 25 years of experience in the construction materials business.
Redfern received his Bachelor of Political Science degree from Queen's University in Kingston. He also holds certificates of achievement from Duke University, INSEAD and the University of Toronto. He is a Board member of the National Zero Waste Council and Business Council of British Columbia.
Caisse pulls back from selling stake in McInnis Cement
07 February 2019Canada: The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) says it no longer wants to sell its majority stake in McInnis Cement. CDPQ’s chief executive officer (CEO) said that the pension and insurance fund is ‘convinced’ of the potential the company, according to the Journal de Quebec newspaper. The company hired consultants in 2018 to look at a potential sale.
US/Canada: Terex says that its Terex Washing Systems (TWS) brand is investing in its North American sales and operational teams. Following the spend it will have 20 regional partners via 50 service depots, 60 mobile trucks and 100 technicians in the region.
“Our new enhanced levels of sales and service and support will build upon momentum gained in recent years as we continue to focus on serving customers, with world-class washing equipment solutions that add commercial value to their operations,” said TWS’ director Oliver Donnelly.
TWS manufactures products for the mineral washing sector for aggregate, recycling, mining and industrial sand industries.