Displaying items by tag: China Triumph International Engineering

Kyrgyzstan had a couple of prominent stories in the press towards the end of December 2023 with news of a new plant and continuing data showing that cement production has grown.

The Chüy project was first announced by the government in mid-2022 when it signed an investment agreement with a consortium comprising representatives from Terek-Tash and ZENIT. More information on the unit emerged this week when the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund revealed that it made a loan of US$45m towards the scheme based in the northern Chüy region of the country. The plan is to build a 1.7Mt/yr plant with a budget of US$160m. Equipment to build the plant is reportedly being sourced from companies in China and Russia. Special features of the project include a waste heat recovery unit and the use of ash from the Bishkek Thermal Power Plant in the production process. The plant is expected to be launched in 2024.

Graph 1: Cement production in Kyrgyzstan, 2018 - 2023. Source: National Statistical Committee of the Kyrgyz Republic.

One reason why the government might be keen to build a new plant is because cement production has mostly grown in each of the past five years, with the exception of 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began. In 2022 it increased by 7% year-on-year to 2.7Mt and the latest data from the National Statistical Committee indicates that it rose by 11% year-on-year to 2.6Mt in the 11 months to the end of November 2023. If this rate held in December 2023 then it looks likely that the country will have produced just under 3Mt in 2023. At the same time the country’s exports of cement have also been falling. In November 2023 the government of Kazakhstan’s Jambyl Region said that it had found investors to support construction of a railway line between the locale and Kyrgyzstan due to a ‘building boom’ in the latter country.

Earlier in 2023 the Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) said it had earmarked US$48m for the modernisation of equipment at the Kant Cement plant, operated by Kazakhstan-based United Cement Group (UCG), also in Chüy region. The plant is the biggest in Kyrgyzstan, running five wet process production lines, according to the Global Cement Directory 2023. The EDB linked its investment to a hydroelectric project in the country that it is also funding, pointing out that such structures require lots of cement and concrete. This follows a previous upgrade project by owner Kazakhstan-based United Cement Group (UCG) at the plant from 2021 to March 2023. This involved efficiency and environmental gains such as installing bag filters and converting a cement grinding mill to a closed circuit. China-based and CNBM subsidiary China Triumph International Engineering was the lead project partner. In early December 2023 UCG announced that it had signed another contract with China Triumph International Engineering over the summer to build a new dry production line at the site with a clinker capacity of 0.8Mt/yr. At the time of the announcement it said that preparation of the construction site had started and that work had begun on installing a pile foundation.

Finally, one more Kyrgyz news story of note in recent months was the announcement in October 2023 that the government had effectively nationalised the Kurmentinsky Cement plant in Issyk-Kul Region. The reason why it had done so was unusual because it said that a 93% share in the company running the plant had been transferred to the State Property Management Agency following the death of its former owner. The former owner was one Kamchybek Kolbaev, an organised crime boss who had been listed on the US Department of State Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program and was reportedly killed by state security services in early October 2023. The remaining shares in the plant have been passed to its workers and the government further said that it intends to upgrade the site.

The cement sector in Kyrgyzstan is modest and in need of modernisation. It appears to be having a resurgence at the moment though with production mounting and at least two major plant projects underway. The country is in a compelling position economically and geopolitically given its membership of the Russia-backed Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and its proximity to China. Various projects backed by the latter’s Belt and Road Initiative, both underway and forthcoming, would certainly appear to benefit from more efficient local cement production and higher volumes.

China: Ma Mingliang, the chairman and president of Sinoma Energy Conservation, has died at the age of 57. He was reportedly taken ill whilst on a business trip to Zhaotong City in Yunnan Province. Ma Mingliang was a trained engineer who worked for China Triumph International Engineering from 1997 to 2006 before later becoming the chief engineer of the foreign department of China National Building Material (CNBM) International Engineering from 2006 to 2007. Subsequently he held a number of senior positions within CNBM group eventually leading Sinoma Energy Conservation, the subsidiary of CNBM responsible for manufacturing waste heat recovery (WHR) systems.

