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The US government proposed placing tariffs on cement this week as part of its slowly-escalating trade war against China. The latest list will face a 10% tariff from the end of August 2018 following a consultation period. Of relevance to the cement industry, it will include limestone flux, quicklime, slaked lime, gypsum, anhydrite, clinkers of Portland, aluminous, slag, supersulfate and similar hydraulic cements, white Portland cement, Portland cement, aluminous cement, slag cement, refractory cements, additives for cement, cement based building materials and more.

Graph 1: Imports of hydraulic cement and clinker to the US from China, 2012 – 2017. Source: United States Geologic Survey (USGS).

Graph 2: Major exporters of hydraulic cement and clinker (Mt) to the US in 2017. Source: United States Geologic Survey (USGS).

At face value it seems unlikely that the tariffs will do much direct damage to the cement sectors in either China or the US. United States Geological Survey (USGS) data reports that the US imported 2Mt of cement and clinker from China in 2017 out of a total of 13.6Mt of imports. China was the third-largest exporter of cement to the US after Canada and Greece. Given the mammoth size of the Chinese cement industry - it sold 2.3Bnt in 2017 according to National Bureau of Statistics of China - it is unlikely that losing this export stream will cause the sector to lose much sleep. If the exports are coming from smaller producers though it might well impact upon them disproportionally. Any potential shortfall in the US is likely to be met by any number of the world’s overproducing cement nations. Vietnam, Iran (!) and Indonesia are the first few candidates that spring to mind.

The other point to consider from the USGS data is that the value of the cement imported from China in 2017 was on the cheaper side. Altogether the value of Chinese imported cement came to US$132m in 2017. Yet it was the fifth cheapest for cost, insurance and freight per tonne out of 32 importing countries. Add a 10% tariff to that and it is still only the eighth cheapest. If these figures represent reality then it seems unlikely that tariffs will cause the Chinese imports to slow down much.

All of this pretty much fits the general impression of China as a country that produces the most cement in the world but it actually exports very little of it. Consultancies like Ad and Marcia Ligthart’s Cement Distribution Consultants have made a point of downplaying China’s export market in recent years due to a lack of deep water terminals for plants and a general inward focus. Yet the sheer amount of production capacity could have big implications if it ever does get properly connected to the sea.

Other products facing the new tariffs that have relevance for the cement industry include input materials like gypsum or secondary cementitious materials (SCM) like slag and fly ash. Gypsum isn’t likely to be a concern given the presence of established exporters in Canada, Spain, Thailand, Oman and the like. SCMs are more mercurial but don’t appear to be too intrinsic to the US market. Ferrous slag imports grew to 2Mt in 2015 according to USGS data but the main sources were Japan, Canada, Spain and Germany. Charles Zeynel of ZAG International at the Global Slag Conference 2018 posited that Chinese exports comprised up to 6Mt or 25% of the world market of traded international slag.

All of this suggests a symbolic nature to the US tariffs on Chinese cement and related products. Perhaps the real news story to have noted this week was the framework agreement signed between Denmark’s FLSmidth and China’s China National Building Material (CNBM), the world’s largest cement producer and one of its larger cement equipment manufacturers.

Typically many of the new cement plant projects Global Cement has reported upon recently involve a Chinese contractor that may or may not be using European engineering from companies like FLSmidth who previously would have been managing the build themselves. The point here is that new plants, production lines and upgrades at US cement plants might well be built by a Chinese company through its European partners. The new upgrade to Lehigh Hanson’s Mitchell plant in Indiana has been budgeted at US$600m. This is far more than the value of Chinese cement imported into the US in 2017.

Cameroon: Benoît Galichet has been appointed as the director general of Cimencam. He succeeds Pierre Damnon, according to the Agence de Presse Africaine. Galichet, a French national, is aged 47 years. He will oversee the commissioning of the cement producer’s new cement grinding plant at Nomayo and the continued promotion of the company’s ‘Multi-X’ cement product.

LafargeHolcim holds a 55% stake in Cimencam, the government holds a 43% stake and employees hold the remaining 2% share.

Germany: Bernd Scheubel retired from Refratechnik at the start of May 2018.

