Displaying items by tag: DANE

Colombia: Grey cement production in Colombia fell by 5.9% year-on-year to 0.95Mt in January 2025. Domestic shipments also fell by 3.0%, reflecting lower demand in the construction market, according to the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE).

DANE reported that cumulative production between February 2024 and January 2025 reached 13.3Mt, a 5.7% year-on-year decrease compared to the same period a year previously. Domestic shipments dropped by 12.1Mt. Industry experts warn that these results could impact the pace of construction activity in the country in the coming months.

Colombia: Data from DANE, the Colombian national statistics authority, shows that the country produced 1.22Mt of grey cement in July 2023, a 1.7% increase compared to July 2022. Of this, 1.05Mt was consumed domestically, a 6.5% fall year-on-year, with exports increasing to compensate. The July 2023 production figure is 9.2% higher than for the July 2019, the year before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. DANE also recorded that Colombia produced 557,900m3 of ready-mix concrete in July 2023, a 3.1% decline compared to July 2022, when 575,800m3 was produced.

Colombia: Data from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) shows that the volume of grey cement produced in September 2022 grew by 4.1% year-on-year to 1.28Mt. 1.19Mt was sold domestically, a 2.1% rise. Around 90,000t of cement was exported.

The volume produced in the first nine months of 2022 increased by 7.9% year-on-year to 10.9Mt. The total volume sold domestically over the same period was 10.1Mt, a 5.7% rise, with 750,000t exported.

Colombia: Cement production grew by 33% to 6.50Mt in the first half of 2021 from 4.89Mt in the same period in 2020. Data from DANE, the Colombian statistics authority, shows that local despatches rose by 34% to 6.20Mt from 4.61Mt.

Colombia: Cement production fell by 20.8% year-on-year to 4.88Mt in the first half of 2020 from 6.17Mt in the same period in 2019. Data from DANE, the Colombian statistics organisation, shows that local despatches fell at a similar rate. Production in June 2020 dropped by 4.7% year-on-year to 0.98Mt from 1.03Mt in June 2019. Local cement production hit a low in April 2020 when the government imposed coronavirus-related lockdowns.

Data is starting to emerge from South American countries for the first half of 2020 and it’s not necessarily what one might expect. Countries had different trends in play before the coronavirus pandemic established itself and then governments acted in their own ways with mixed results. Here’s a brief summary of the situation in the key territories.

Graph 1: Cement sales in selected South American countries in first half of year, 2018 – 2020. Source: Local cement associations and national statistics offices. Note: Colombian data is for January – May for each year.

Brazil’s cement sector looked set to become the big loser as global events seemed poised to dent the recovery of cement sales since a low in 2018. This didn’t happen. The Brazilian national cement industry union’s (SNIC) preliminary data for the first six months of 2020 shows that sales grew by 3.7% year-on-year to 26.9Mt. This is above the growth rate of 3% originally expected. Indeed, the monthly year-on-year growth rate in June 2020 was 24.5%. SNIC is not wrong in describing this kind of pace as being ‘Chinese.’ All this growth has been attributed to the home improvement market as people used their lockdown time to renovate their homes, renovations and maintenance in commercial buildings during lockdown and growing work on real estate projects. The government’s decision to implement weak lockdown measures clearly helped the sector but this may have cost lives in the process.

SNIC’s president Paulo Camillo Penna pointed out that producing and selling cement could co-exist with fighting coronavirus. However, trends such as a slowing real estate sector, less large construction projects and mounting input costs are all seen as potential risks in the second half of 2020. What SNIC didn’t link to the wider fortunes of the local cement industry was the economic consequences of coronavirus. The World Bank, for example, has forecast an 8% fall in gross domestic product in Brazil in 2020 due to its coronavirus, “mitigation measures, plunging investment and soft global commodity prices.”

Peru, in contrast to Brazil, implemented a strong lockdown early in March 2020. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem to work as well as hoped possibly due to informal and structural issues such as reliance on markets, the informal economy and residential overcrowding. This means that production and sales of cement are significantly down without any public health benefit. Both production and despatches fell by about 40% to around 2.9Mt in the first half of 2020 with close to total stoppages in April 2020. In terms of coronavirus, Peru is at the time of writing in the top 10 worldwide for both total cases and deaths, behind only Brazil in South America. It should be pointed out though that Peru’s testing rate is reportedly high for the region and this may be making its response look dire in the short term. All of this is particularly sad from an industrial perspective given that Peru was one of the continent’s strongest performers prior to 2020. One consolation though is that the economy is expected to recover more quickly compared to its neighbours.

Argentina started 2020 with a downward trend in its local market. Cement sales had been falling since 2017, roughly following a recession in the wider economy. Throw in a strong lockdown and sales more than halved at its peak in April 2020. So far this has led to a drop of 31% to 3.83Mt for the first half of 2020 compared to 5.51Mt in the same period in 2019. Unfortunately, a recent spike in cases in Buenos Aires has led to renewed lockdowns in the capital. Due to this unwelcome development and the general economic situation Fitch Ratings has forecast an overall decline in cement sales volumes of 25% for 2020 as a whole.

