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Lots of facts stuck out from the inaugural Global GypSupply Conference that took place in Brussels last week. One was that Spain exported 1.49Mt of raw gypsum to West Africa in 2016. The data point from Spanish customs popped up in a presentation by Mohamed El Moustapha, the managing director of a gypsum mining company based in Mauritania. He was using the figures to reinforce the opportunities for his company to supply the growing cement industry in West Africa. Yet the size of the market has implications for the oft-repeated claims of cement sector self-sufficiency that various countries in the region have cried out for.

Gypsum is used as a retarding agent to control the setting time of cement. It gets added whilst clinker is ground into cement. Roughly speaking, cement production requires about 5% of gypsum. So a 1Mt/yr cement plant would require around 50,000t/yr of gypsum. The crucial question for cement producers in West Africa is where is this gypsum coming from. Given that the Global Cement Directory 2018 places cement production capacity at just under 100Mt/yr in the region, this requires around just under 5Mt/yr of gypsum.

El Moustapha made out that there were no gypsum deposits in West Africa. This contradicts a study on Nigerian gypsum mining published in Global Gypsum Magazine in March 2016 estimated local reserves to be around 150Mt although to be fair to El Moustapha these appear to be relatively underused. This also doesn’t take into account sources of synthetic gypsum produced at coal-power plants although this is likely to be negligible at present.

Reserves in Mauritania appear to be much larger at 1.7Bnt. Instead, the problem here appears to be assisting the exploitation of mined gypsum by improving infrastructure and supply chain issues. El Moustapha’s company Samia reported that it exported 170,00t of gypsum to cement plants in West Africa, mainly via ship, but with a significant minority via truck overland to Mali. Another speaker at the conference from the Moroccan gypsum trader Cultura presented a snapshot of a more mature market with exports of 210,000t in 2017. However, similar issues with port infrastructure were also present. To this end the company was keenly looking forward to an upgrade project the Port of Safi due for commissioning in 2020 – 2022 that would allow larger ships to berth.

A market report on the gypsum and anhydrite market by Roskill in 2014 placed Egypt, Algeria and South Africa as Africa’s leading gypsum producers. In particular it singled out South Africa as the only sub-Saharan country producing more than 100,000t/yr of gypsum. In terms of usage of gypsum Roskill estimated that just over half of the world’s gypsum was used to make cement, followed by 38% for wallboard and plaster production and then 18% for agricultural usage. Although this compares to just over a quarter for cement production and most of the rest for wallboard production in the US, with its more developed wallboard market than the rest of the world, according to recent United States Geological Survey (USGS) data.

As the Global GypSupply Conference demonstrated plenty of raw gypsum is available around the world. However, since supply and price can vary considerably in the short term, cement producers are keen to secure steady sources. Developing gypsum sources in northern Africa are necessary to help build the West African cement industry, but the regions need to work together.

The 2nd Global GypSupply Conference will take place in spring 2020

China: Stephen Liu Yiu-keung has resigned as the chairman of Shanshui Cement. He will be succeeded by Li Liufa, according to the Hong Kong Standard newspaper. Other personnel changes include the resignations of Li Heping as an executive director and chief executive, of Han Yike as the chairman and legal representative of Shandong Shanshui Li Heping as vice chairman.

Malaysia: Lafarge Malaysia has appointed Mario Bastian Gross as its chief executive officer (CEO). He will take up his new post on 1 April 2018. He succeeds Thierry Legrand who has been in post since mid-2015.

Gross, a German national aged 39 years, joins Lafarge Malaysia from Sika. He started his career with Sika in 2000 and has global experience with roles across Germany, China, Thailand and Switzerland. He was Asia Pacific Head of Procurement from 2007 to 2011, after which he was appointed Managing Director of Sika in Thailand. In 2013, he took the role Head of Global Procurement, Quality & Sustainability of Sika based in Switzerland.

He holds an MBA from the University of Strathclyde in the UK and a Bachelor of Economics from the VWA Koblenz in Germany.

Burkina Faso: Assam Daoud has become the president of the Burkina Faso Cement Association. The director general of Ciments de l'Afrique (CIMAF) succeeds Hippolyte Guinguéré, the commercial director of Diamond Cement. Daoud will hold the post for one year. The association has also recently inaugurated its new headquarters.