He started his career at the technical centre of Krupp Polysius (TKIS) in New Beckum. After five years working there as a mineralogist he joined Refratechnik in 1987, starting as a sales manager for South America. In 1998 he was appointed a member of executive management of Refratechnik Cement in Goettingen. In 2003 Scheubel joined the management board of Refratechnik Holding at Ismaning near Munich, the position he held until he retired.

The main focus of his work was the expansion of the international refractory business of Refratechnik in the Americas and East Asia, mainly in China. In addition he held positions at the executive boards of the World Refractory Association and the European Refractory Association.

Germany: Thomas Spitzenpfeil has been appointed as the chief financial officer of Schenck Process Group with effect from 1 October 2018. He will also join the management board of the company. Spitzenpfeil will be responsible for the company’s global finance and IT organisation and will work alongside Andreas Evertz, president and chief executive officer (CEO). He will replace Eric Jaschke as CFO, who has decided to leave the company at the end of 2018 for personal reasons.

Spitzenpfeil has 14 years’ experience as the CFO of large international businesses in the manufacturing sector. For the past eight years, he was the CFO of Carl Zeiss, the global technology group in optics and optic-electronics with 27,000 employees.

He started his career at Robert Bosch in 1990 and thereafter held various commercial roles at VIAG, Kodak and Hydro Aluminium/VAW-Aluminium. Prior to joining Carl Zeiss AG, he served for six years as the CFO of Zumtobel in Austria. At Carl Zeiss, his role comprised responsibility for finance and controlling, audit and risk management, consolidation and accounting, IT, digital innovation, financial services, facility management, logistics, central production and US shared services.

Jaschke joined the company in 1999 and held various roles with focus on local and international accounting and controlling responsibilities in Germany and Australia. He was appointed as CFO of Schenck Process in September 2015.

Germany: Schmersal Group has appointed Andreas Balack as the new manager of its South Germany sales region. The 44-year old holds over 20 years of sales experience with knowledge of the plastics processing sector. He previously worked as the deputy sales manager at a company selling safe automation technology. At Schmersal he manages a team of 25 people, comprising customer service employees, product managers and engineers.

Vietnam: The Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (Vicem) exported the majority of its cement sales in the first half of 2018. The government-owned cement producer’s sales rose by 10.1% to 14.2Mt, according to the Viet Nam News newspaper. However, 11.7Mt of this figure was exported. The company’s cement and clinker production rose by 8.5% to 10.2Mt and 6.4% to 11.6Mt respectively.

Vietnam: The government of Quang Ngai has threatened to shut the Dai Viet-Dung Quat cement plant if it does not improve its dust emissions. 107 households living within 50m of the unit have been moved but more than 1600 households remain close to the site, according to the Vietnam News Agency. The 0.5Mt/yr cement plant started operation in 2015.

India: UltraTech Cement’s consolidated net sales rose by 27% year-on-year to US$1.3bn in the quarter that ended on 30 June 2018 from US$1.01bn in the same period in 2017. However, its profit after tax dropped by 30% to US$92m from US$131m.

The cement producer also said that it agreed to buy the cement assets of Century Textiles & Industries in the reported quarter and that it commissioned a 1.75Mt/yr grinding unit at its Manawar plant in Dhar District, Madhya Pradesh.

Peru: Cement production in Peru rose by 1.7% year-on-year to 4.8Mt in the first half of 2018 from 4.7Mt in the same period in 2016. Local despatches grew by 2% to 4.6Mt from 4.5Mt, according to data from Asociación de Productores de Cemento (Asocem). Clinker exports increased nearly six times to 0.6Mt from 0.1Mt.

Czech Republic: The Czech Cement Association reports that production grew by 2.5% year-on-year to 4Mt in 2017. Cement consumption grew by 3.5% to 3.95Mt in the same period, according to the Czech News Agency. Exports fell by 6.5% to 0.55Mt. The majority of this output went to Slovakia, a minority to Germany and the remainder to Poland and Austria. Imports increased by 19.2% to 0.55Mt, mostly coming from Slovakia and Poland.

Association members include Ceskomoravsky Cement, Cement Hranice na Morave, Cemex and Lafarge Cement. Each of these companies operates integrated plants locally.