Displaying items by tag: Cemros

Russia: Cemros will transition to a four-day work week across its plants from 1 October 2025 in response to declining cement consumption and rising imports. The producer said the part-time regime aims to preserve jobs and will retain the ‘full social package’, according to the local Construction Business News Agency. It will reverse the measure if the construction industry improves.

Cemros said the change is a “forced, but balanced measure aimed at long-term preservation of stability and social balance during a period of instability.” The producer previously suspended operations at its Belgorod cement plant due to lower profitability and increased imports.

Cement consumption data for the first half of 2025 from Russia has been released this week and it is down from 2024. Added to this, Cemros announced earlier in July 2025 that it is preparing to suspend production at its Belgorod cement plant. What can these and other news stories tell us about the state of the Russian cement sector at present?

Graph 1: Cement consumption in Russia, 2019 - H1 2025. Source: Soyuzcement.

Figures from Soyuzcement, the Union of Cement Producers, in the local press reports that consumption fell by 8.6% year-on-year to 27.2Mt in the first half of 2025 from 28.4Mt in the same period in 2024. By region the largest declines were noted in the south (-14%), the Urals (-13%) and in Siberia (-11%). Producer Sibcem released some production data for the first half, also this week, and this reflected the national picture, with a 9% fall.

The national situation has been blamed on a suspension of infrastructure projects, a fall in the domestic building sector and mounting imports. Imports rose by 5.8% to 1.9Mt. Notably those trade flows have been coming in from other countries with restricted access to international markets such as Belarus and Iran. A China-based company Jinyu Jidong Cement in the far-eastern Heilongjiang Province also started exporting cement to Russia in July 2025. Unusually though, for these kinds of stories, exports from Russia have also risen. They grew by 9% to 0.5Mt, mainly to Kazakhstan. The general picture fits with Soyuzcement’s updated forecast for the local market from 2025 to 2027. It expects a decline of 6 - 12% in 2025 as a whole, followed by a change of -6% to +1% in 2026 and then the start of a recovery in 2027 under most scenarios.

One reaction to the shrinking market became apparent earlier in July 2025 when Cemros said it was preparing to suspend production at its Belgorod cement plant. The company plans to use the stoppage to assess the market, reduce its operating costs and consider market diversification options. It blamed the decision on a decrease in demand in the domestic market in Russia along with lower profits and higher imports. Back in May 2025, Cemros, the leading Russia-based cement producer, said that it had 18 plants, a total production capacity of 33Mt/yr and a 31% share of the local market. It also reported that it had two mothballed plants: the Savinsky cement plant in Arkhangelsk and the Zhigulovskiye plant in the Samara region. Although, to be fair to Cemros, up until fairly recently it had been spending money on its plants. It resumed clinker production in mid-2024 when it restarted one production line at its Ulyanovsk plant in mid-2024. Then in May 2025 it said it was getting ready to restart the second line at the site too as part of a €8m renovation project. Once back online the unit will have a total production capacity of 0.8Mt/yr. Another recent plant project by Cemros was the upgrade of a kiln at Katavsky Cement that was completed in June 2025. Elsewhere, Kavkazcement was reportedly planning to invest US$224m on equipment upgrades in April 2025 in response to a large rise in production costs in 2024.

The larger problem facing the Russian construction industry and the building material producers that supply it is the ongoing economic fallout from the war in Ukraine. The head of the country’s national bank said at the start of July 2025 that the nation had broadly adapted to economic sanctions and that inflation was slowing down. Growing cement demand since 2021 broadly supports this view. Yet, governor Elvira Nabiullina warned of further market turmoil ahead due to a slowing economy and high labour costs. This spells uncertainty for the cement sector as underlined by Soyuzcement’s gloomy forecasts for 2025 and 2026. In this kind of environment market mergers and acquisitions seem likely but international sanctions may limit the options. One general remedy the government has been advocating for has been the formation of a common commodities exchange for the Eurasian Economic Union that was suggested in late 2024. However, Soyuzcement has been lobbying against the proposal on the grounds of price volatility, increased competition and a reluctance by producers to join it. The cement sector in Russia faces challenging times ahead.