Poland: Lafarge Poland has chosen China-based Nanjing Kisen International Engineering as the general contractor for a Euro100m-plus upgrade to its Małogoszcz cement plant. The subsidiary of China Triumph International Engineering will deliver an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract and it intends to select a local Polish subcontractor. This is the first project by the Chinese engineering company in Poland and the European Union.

The first works related to project started in October 2020. First clinker production from the upgrade is scheduled for December 2022 with overall commissioning planned for spring 2023. Part of the investment will be implemented in cooperation with the Krakow Technology Park as part of the Polish Investment Zone. LafargeHolcim says the upgrade project is part of its scheme to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 55% by 2025 compared to 1990 levels.

Kazakhstan: Gezhouba Shieli Cement has launched its 1Mt/yr oil well cement plant in the Kyzylorda region. 260 jobs have been created at the site and 48 of the local staff were trained in China. The project is a joint venture majority owned by Chinese investors with a minority stake from a local cement company. China Triumph International Engineering built the plant.

China: China National Building Material’s (CNBM) cement production volume fell by 5% year-on-year to 143Mt in the first half of 2018 from 150Mt in the same period in 2017. It has attributed this decrease to ‘flat’ demand, increased pressure on environmental protection and rising costs of fuel and raw materials. As part of its ‘Price – Cost – Profit’ (PCP) initiative the group has focused on reducing production capacity and output, implementing peak shifting production and eliminating old production facilities.

Despite the headwinds, the group’s sales revenue from its cement division rose by 22% to US$7.41bn from US$6.06bn. Its adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 38% to US$2.08bn from US$1.51bn. Average cement prices also rose year-on-year. External sales from its engineering companies increased by 13% to US$2.18bn from US$1.92bn. Overall, group sales revenue rose by 22% to US$14bn from US$11.5bn.

CNBM completed its merger with China National Materials Company (Sinoma) on 2 May 2018. Its cement producing subsidiaries include China Untied, South Cement, North Cement, Southwest Cement, Sinoma Cement, Tianshan Cement, Ningxia Building Materials and Qilianshan. Its engineering subsidiaries include Sinoma International, China Triumph and Sinoma Milling.

Algeria: China Triumph International Engineering (CTIE) is set to start procuring equipment for a US$211m production line at STG Engineering and Real Estate Development’s plant at Adrar. The line will be the second production line at the site and it will have a production capacity of 4200t/day of marine cement, according to Inside International Industrials. CTIE is the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the project and its subsidiary Beijing Triumph International Engineering will manage the engineering design work.

Kazakhstan: Gezhouba Shieli Cement plans to commission its 1Mt/yr plant in the Kyzylorda region in December 2018. The US$188m unit will be used to produce oil well cement, according to Interfax. The project is a joint venture majority owned by Chinese investors with a minority stake from a local cement company. The plant is being built by China Triumph International Engineering.

Indonesia: China Triumph International Engineering (CTIE) has started building a 2.1Mt/yr cement plant at Grobogan, Semarang in Central Java. Its subsidiary Nanjing Kisen International Engineering is responsible for the project design and equipment procurement, according to Inside International Industrials. CTIEC signed the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with with Giti Tire in November 2016. The project has a cost of US$350m.

Algeria: Abdessalem Bouchouareb, the Minister of Industry and Mining, has said that his country will stop importing cement in 2017. He made the comments at a visit to the China Triumph International Engineering (CTIEC) cement plant being built at Adrar, according to the Algeria Press Service. The plant is nearly 90% complete and due to be commissioned at the end of 2016.

"The year 2017 will mark the end of cement imports in Algeria, with the commissioning of all cement plants across the country, whose total annual production capacity is expected to reach 6Mt," said Bouchouareb. He added that industrial projects will allow the country to achieve self-sufficiency in cement and begin to export it.

Mongolia: The second-stage clinker line of a 1Mt/yr project being delivered by China Triumph International Engineering was successfully ignited in early June 2016. The cement plant will now start regular production. The project is part of the Belt and Road initiative and ‘Going Global’ strategy of China’s building materials industry.