Displaying items by tag: Capacity utilisation

India: Birla Corporation recorded US$279m in consolidated sales in the first quarter of its 2023 financial year, which began on 1 April 2022. The figure corresponds to a 25% year-on-year increase from the producer’s first-quarter 2022 financial year sales figure. The Times of India newspaper has reported that Birla Corporation more than doubled its cement production capacity utilisation. The producer’s net profit dropped by 56% year-on-year to US$7.78m from US$17.8m in the first quarter of the 2022 financial year.

South Africa: PPC’s full-year consolidated sales were US$624m in the 2022 financial year, which ended on 31 March 2022, up by 11% year-on-year from US$561m in the 2021 financial year. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 6.9% to US$94.5m from US$101m. During the year, the group reduced its debt by 55% to US$63m from US$139m.

The group noted high cement demand across its markets in the 2022 financial year, including a sales volumes increase of 28% year-on-year in Zimbabwe. It also noted a 19% year-on-year increase in South African cement imports, mainly from Vietnam, which constituted 10% of sales in the 2022 financial year. PPC said that it will ‘immediately make additional capacity available’ to capture the increased demand through the rest of 2023 financial year.

India: Shree Cement’s board of directors has approved the company’s plans to establish a new US$321m cement plant in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district.

Shree Cement currently commands an installed capacity of 46.4Mt/yr. In the 2022 financial year, it produced 30Mt of cement, corresponding to a capacity utilisation of 30%.

Ethiopia: Oromia State has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Mining and 20 cement companies to regulate the price of cement. State Deputy President Awolu Abdi said that the price of cement products had been ‘skyrocketing’ due to international and internal factors, according to Walta Media. He partly blamed the problem on ‘illegal’ cement brokers and the inability of cement plants to produce output at their full capacity. The state government has been working with cement producers and approved distributors on the problem. The regional move follows action by the central government to cut out dealers and distributors from the market in mid-May 2022.

India: The Indian government has established a special panel to examine an array of possible measures to lower high cement prices in parts of the country. The Hindu newspaper has reported that the panel will consider plans, including increasing cement shipping from South Indian plants currently operating under capacity to areas affected by shortages. The national government is in talks with the South India Cement Manufacturers' Association (SICMA) about the possibility of increasing members' cement sales in future.

Vietnam: Three new integrated cement lines are expected to raise Vietnam’s total installed cement capacity by 8% to 115.4Mt/yr in 2022, from 106.6Mt/yr at the beginning of the year. VNDirect Securities has calculated that the upcoming lines – Dai Duong 1, Long Thanh and Xuan Thanh 3 – have a total capacity of 8.8Mt/yr. They are situated in Northern Vietnam’s Ha Nam Province and Central Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa Province, both of which already have cement overcapacity.

Viet Nam News has reported that Vietnam exported 4.31Mt of cement and clinker in April 2022, down by 7.6% month-on-month. The products’ total value was US$171m, down by 2.9% month-on-month.

Colombia: Cementos Argos recorded sales of US$642m in the first quarter of 2022, up by 11% year-on-year from first-quarter 2021. The company’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 18% year-on-year to US$88.6m. Cement volumes remained level year-on-year at 3.9Mt. Cementos Argos said that higher inflationary pressures impacted costs associated with raw materials, energy, freight and maintenance, but noted its ‘very good price performance’ across all of its regions. It expects the rise in cement prices to a contribute to a reduction in inflationary cost impacts in the rest of 2022.

CEO Juan Esteban Calle said "Demand for our products and solutions remains very healthy and dynamic in all regions. We are operating at full capacity, despite a challenging environment due to global supply chain disruptions and inflation in energetics and raw material costs. In this environment, we are focused on maximising production at our integrated cement plants to meet our customers' growing needs and on executing a pricing strategy that mitigates the impact of inflation.”

India: The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has started insolvency proceedings against Andhra Cement, a subsidiary of Jaypee Group. The decision by the NCLT follows a petition filed by Pridhvi Asset Reconstruction and Securitisation claiming a default relating to bank loans taken out between 2012 and 2016, according to the Press Trust of India. Separately, Andhra Cement has asked its creditors to submit their claims by 10 May 2022 before the Interim Resolution Professional (IRP). Local media has also reported that the cement producer had been unable to operate its cement plant at above 60% capacity utilisation due to a shortage of working capital.

Serbia: The impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine mean that the Serbian cement industry’s operations are ‘endangered’ and will likely fail to meet steady market demand in the coming months. Serbian Cement Industry Association director Dejana Milinkovic said that the industry relied on Russia and Ukraine for 50% of its coal supply in 2021.

In 2021, the industry produced 2.6Mt of cement, up by 10% year-on-year, operating close to 100% capacity utilisation.

Zimbabwe: Kelibone Masiyane, the managing director of PPC Zimbabwe, has complained about the negative effects rising imports of cement could have upon the local cement industry. In an interview with Business Weekly he said that imports had doubled to 16% over the last year and that this is restricting PPC’s efforts to reach its desired capacity utilisation levels. PPC and other producers have lobbied the government to slow down imports. PPC operates two integrated plants in the country with a combined production capacity of 0.7Mt/yr. Selected retailers interviewed separately reported that they had experienced difficulty obtaining cement from PPC recently.