Russia: Cemros has suspended cement production at its Belgorod cement plant due to market deterioration, reduced profitability and a rising share of imports on the domestic market. The company said that the forced downtime will be used for equipment repairs, with operations expected to resume within a few months.

Cement consumption in Russia fell by 9% in the first half of 2025, and by 10.5% in the second quarter. Consumption in the Central Federal District, including the Belgorod region, dropped by 12% in June 2025, and by 8% in the Belgorod region itself. Cemros expects the decline to reach 13-15% by the end of 2025. The producer attributed the decline to high interest rates, the end of preferential mortgage programmes and a slowdown in construction projects. Cemros said that imports in 2025 have increased year-on-year, with the majority coming from Belarus. Imports from Iran have also increased by 25% since 2024. The producer said that the total volume of imported cement will be around 4Mt by the end of 2025.

Cemros said that all employees will remain on staff with pay and benefits, and some will be relocated to other plants.

Russia: Katavsky Cement has modernised rotary kiln No. 4, raising clinker production capacity by 15% from 888,000t/yr to 927,000t/yr. According to Cemros, the project formed part of a corporate programme of improvements to increase production efficiency, valued at around US$760,000. Specialists reportedly encountered the problem of clinker defects when increasing the feed of raw meal due to insufficient heat exchange in the kiln system. To eliminate the problem, the plant updated the cyclone heat exchanger, stabilised the air supply and combustion of additional fuel, and improved the clinker cooling system.

General director Vyacheslav Lyubimtsev said “Modernisation of kiln No. 4 is a consistent step in the development of the plant. In 2024, similar work was carried out to increase the productivity of furnace No. 3 by 30%. The new result confirms the effectiveness of the chosen strategy.”

Russia: Mikhail Polyanichko, the finance director of Cemros, has warned that growing gas prices, logistic costs and the interest rate set by the Central Bank of the Russian Federation will “significantly” increase input costs for cement producers in 2024. Tariffs on gas and railway transport both rose by around 10% in December 2023, with a further gas rate rise scheduled for July 2024. Polyanichko noted that the price of gas is particularly sensitive for cement plants given that it represents, on average, about 30% of the energy mix. He described the impending situation as a “stress scenario” and forecast that investment projects were likely to be reduced.

Russia: Cemros is starting the commercial operation of its ‘Pilot’ vehicle monitoring system. The scheme is being rolled out as the main monitoring method at its plants following tests. It uses satellite navigation and wireless data transmission methods to track individual vehicles in the fleet in both real time and retrospectively. At present over 3500 vehicles are being monitored including the company’s own fleet and vehicles operated by contractors. Once the system is scaled up it will be able to track up to 6000 vehicles. Active testing of the system started in late 2022.

Russia: Cemros’ integrated Serebryansky cement plant in Ryzan region has switched to using gas as a fuel. The project was conducted with Gazprom and the regional government, including linking the site up to the gas network with a 14km pipeline. CO₂ emissions at the plant are expected to decrease by up to 17% and electricity consumption by 4%. The 1.8Mt/yr plant used around 200,000t/yr of coal before starting the switch to gas from March 2023.

Russia: Cemros has started a US$3m upgrade project on cement mill five at its integrated Katavsky plant near Chelyabinsk. The work will see the introduction of a new closed-loop system with a separator. Following its installation, the mill will have a cement output of 114,000t/yr. The upgrade should also deliver an energy saving of up to 30%. Just under half the funding for the project was supplied in the form of a loan from the government. The upgraded mill is expected to be operational in September 2023.

Russia: Eurocement has changed its name to Cemros. The rebranding exercise followed an internal staff competition to come up with a new name followed by a vote from a shortlist. The new name is intended to invoke the words ‘cement’ and ‘Russia.’ It was suggested by Evgeny Lukanovsky, Alexey Lotarev and Igor Efimov.

Eurocement was acquired by Smikom in 2021 for around US$2.2bn following an auction held by Sberbank.