Displaying items by tag: Closure

Netherlands: Germany’s HeidelbergCement’s subsidiary Eerste Nederland Cement Industrie (ENCI) announced on 9 December 2019 the upcoming closure of its former 1.8Mt/yr integrated Maastricht plant in 2020. Het Belang van Limburg has reported that the Maastricht plant, which stepped down to grinding-only in March 2019 after 91 years’ kiln operation, received an insufficient supply of clinker from ENCI’s sister company CBR Cement’s 1.5Mt/yr Lixhe plant in Wallonia, Belgium to guarantee profitable production.

Clinker grinding continues at ENCI’s 1.4Mt/yr IJmuiden and 0.6Mt/yr Rotterdam grinding plants, each of which has better access to clinker imports due to their proximity to deepwater ports.

Argentina: Loma Negra plans to close its Olavarría integrated cement plant. The unit has 45 employees who will be relocated elsewhere in the business, according to the Buenos Aires Económico newspaper. In recent years the plant has been operating solely as a grinding and bagging unit. The cost of upgrading the plant and the relative distance of its raw materials were factors in the decision to close it. The Olavarría cement plant was the first to be built in the country.

In September 2019 the subsidiary of Brazil’s interCement said it was converting its San Juan integrated cement plant to grinding and bagging only. Earlier in the year it came close to closing its Barker plant as it was unable to reach an agreement with the local union over staff redundancies. Alongside this it is building a new production line at its L'Amalí cement plant.

Argentina: Loma Negra has converted its 0.2Mt/yr San Juan integrated cement plant to grinding and bagging only. 14 people have resultantly lost their jobs, five of whom have accepted relocation to the company’s Catamarca plant. Catamarca is the largest of Loma Negra’s seven production facilities in Argentina, with a cement production capacity of 1.8Mt/yr.

Brazil: InterCement is to stop production at its integrated Pedro Leopoldo plant in Minas Gerais. It plans to temporarily run the unit as a cement terminal, according to Por Dentro De Tudo. The plant has 53 employees. 28 will be relocated to other plants in the company and the remaining 25 will be made redundant.

Argentina: Loma Negra has signed an agreement with the Asociación Obrera Minera Argentina (AOMA) union and the government to keep the Barker cement plant open. The deal follows three months of negotiations, according to La Nacion newspaper. The cement producer wanted to reduce the number of shifts at the grinding plant. It previously said it had started to close the plant in early-June 2019. The plant will continue to operate with 160 staff working a reduced workload amongst other concessions.

Egypt: Tourah Cement says it has stopped production due to a financial crisis caused by oversupply in the local market. Jose Maria Magrina, the managing director of Tourah Cement, told employees in mid-June 2019 that production would be stopped temporarily as it couldn’t cover its costs, according to Mist News. Estimated national cement consumption is 50Mt/yr but total production capcaity is 85Mt/yr.

In a statement the subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement said that new plants had forced producers to lower prices below the cost of production. It has also blamed higher fuel prices due to a cut in government subsidies.

Argentina: Loma Negra says it has started to close its Barker cement plant because it has been unable to reach an agreement with the union over staff redundancies. The company alleges that the union would not accept its plans to convert the unit into a grinding and bagging plant, according to El Cronista newspaper. The plant will now move to a single shift of operation with 24 employees whilst plans for its final closure are implemented.

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.

Botswana: Rachit Josh, the managing director of Matsiloje Portland Cement, say that the company will struggle to reopen without government support to block imports. The cement producer closed its plant at Matsiloje, near Francistown in January 2018, according to the Monitor newspaper. Josh blamed cement imports from South Africa as being a particular concern.

In June 2018 the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment said it was starting to introduce restrictions on imports restricting imports to 70% locally sourced product. However, it is unclear when these measures will be implemented.

Matsiloje Portland Cement is a subsidiary of Nortex Group. Its integrated plant had a production capacity of 30,000t/yr. The company produced the lime it used for its cement and it sourced other raw materials from South Africa and fly ash from a power station at Morupule.

India: The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has ordered Malabar Cements plant at Walayar, Palakkad in Kerala to comply with emissions standards or face closure. The cement producer has been given seven days to comply from the 31 December 2018, according to the Times of India newspaper. Malabar Cements was originally granted extra time, to 10 May 2018, to meet the new standards. The CPCB later declared that no cement producer would be able to flout the rules past 31 August 2018. It also intends to fine the company around US$570/day from the end of August 2018 for breaking the standards.