
Displaying items by tag: Consumption
Vietnamese cement surplus to remain in 2025
03 February 2025Vietnam: The general director of Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (VICEM), Nguyen Thanh Tung, says that Vietnam will suffer continued cement overcapacity amid high production costs in 2025. Full-year production is forecast at 125Mt, 96% greater than an expected domestic demand of 63.5Mt. Việt Nam News has reported that Vietnam’s cement exports face an on-going investigation in Taiwan, and are already subject to anti-dumping duties in the Philippines.
VICEM aims to raise its domestic clinker sales volumes by 8% year-on-year to 18Mt, in order to generate sales of US$1.16bn. To this end, Tung urged the government to adopt cement reinforcement in roadbuilding, as well as lifting the export tax on cement.
Spanish cement consumption grows in 2024
30 January 2025Spain: Cement consumption in Spain rose by 3% in 2024 after two consecutive years of decline, reaching 14.9Mt, according to the latest data from Oficemen.
The figure represents an increase of 0.42Mt compared to 2023, though remains similar to 2021-2022 levels. Oficemen projects 5% growth for 2025.
Alan Svaiter, Oficemen chair, said "These figures confirm the positive progression in cement consumption during the second half of 2025, following a challenging start with negative numbers".
Consumption remained behind that of 2023 until October 2024, when it showed 1% growth, before reaching the final 3% year-end figure.
Polish cement producers threatened by rising Ukrainian imports
10 December 2024Poland: Imports of Ukrainian cement to Poland are expected to rise from over 500,000t in 2024 to 1.5Mt in 2025, according to Ukraine Business News. Before the war, Ukraine consumed 12Mt/yr of cement, now reduced to 4Mt/yr, with the surplus exported mainly to Poland. Ivano-Frankivskcement, Ukraine’s largest producer, is currently expanding its capacity to 4Mt/yr, which could threaten the Polish cement industry.
The Polish Cement Producers Association said “The uncontrolled cement flow from Ukraine is unfair competition, since its producers do not bear the EU’s climate policy costs. Therefore, we cannot compete with Ukrainian imports.” It demands limiting duty-free imports to the average level of the past three years during the 2025 EU-Ukraine trade agreement review.
Cement consumption in Spain increases
20 November 2024Spain: Cement consumption in Spain has seen a cumulative increase of 1.3% in the first 10 months of 2024, compared to a decline of 0.5% at the end of the third quarter of 2024, according to the latest data from Oficemen. This increase is largely due to 14.5% growth in October 2024 consumption compared to the same month a year earlier, reaching 1.37Mt, the highest since 2019. Despite the domestic gains, cement exports fell by 1% in October 2024 to 0.41Mt, contributing to a 13% decline in the cumulative annual data up to October 2024. Since November 2023, exports have decreased by 16%, totalling 0.47Mt.
Oficemen’s general manager Aniceto Zaragoza said "These positive figures are in line with the forecasts that we made at the beginning of 2024, when we were expecting a moderate recovery in the final stretch of the year."
Amsons Group takes aim at East Africa
06 November 2024When we think about ‘up and coming’ regions for the global cement sector, Africa is high on many people’s lists. This is unsurprising given that Africa is the youngest continent on Earth, with a population set to boom to 2.5 billion by 2050 – or 1 in 4 of the global population for that year, according to the UN. This population, 1 billion higher than today, will drive rapid urbanisation. Cement capacities, currently around 350Mt/yr across the continent, will have to rise substantially to meet demand.
Filling part of this rise will be Amsons Group. This week it announced plans for a US$320m investment in a 1.6Mt/yr greenfield cement plant in Tanzania. It also promised a whopping US$400m to revamp Bamburi Cement in Kenya, should its existing US$180m bid for the Holcim subsidiary be accepted. Based on the numbers for Tanzania, this investment might be enough to take Bamburi Cement from 1.1Mt/yr to around 3Mt/yr, assuming similar project scope and equipment suppliers.
So, what is Amsons Group? Founded in 2000, Amsons is a Tanzania-based conglomerate with interests in construction, transport, flour, container depots, cement and concrete. It already operates Camel Cement, a grinding plant, in the Mbagala suburb of Dar es Salaam and it owns a 65% stake in the 1.1Mt/yr integrated Mbeya Cement plant, which it bought from Holcim in September 2023. The group’s website states that it emphasises local production of materials to reduce the nation’s reliance on imports. A greenfield cement plant fits right into that philosophy.
Looking at recent market trends, we see some positive news for Amsons. In Tanzania, cement production rose by 6.2% to 8Mt in 2023, according to the country’s Ministry of Industry. This followed a 9.7% rise in the prior year. Data is so far lacking for 2024. To the north, cement consumption ramped up strongly in Kenya in the second half of 2023, following a less than stellar start to the year. Thanks to a particularly strong June to September period, consumption finally ended 2023 around 0.8% higher than the previous year, at 9.6Mt. However, consumption tailed off in the final quarter. Worse, the first four months of 2024 - the most recent data available from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics - saw a 10% decline in cement consumption relative to the same period of 2023, falling to 2.6Mt/yr.
As Africa lacks cement capacity compared to other regions, it is important to highlight that Amsons’ new plants will have to take on not just existing capacity in East Africa, but countries that export to the continent too. Indeed, this week Pakistan, a long-time agitator of South African cement producers, reported a year-on-year rise in exports for October 2024. Exports rose to 4.36Mt, a 9% increase compared to 4Mt in October 2023. This news comes amid precipitously falling domestic demand within Pakistan, with September 2024 shipments down by 22% year-on-year. It is also worth noting that Tanzania itself exported around 1.1Mt of cement to Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, the DRC and Zambia in 2023. This figure will likely be higher in 2024, given the February 2024 launch of Huaxin Cement Tanzania Maweni Company’s 1.3Mt/yr plant in Mavini, which has a focus on exports.
