Displaying items by tag: China

Namibia: The Ministry of Labour, Industrial Relations and Employment Creation has shut down production at the Whale Rock Cement plant near Otjiwarongo due to non-compliance with labour laws on the health and safety of employees. A notice was delivered instructing the factory to close its grinding station, packing machine, cement warehouse and cement workshop, according to the Namibia Press Agency. The plant has been ordered to remain closed until all hazardous areas have been made safe. This is expected to take a week. Affected employees are entitled to full remuneration during this period.

The decision to close the plant followed labour inspections in April and May 2022. During the inspections one employee reportedly lost a finger at the pallet stacking area and another sustained finger injuries when he was unblocking the dust collector. Workers said that they work in a dusty environment with no dust masks. They also alleged that a Chinese supervisor brings a gun to work to intimidate them.

The cement company is a Chinese joint-venture and it also trades under the Cheetah Cement brand name. Around 210 Namibians and 44 Chinese nationals work for the company. In April 2022 eight workers at the plant were deported to China for working without adequate work permits.

China: Huaxin Cement says it has been approved for a US$5.8m preferential carbon emission reduction loan. It is the first such finance arrangement in the local cement sector. The People's Bank of China established a carbon emission reduction support tool in November 2021 to guide financial institutions to increase green and low-carbon credit support. Huaxin Cement’s Huangshi subsidiary put together its application based around a waste heat recovery project. It then worked with the Bank of Communications and the People's Bank of China. The cement producer says that its other subsidiaries are now working on similar applications.

China Daily ran a story this week entitled “Steel and cement don't reflect China's growth story any more.” The piece reassured English-language readers that the country’s economy is moving on and that recent falling production of cement simply reflected the “profound changes China's economic structure is undergoing.” Profound is the right word here given that China is home to the world’s largest cement sector.

Graph 1: Cement output by quarter in China, 2019 - 2022. Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that cement output fell by 12% year-on-year to 387Mt in the first quarter of 2022. This compares to 7% and 15% falls in the third and fourth quarters of 2021 respectively. On an annual cumulative rolling basis, output previously hit a low of 2.22Bnt in March 2020 as the initial coronavirus outbreak was brought under control. Output then surged to a high of 2.53Bnt/yr in April 2021 before it started to fall in the autumn of 2021. On a monthly basis, output volumes fell by 5.6% year-on-year to 187Mt in March 2022.

As covered in last week’s column (GCW 555), the financial results from the larger Chinese cement producers have also suffered in the first quarter of 2022. CNBM’s total operating revenue fell by 1% year-on-year to US$7.29bn in the first quarter of 2022. Anhui Conch’s revenue fell by 26% to US$3.85bn and China Resources Cement’s (CRC) turnover fell by 18% to US$889m. Of these three only CRC has released cement sales volumes. Its sales volumes of cement and clinker decreased by 34% and 12% respectively.

In its own analysis, the China Cement Association (CCA) has summarised the current situation as one of rising costs, falling demand and declining benefits. The latest large-scale coronavirus lockdowns and a poor real estate market have hit demand. Rising energy and freight prices have increased the cost of cement. Together, higher costs and falling demand have hit the profits of the cement producers. CNBM’s net profit, for example, fell by 9% to US$420m. Regionally, the CCA observed that the losses of the northern-based producers had increased and that the profits of the southern producers had started to fall sharply also. Another interesting point it made was that the year-on-year decline in March 2022 was slower than compared to the first quarter as a whole and that high levels of inventory may have made March 2022 look worse than it actually was. The association is now pinning its hopes upon demand and prices picking up again later in the second quarter after the current quarantine controls are eased and the government curbs high coal prices.

The CCA’s take doesn’t seem unreasonable, although the first quarter of 2022 was previously deemed to be a continuation of the trouble the Chinese cement sector experienced in the autumn of 2021. Possibly the first quarter has turned out worse than expected but the monthly output in March 2022 has started to look like it might be a tail-off from the worst. The period to watch remains the second quarter of 2022. Looking more widely, energy shocks from the war in Ukraine couldn’t be easily predicted but coal prices were already becoming a concern in the autumn of 2021. China’s renewed zero-Covid policy meanwhile is starting to look unpalatable both economically and socially. Throw in a continued slowdown of the real estate sector and China Daily’s profound pronouncement about the future of cement may prove accurate.

Germany: Beumer has announced its acquisition of conveying systems supplier FAM Group. The group says that the two companies complement each other ‘ideally.’ FAM Group employs 750 people in Germany, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China and India, as well as representatives elsewhere. Beumer says that the company’s ‘leading technology’ for transporting and processing minerals fits well with its own portfolio.

