Displaying items by tag: China

China: Authorities in Hebei Province have revealed a plan to transfer excess capacity from its heavy industries, including cement, abroad by 2023. Hebei intends to move 5Mt of cement production overseas by 2017 and 30Mt by 2023. The initiative also covers excess production in the steel and glass industries.

Chinese cement, steel and glass producers are struggling, with sluggish growth in the world's second-largest economy crippling demand for their products. The local government will encourage cement producers to establish subsidiaries or joint ventures in regions like Africa, Southeast Asia, South America and Central and East Europe to meet local demand.

Hebei is a major source of industrial pollutants blamed for the smog that often spreads to neighbouring regions like Beijing. The smog has prompted the authorities to rethink and change the growth model and to take more stringent measures to fight pollution.

China: The board of directors of Anhui Conch have announced that Zhu Yuming has resigned as a supervisor of the company due to other work commitments. Zhu's resignation will be effective upon the appointment of a new supervisor to fill the vacancy. Anhui Conch have thanked Zhu for his 'invaluable' contributions to the company.

China/Russia: Eurocement plans to sign three contracts worth a combined US$280m at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Beijing. The contracts cover the construction of dry-process cement lines at the Kavkazcement, Belgorodsky Cement and Oskolcement plants. Each line will have a clinkcer capacity of 6200t/yr or a cement capacity of 3Mt/yr. Each contract is for US$93.3m and the contractor is Sinoma International Engineering.

In May 2014 Eurocement signed six contracts to build new plants with Sinomach, CNBM and Sinoma for a total of US$580m. All of the projects are being carried out as part of a programme to switch to dry-process cement production. Overall investments in the programme will exceed US$2bn.

"We plan to switch our enterprises to the new technological platform in three years, between 2014 and 2017," said Eurocement president Mikhail Skorokhod. By 2018, Eurocement intends to produce 100% of its cement using the dry-process. This will boost capacities by 5Mt/yr to 45Mt/yr, according to Skorokhod.

Eurocement has calculated that the programme will pay for itself in 7 - 10 years. Cost of production is planned to fall by 35% - 40%. The debt/equity ratio of financing for the programme is 70%:30%. In May 2014, Eurocement signed a strategic agreement with Sberbank to finance its investment programme.

China: Anhui Conch Cement Co Ltd has announced that its output and sales of its major subsidiaries hit record highs in September 2014.

Its Foshan subsidiary in Guangdong Province saw sales exceed 10,000t/day for five consecutive days in September 2014, with average sales stablising at 8000t/day. Anhui Conch claimed that the subsidiary's September 2014 output, sales, clinker and cement production all hit new highs in 2014, with output and clinker cement production reaching historical highs.

In Jiangxi Province, its Ganjiang subsidiary witnessed 67% year-on-year growth in sales in September 2014. Anhui Conch's production in Guangxi was also robust. Its Beiliu unit completed 104% of its production target in the third quarter of 2014, while its Tongling unit produced over 10Mt of clinker cement in the first nine months of the year.

Indonesia: Two Chinese companies signed an agreement on 25 September 2014 to invest in an Indonesian cement plant as part of investment cooperation measures that were agreed by China and Indonesia in 2013.

State Development and Investment Corp (SDIC) and Anhui Conch Cement Company will fund the project for the plant located in West Papua Province. After the construction is completed, the plant will have 3Mt/yr of production capacity, serving Indonesia and neighbouring countries, including Papua New Guinea. SDIC and Anhui Conch will have stakes of 51% and 49% respectively.

Japan/China: Japan’s Taiheiyo Cement has dissolved a joint venture agreement with Xinjiang Tianye in Xinjiang, Chinese in response to Chinese government efforts to reduce excess capacity in the sector.

Taiheiyo Cement Investment, the company’s Chinese arm, signed the agreement with Xinjiang Tianye in December 2012. After receiving government approval, they set up a joint venture in April 2013, planning to produce 1.2Mt/yr of cement. However, in 2013 Beijing increased measures to curb investment in the cement industry to counter overcapacity. This cast doubt on whether the venture could build production facilities as planned. With the business environment for the region's cement industry worsening, Taiheiyo and Xinjiang Tianye opted to end the agreement.

China: The NDRC, China's price regulator, has fined three Chinese cement companies a combined amount of US$18.6m for engaging in a price monopoly. The three companies are Jilin Yatai Cement Sales Co, Northern Cement Co and Jidong Cement Jilin Co.

China: China Tianrui Group Cement Company has announced that its profit attributable to owners for the six months that ended on 30 June 2014 rose by 15.6% year-on-year to US$53.2m. Revenue was US$699m, an increase of 15.4% from a year earlier. The company's gross profit margin increased to 22.3% in the first half of 2014 from 21.6% in the first half of 2013, which was primarily due to the lower cost of sales and slightly higher cement sales prices.

Kyrgyzstan: A ground-breaking ceremony was held on 29 August 2014 at the site of a new cement plant in Kemin, Chui Province, about 13km east of the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. The plant, which is being constructed by Chinese investment, will cost around US$70m, according to Sun He, business counsellor with the Chinese Embassy in Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyz first vice prime minister Tayirbek Sarpashev said that he was confident that the cement plant would bring more jobs to Kemin and bring about tax revenues of between US$10m and US$15m each year upon completion.

Zhu Rongjun, general manager of ZETH-Cement, the Chinese investment subsidiary that is registered in Kyrgyzstan and the investor of the new cement plant, said that it would use advanced technology for production at the plant. Zhu added that the plant would start formal construction in 2014 and be completed and put into production within 15 months.

China: Anhui Conch's revenue rose by 22% year-on-year to US$4.68bn in the first half of 2014 from US$3.84bn in the same period in 2013. The group's net profit rose by 90% to US$945m. It attributed the growth in revenue and profit to increased sales volumes and prices.

During the reporting period, the group acquired four cement projects including Shaoyang Yunfeng New Energy Technology, Hunan Yunfeng Cement, Shuicheng Conch Panjiang Cement and Kunming Hongxi Cement. It started work on building three clinker production lines including Baoshan Conch Cement and ten cement grinding units, including Liangping Conch Cement, increasing its clinker and cement production capacities by 10.9Mt/yr and 17.7Mt/yr respectively. Outside of China, the installation of equipment at PT Conch South Kalimantan Cement in Indonesia was noted and a project in Myanmar was acknowledged as having made progress.

Four residual heat electricity generation units located at Guangxi Lingyun Tonghong Cement, Baoshan Conch and other companies were put into operation with an additional installed capacity of 36MW. The group continued to implement low-NOx staged combustion technology modification for clinker production lines and SNCR flue gas denitration technology modification. As at the end of the reporting period, the Group had completed technical upgrade of NOx reduction to 101 production lines, which are all reported to be running smoothly.

As at the end of the reporting period, the production capacity of clinker and cement of the group reached 200Mt/yr and 245Mt/yr respectively.