Displaying items by tag: Cimentos de Mocambique

Mozambique/South Africa: China-based Huaxin Cement has agreed to buy the Africa-based business of InterCement for US$265m. The deal includes the Brazil-based company’s assets in Mozambique and South Africa. It follows InterCement’s sale of its business in Egypt earlier in 2023 to an unnamed buyer. The company will use the latest proposed sale to reduce its debts. The transaction will be subject to approval from regulators in China, Mozambique and South Africa. InterCement appointed JP Morgan as its financial advisor to the sale of its operations in Egypt, Mozambique and South Africa.

InterCement operates two integrated cement plants and three grinding plants in Mozambique under its Cimentos de Moçambique subsidiary and one integrated plant and two grinding plants in South Africa under its Natal Portland Cement subsidiary. Huaxin Cement’s operations in Africa include subsidiaries in Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia.

Mozambique: Cimentos de Mocambique has closed its Matola plant due to low demand. It made the decision following large losses, according to the O Pais newspaper. The subsidiary of Brazil’s Intercement said that the unit cost US$25m. It operates one integrated plant and four grinding plants in the country with a total production capacity of 2.9Mt/yr.

Mozambique: Cimentos de Mocambique has denied increased the price of its cement products. At a press conference in Nampula Jorge Reis, the managing director of Cimentos de Mocambique, said that his company had nothing to do with the ‘sharp’ increases in the price of cement charged by retailers, according to the Mozambique News Agency. Reis said that the cement producer had not raised its prices since late 2016. He added that the company’s Nacala plant had been affected by an irregular electricity supply. It is currently negotiating with its electricity supplier to improve its service. Retailers have blamed the price hike on an alleged shortage of cement and difficulties in acquiring it from cement plants.

The Provincial Director of Trade and Industry, Norberto Narciso, said that information from Cimentos de Mocambique would be distributed to businesses in Nampula and in the neighbouring province of Niassa, which also acquires cement from Nacala. He also promised that the government’s National Inspectorate of Economic Activities would check the retail price of cement to see whether the retailers are respecting the ‘recommended profit margins’.

Mozambique: Cimentos de Mocambique, part of Intercement, has concluded the installation of kiln filters at its cement plant in Matola, Maputo. The company invested US$10m in the equipment to reduce air pollution levels in the area.

Mozambiqiue: According to Mozambique News Agency, the governor of Sofala, Helena Taipo, has ordered the limestone storage facility in Muanza be moved on environmental and health grounds.

Taipo took this measure after a message presented by local residents at a rally she addressed in Muanza, which complained at the way the limestone is currently stored. The residents said that the health problems allegedly caused by limestone dust are not new. Local people have long complained against the practice of Cimpor's Cimentos de Mocambique of storing large quantities of limestone next to Mwanza station, where it awaits transport by train to the cement plant in the nearby town of Dondo.

Taipo said that she did not really need to hear the complaint, since she could see the problem with her own eyes. "I have seen the houses covered with white dust," said Taipo. "Even here at the rally I've seen the dust, which shows that the situation is serious. We have to think seriously about the preservation of the environment. Cimpor must change the place where it keeps the limestone to somewhere else, because currently it is a danger to public health."

Participants at the rally called for the road from Dondo to Cheringoma, which passes through Muanza, to be paved. They also wanted the electricity grid to be further expanded. Taipo guaranteed that paving the road is one of the actions envisaged in the government's five year programme for 2015 - 2019.