Many first quarter financial results for cement producers are out already and what can be seen so far deserves discussion. The first observation is that the sales revenues of Chinese companies have suffered compared to their international peers. As can be seen in Graph 1 (below) CNBM increased its sales slightly in the first quarter of 2022 but Anhui Conch and China Resources Cement (CRC) had significant falls. Stronger results from CNBM’s non-cement production subsidiaries released so far suggest that the parent company’s slow performance is likely due to the cement market. The China Cement Association has reported that national cement output dropped by 12% year-on-year to 387Mt in the first quarter of 2022. It blamed this on the latest local coronavirus wave, limited construction project funds and poor weather.

Graph 1: Sales revenues in the first quarter of 2022 from selected cement producers. Source: Company financial reports. Note: SCG data is for its building materials division only.

Outside of China sales revenue growth has been better with Holcim and Dangote Cement leading the companies presented here. Holcim attributed its success to “strong demand, acquisitions and pricing”. Demand and pricing have been familiar refrains in many of the results reports this quarter. The undertone though has been the destabilising effects upon energy prices by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Holcim’s head Jan Jenisch summed it up as navigating “challenging times, from the pandemic to geopolitical uncertainty.” The producers with operations in the Americas and Europe seem to have coped with this so far mostly due to resurgent markets. Quarterly sales revenue growth for Holcim, CRH (not shown in the graphs) and Cemex each exceeded 10% year-on-year in both of these regions.

The regionally focused companies presented here have suffered more. India-based UltraTech Cement said that its energy costs grew by 48%, with prices of petcoke and coal doubling during the period. Nigeria-based Dangote Cement reported that its group sales volumes were down 3.6% mainly due to energy supply challenges in Nigeria. Internationally, its operations relying on cement and clinker imports – in Ghana, Sierra-Leone and Cameroon – were also hit by high freight rates caused by global supply chain issues. Thailand-based SCG said that national demand for cement demand fell by 3% due to negative geopolitical effects causing inflation, a delay to the recovery of tourism and a generally subdued market.

Graph 2: Cement sales volumes in the first quarter of 2022 from selected cement producers. Source: Company financial reports.

It’s too early to read much into it but one final point is worth considering from cement sales volumes in the first quarter of 2022. They have appeared to fall for the companies that have actually released the data. The reasons for CRC in China and Dangote Cement in Sub-Saharan Africa have been covered above. Holcim’s volume decline was 2% on a like-for-like basis and the others were all very small changes.

To summarise, it’s been a good quarter for those cement producers covered here with operations in North American and Europe. Energy instability caused by the war in Ukraine so far seems to have been passed on to consumers through higher prices with no apparent ill effect. The regional producers have suffered more, with the Chinese ones having to cope with falling demand and the others finding it harder to absorb mounting energy costs and supply chain issues. Plenty more first quarter results are due from other cement companies in the next few days and weeks and it will be interesting to see whether these trends hold or if others are taking place.

China: CNBM’s total operating revenue fell by 1% year-on-year to US$7.29bn in the first quarter of 2022 from US$7.254bn in the same period in 2021. Its operating costs grew by 3% to US$6.90bn. Its net profit fell by 9% to US$420m from US$462m.

China: Anhui Conch’s revenue fell by 26% year-on-year to US$3.85bn in the first quarter of 2022 from US$5.21bn in the same period in 2021. Its net profit fell by 14% to US$773m from US$900m. However, its operating costs fell by 29% to US$2.96bn from US$4.16bn.

China: China Resources Cement’s (CRC) turnover fell by 18% year-on-year to US$889m in the first quarter of 2022 from US$1.08bn in the same period in 2021. Its sales volumes of cement, clinker and concrete decreased by 34%, 12% and 23% respectively to 12.2Mt, 0.78Mt and 2.22Mm³ respectively. Its profit dropped by 43% to US$92.9m from US$164m.

China: Cement output fell by 12% year-on-year to 387Mt in the first quarter of 2022. Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology also shows that cement output volumes fell by 5.6% year-on-year to 187Mt in March 2022, according to the Xinhua News Agency. The China Cement Association has blamed this on the latest local coronavirus wave, limited construction project funds and poor weather.

China: Xinjiang Tianshan Cement, a subsidiary of Chizhou CNBM New Materials, has acquired mining rights for the Hengshan mining area and peripheral mines in Chizhou City’s Guichi District in Anhui province for US$376m. Reuters has reported that the company plans to make a total investment of US$1.38bn in establishing its mining operations there. The mines have limestone reserves of 513Mt and will be operational until 2043.