Germany: Aumund Fördertechnik has appointed Reiner Furthmann as its Managing Director Technology. He started the role on 1 March 2018. His main responsibilities are Research & Development, Design & Engineering, Quality Assurance, Production, Materials Management and Purchasing. Furthmann joined Aumund in 1984. His previous role with the company was as its Technical Director.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement’s sales revenue rose in 2017 but its sales volumes of cement fell. Its revenue rose by 31% year-on-year to US$2.23bn in 2017 from US$1.70bn in 2016. However, sales volumes of cement in Nigeria fell by 15.9% to 12.7Mt from 15.1Mt. Altogether, its sales volumes rose by 8.4% to 9.37Mt in the rest of Africa and fell by 7% to 21.9Mt in total. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 50.9% to US$1.08bn from US$713m.

“Although Nigerian volumes were lower in 2017, our Pan-African operations increased volumes by 8.4% and now make up 42% of the Group’s total cement sales, demonstrating the robust diversification of our business,” said Joe Makoju, Acting Group Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Cement. He added that the cement producer had increased its footprint from eight countries to 10 during the reporting period with the opening of new facilities in the Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone, while its operations in Cameroon, Senegal and Ethiopia achieved ‘strong’ sales growth during the year.

Regionally, Dangote Cement said that its estimate for the total Nigerian cement market fell by 18% to 18.6Mt in 2017 due to a recession in the first half of the year and higher prices. It also noted that its Gboko plant in Benue State was mothballed for ‘most of the year.’ Elsewhere, it said that it exported 174,000t of cement from Nigeria to Ghana. In Senegal it introduced 32.5R cement to its product range. In Sierra Leone it opened a 0.5Mt/yr terminal and bagging plant in Freetown in early 2017. In Tanzania it said that its plant at Mtwara had lost earnings due to its reliance on temporary diesel generators. Gas turbines are scheduled to start operation in March 2018.

Indonesia: Indocement has inaugurated a 0.5Mt/yr at Palembang in South Sumatra. The terminal has two cement silos and a packaging plant, according to Warta Ekonomi magazine. The new unit will allow the cement producer to sell bulk cement and it is expected to increase its presence in Sumatra.

Egypt: Egypt Petroleum Technology (EGYPTCO) has received bids from US, Canadian and Saudi Arabian companies to finance two oil well cement production projects with a value of US$500m. An agreement is expected to be reached by mid-2018, according to the Egypt News Daily newspaper. The company is seeking to reopen an existing cement production line and build a new plant to produce both specialist cement and additives.

India: Vijaykumar Iyer, a resolution professional with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India working for Binani Cement, has alleged that fraudulent transactions have taken place involving the promoters of the company. Iyer made an application in mid-March 2018 to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in Kolkata asking the court to take action and ‘appoint an appropriate investigation agency to investigate the directors of Binani Cement and the counter parties,’ according to the Economic Times. Sources quoted by the newspaper say that the application is likely to receive a hearing imminently. Binani Cement has denied the allegations.

Iyer’s application said that he had appointed Haribhakti & Co as a ‘forensic consultant’ in November 2017 for reviewing and identifying ‘suspect’ transactions. He said that since the inception of the corporate insolvency resolution process, he had not been provided access to all the required information and documents. He alleges that Binani Cement made several payments to ‘potentially related and/or connected customers and entities,’ such as Saraswati Sales (SSPL) and US$75.4m was outstanding at the end of November 2017, suggesting that sales were made to SSPL despite the fact that corresponding payments were not made to the corporate debtor. Other inconsistencies were also found suggesting that money was being removed from the business without paying outstanding debts.

Dalmia Bharat beat UltraTech Cement in a bidding war to buy Binani Cement for US$974m in early March 2018 in an auction was run by the National Company Law Tribunal under insolvency proceedings. However, UltraTech Cement has since made a US$1.11bn bid directly to Binani Cement to stop the insolvency process. UltraTech Cement has said it is ‘shocked’ by the allegations by Iyer and that it was unaware of any pending investigations when it made its latest offer.

India: UltraTech Cement has made a new US$1.11bn bid directly to Binani Cement in order to buy it. Binani’s parent company Binani Industries is independently seeking to stop the insolvency proceedings of its cement subsidiary using the money offered by UltraTech Cement in a so called ‘comfort letter.’ In a statement UltraTech Cement said it had in principle agreed to buy 98.5% of the shares of Binani Cement.

However, a consortium led by Dalmia Bharat won an auction for Binani Cement with a bid of US$974m in early March 2018. The auction was run by the National Company Law Tribunal under insolvency proceedings. Binani Cement has since complained that the bidding process was not run on a transparent process, according to the Economic Times newspaper. It added that the ‘shortcomings’ in the insolvency process had prompted the company to look at other options. The on-going struggle by UltraTech Cement and Dalmia Bharat is expected to test local bankruptcy law.