This apparent abundance of existing capacity, plus exposure to imports, would appear to give an investor like Amsons Group pause for thought. However, it has committed to a total investment of US$900m. This is not small change. If we add in the money it paid for Mbeya Cement in September 2023 – the amount was not disclosed – Amsons will likely shell out more than US$1bn in just a few years. It is going ‘all in’ to become, in the words of its Managing Director Edha Nahdi, “one of the largest cement manufacturers in Kenya and Tanzania by 2030.” It will be very interesting to follow it on its journey.
Cement shipments decline in Argentina
05 November 2024Argentina: Cement shipments remained below pandemic and pre-pandemic levels in October 2024, which marked the sixth decline so far in 2024, according to Clarion newspaper. October 2024 saw shipments down by 20% year-on-year and 1.1% month-on-month, according to the Portland Cement Manufacturing Association (AFCP). In October 2024, sales dropped to 907,421t. 7.9Mt of cement was sold in the first 10 months of 2024 compared to 10.7Mt in the same period in 2023. Consumption also suffered a year-on-year decrease of 20% and a monthly decline of 1.3%. The industry attributes the downturn primarily to a halt in national public works, as well as rising costs such as taxes on limestone and quarry exploitation fees.
Damián Altgelt, executive director of AFCP, said "The cement sector is going through a difficult year, with a drop of close to 25% compared to 2023. We confidently hope that the macroeconomic measures that the government is undertaking will allow us to overcome this transition period soon and recover the highest levels of activity again. In the past four months we have seen around 0.9Mt of cement sold (per month), which is clearly higher than the very depressed levels we had in the first half of 2024.”
Cement consumption statistics in Catalonia published
24 October 2024Spain: Cement consumption in Catalonia slightly decreased by 0.6% year-on-year in September 2024, totalling 151,157t, according to the employers’ association Ciment Català. The association has confirmed stabilisation of the cement market, following a decline that started in November 2022. In the first nine months of 2024, consumption stood at 2.1Mt, down by 4.3% from the same period in 2023. However, cement production saw a 15% increase in September 2024, to 271,718t. Production in 2024 dropped slightly by 0.3% year-on-year to 3.31Mt. Exports of cement and clinker in September 2024 remained stable, with a marginal increase of 0.3%, amounting to 144,601t. In 2024, exports declined by 25% to 1.5Mt.
Ciment Català said that the industry is shifting towards decarbonisation and that "industrial projects associated with sustainability involve extraordinarily high investments", according to Via Empresa News.
Spain publishes cement consumption statistics
22 October 2024Spain: Spain's cement consumption declined by 0.5%, with 10.9Mt consumed by the end of the third quarter of 2024, 50,760t less than the same period in 2023, according to Oficemen. However, a 7.1% increase in consumption in September 2024 was also observed, with 1.22Mt consumed, 80,515t more than in September 2023.
General manager of Oficemen, Aniceto Zaragoza, said "The latest cement consumption data continues to corroborate our forecasts for the end of 2024, which pointed to a slight improvement from the summer onwards. At the same time, the positive evolution of building permits could indicate that we are witnessing a moderate change in trend, although, as we have indicated on other occasions, we must wait to see if these works are actually carried out in the short term."
Since September 2023, 14.4Mt of cement were consumed, marking a 1.8% decline year-on-year. Despite a 16% increase in cement exports in September 2024, the annual cumulative data for the first nine months still shows a 14.7% decline, equating to a reduction of 617,855t. Since September 2023, exports have fallen by 17%, resulting in a reduction of 955,590t.
Chilean cement sales contract in first half of 2024
18 October 2024Chile: The combined cement sales of Cbb, Melón and Polpaico continued a three-year decline with a 4% year-on-year drop in the first half of 2024, to 1.83Mt. In terms of market shares, Polpaico retained 40%, Melón 34% and Cbb 26%. Noticias Financieras News has reported that low domestic demand caused the fall in sales. Despite the general downturn, Cbb succeeded in more than doubling its profit to US$18.5m, by increasing its shipments of cement, which offset a decline in concrete sales.
Polpaico said "During the second quarter of 2024, the cement and concrete industry in Chile continued to face significant challenges, reflected in a slowdown in the construction sector." It added that there was ‘constant price competition’ exacerbated by an ‘abnormal volume of rainfall’ in June 2024.
Melón said "There has been a slowdown in projects under development compared to previous periods. On the other hand, production and distribution costs have continued to be under pressure, which in this period are mainly related to the increase in the exchange rate."
Statistics on cement production in Bolivia revealed
15 October 2024Bolivia: Bolivia recorded a 2.7% year-on-year increase in cement production and sales in August 2024. According to the National Statistics Institute, production reached 2.6Mt from January - August 2024, up from 2.53Mt in the same period in 2023. Santa Cruz produced 699,062t of cement, followed by La Paz with 679,317t, Chuquisaca with 510,841t, Cochabamba with 384,329t, Oruro with 214,660t and Tarija with 150,068t.
Marcelo Morales, general manager of Itacamba Cemento, noted a year-on-year increase of 3% in domestic demand, with 2.6Mt of cement consumed as of August 2024, saying that the growth was positive ‘considering the current economic situation’.
General manager of the Bolivian Institute of Cement and Concrete, Marcelo Alfaro, also mentioned that Santa Cruz, La Paz and Cochabamba collectively account for about 70% of cement sales in Bolivia, according to La Razón newspaper. The cement industry's installed capacity reportedly stands at 10Mt/yr and the country is facing challenges exporting cement, as neighbouring countries already produce their own.