Finally, Colombia’s cement production fell by 24% year-on-year to 3.90Mt in the first five months of 2020 from 5.14Mt in the same period in 2019. April 2020 was the worst month affected. The country’s lockdown ended on 13 April 2020 for infrastructure projects and on 27 April 2020 for cement production and residential and commercial construction. On 5 May 2020 Cementos Argos said that domestic demand was at 50% of pre-lockdown levels. Data from DANE, the Colombian statistics authority, shows that local sales fell by around a third year-on-year to 0.71Mt in May 2020 from 1.06Mt in May 2019.

Most of the countries examined above follow the pattern of reduced cement production and sales in relation to the severity of the lockdown imposed and the resulting intensity of the coronavirus outbreak. Stronger lockdowns suppressed cement production and sales in the region of 20 – 40% in the first half of the year as governments shut down totally and then released industry and commerce incrementally. The exception is Peru, which has suffered the worst of both worlds: a severe lockdown and a severe health crisis. Local trends have continued around this, like the recovery in Brazil in the construction industry and the general recession in Argentina.

SNIC’s president has said that making and selling cement needn’t be exclusive with public health measures. He’s right but Brazil’s surging case load is an outlier compared with most of its continental neighbours and the rest of the world. Cement sectors in countries with growing economies like Peru and Colombia are expected to bounce back quicker than those with stagnant ones like Argentina. The risk for Brazil is what its government health strategy will do to the construction sector in the second half of 2020.

Colombia: Ordinary Portland Cement production grew by 4% year-on-year to 3.05Mt in the first quarter of 2019 from 2.93Mt in the same period in 2018. Data from DANE, the Colombian statistics authority, shows that deliveries to the local market increased slightly, by 3%, to 2.94Mt.

Good news for Cemex Colombia this week with an agreement reached to open its Maceo cement plant in Antioquia. Local media was reporting that the cement producer has struck a government-brokered deal with CI Calizas y Minerales to lease the land it built its plant on. Finally, the new(ish) US$350m integrated plant can start operation.

For those unfamiliar with the debacle, Cemex has been fighting the fallout publicly since 2016, following a dodgy land deal at the site. The 1Mt/yr integrated Maceo plant was originally announced in 2014 with full operation scheduled for late 2016. Then, in October 2016 Cemex fired several senior staff members in relation to the project and its subsidiary’s chief executive resigned. This followed an internal audit and investigation into payments worth around US$20m made to a non-government third party in connection with the acquisition of the land, mining rights and benefits of the tax free zone for the project. Other irregularities are also alleged to be linked to the project. As well as the Colombian authorities being involved, the US Department of Justice is also running its own investigation into the affair with wider implications for Cemex’s operations in other Latin American countries. Some of the sacked staff members and others have since been investigated on corruption charges.

Graph 1: Cement production in Colombia, 2010 – 2018. Source: DANE.

Looking at the wider Colombian market though, it does make one wonder whether the long-delayed plant is really necessary. As Graph 1 shows, cement production rose steadily year-on-year to 2015 before it hit a downturn. It reached a high of 13Mt in 2015 before declining. Production in 2018 grew slightly compared to 2017 but not at the same rate seen previously. In Antioquia specifically despatches increased by 1.3% in 2018, above the national average of 0.2%. Despatches now appear to have continued into January and February 2019.

Cemex Colombia started to benefit from an improved fourth quarter in 2018 as the general economy picked up. Despite this its overall net sales and operating earnings fell in 2018. However, it did flag its earnings margin as a concern with higher freight and energy costs in the fourth quarter of 2018, although it partially offset this with higher prices. Cementos Argos, the other big producer in Colombia, reported a similar picture to Cemex, although in a better position. Its cement volumes fell slightly for the year in 2018 but picked up fast in the fourth quarter. Annual revenue was down slightly, as were adjusted earnings. In its opinion the construction industry improved in the second half of 2018 due to an improved housing market and infrastructure projects.

Given the downturn in production since 2015 the thought does occur whether the opening of the Maceo plant being delayed accidentally helped Cemex or not. It has probably been losing money by not running the plant but if, for example, the company had some sort of insurance to protect it against unexpected delays it might still benefit. However, if evidence of serious wider misconduct in both Colombia and other Latin American countries are found by the US authorities, then things could get expensive. This would be unfortunate, particularly in Colombia, given that the market looks set to recover.

Colombia: Ordinary Portland Cement production grew by 1.2% year-on-year to 12.5Mt in 2018 from 12.3Mt in 2017. Data from DANE, the Colombian statistics authority, shows that deliveries to the local market increased slightly, by 0.2%, to 12Mt. Production grew faster in December 2018 on a year-on-year basis with 6.8% growth.

Colombia: DANE, Colombia's national department for statistics, has announced that sales of grey cement stood at 0.94Mt between January and June 2018, which represented an increase of 3.6% compared to the same period of 2017. A DANE report indicated a gradual recovery of the sector after a sales drop of 10% registered in March 2018. However, the Colombian Association of Concrete Producers (Asocreto) has predicted that consumption would close the year with similar results to those posted in 2017, when sales were lower than in 2015 and 2016.