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We end 2023 with the news that CRH and Barro Group are preparing to acquire AdBri in Australia. The two companies have teamed up to buy all the ordinary shares in the building materials company that they do not already own for about US$750m. Barro already owns a 43% stake in AdBri and CRH owns just under 5% via a cash settled derivative. The plan is for CRH to buy the remaining shares so it ends up with a 57% holding in total. It requires shareholder approval at AdBri, regulatory consent and other conditions to be met to move forward.

Barro Group has been increasing its stake gradually in AdBri over the last 25 years. It hit 43% in 2019 and subsequently the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) investigated it. Barro Group’s course was cleared in 2020, with the ACCC determining that the acquisition would not ‘substantially lessen’ competition in the market between the two companies that overlap for the supply of cement, ready-mixed concrete and aggregates. It also found Barro and AdBri would continue to face competition locally from Boral, Holcim and Hanson. However the ACCC added that it might reopen its investigation if it received further information that altered its conclusion at that time.

The dynamic between Barro Group and AdBri is complicated because they are, at present, both partners and rivals. Barro owns a significant minority stake in AdBri, and its managing director, Raymond Barro, became the chair of the latter company in 2019. The two companies operate a joint venture, Independent Cement and Lime, which distributes cement and lime in Victoria and New South Wales, and runs a slag cement grinding plant in Melbourne. They sell goods to each other too. Yet Barro Group and AdBri also compete against each other, principally in the sale of concrete. Comments made by Raymond Barro to the Australian Financial Review newspaper indicate that this competition looks set to continue even if CRH and Barro Group buy AdBri, given the family ownership structure of the former company. To this end AdBri set up a governance framework for its board in 2015 in part to handle the interaction between the business interests of itself and Barro Group, and this was further revised in 2019. Due to this convoluted relationship, it set up an independent board committee to assess the current proposal from CRH and Barro Group with Barro family nominee directors removed from the consideration process. It then approved the proposal to the next step of negotiations.

The general consensus is that the CRH-Barro Group deal looks likely to succeed. CRH has a limited presence in Australia and Barro Group’s ownership of AdBri doesn’t seem to change much under the limited details released publicly about the proposal. Potential problems could arise from a rival bidder, if the ACCC decided to re-evaluate the situation or if the Foreign Investment Review Board became involved, but we’ll have to wait and see about these. AdBri owns two of the country’s five clinker plants, both in South Australia. Subsidiary Cockburn Cement also used to produce clinker at its Munster plant in Western Australia but this moved over to grinding-only in the mid-2010s. The company also runs three grinding plants. One of these, Cockburn Cement’s Kwinana plant, has been undergoing a costly upgrade project that overshot its original estimate. Purely in terms of active integrated cement production capacity, this places the deal at US$875/t, a high figure but not as much as CRH stumped up to buy Martin Marietta Materials’ South Texas business in November 2023.

This then leads to how CRH and Barro Group might interact running the business in the future. CRH is by far the bigger company, in charge of a multinational building materials concern, and among the world’s largest producers of cement and concrete outside of China. Its decision to make a large acquisition outside of Europe and North America marks a turning point in its growth strategy since the late 2010s. In a statement, CRH’s head Albert Manifold was quick to compare how Australia was “similar in nature to the Southern US and Central and Eastern Europe where we have a significant presence.” Barro Group, meanwhile, has doggedly been taking over AdBri bit by bit over a quarter of a century. What it gains from the current proposal is mostly unknown, but simplifying the ownership structure and delisting from the Australian Stock Exchange could offer a number of advantages to it. Their ambitions appear aligned for the moment but this may not stay the case forever.

That’s it from Global Cement Weekly for 2023. Enjoy the seasonal break if you have one. Global Cement Weekly will return on 3 January 2024.

India: Ambuja Cements has appointed Manoj Kumar Sharma as its Chief Human Resources Officer. He has worked in human resources since the 1980s with a 12-year stint at Aditya Birla Group from the early 1990s. He also holds management experience at a number of Adani Group subsidiaries since the late 2000s including senior postings at Adani Infra, Adani Power, Adani Green Energy and Adani Electricity. Sharma is a graduate of DAV College in Chandigarh and holds post-graduate credentials.

India: Hemadri Cements has appointed K Suryanarayanan as its chief financial officer (CFO). He is a qualified chartered accountant who holds over 25 years professional experience. Suryanarayanan has previously worked as a CFO for companies including Lancor Holdings, Accel, GET Power and VVD Group.

Hemadri Cements manages an integrated cement plant at Jaggayyapet in Andra Pradesh.

Norway: Geminor has appointed Kasper Thomsen as its Operations Director. He has worked for Geminor since 2016, first as a Logistics Manager and then as the Country Manager for Denmark. Prior to this Thomsen worked in logistics roles for Frode Laursen and Nagel Danmark.

Norway-based Geminor is a recycling company focusing on refuse-derived fuel (RDF), solid recovered fuel (SRF) and hazardous waste for energy recovery. It also deals in recycled waste wood, paper and cardboard, plastic and other types of waste for material recycling in Europe. It runs logistic hubs and offices in Scandinavia, Finland, the UK, Germany, France, Poland, Spain and Italy.

Nigeria: BUA Cement has reportedly stated operations on the new 3Mt/yr Line 5 at its Sokoto cement plant. Local media has reported that inauguration will follow in January 2024, as scheduled.

UAE: Fujairah Cement Industries has announced an upcoming temporary suspension of despatches of cement from its Fujairah cement plant, commencing on 1 January 2024. Sales will remain suspended until at least mid-February 2024 to the start of March 2024. During the suspension, the producer will carry out a ‘major’ refurbishment of the plant.

Australia: Adbri has entered into an agreement to obtain a new limestone carrier for its South Australian cement operations, to replace its MV Accolade II vessel currently in operation there. Specifically, the new carrier will supply raw materials for the Birkenhead cement plant. It is 100% battery electric capable. Adbri has hired marine transport company CSL to supply and operate the vessel. The contract will last until 2043, with the option for two five-year extensions.

Adbri chief executive officer Mark Irwin said “The new vessel will support Adbri to increase cement volumes at Birkenhead, while also supporting the production of lower carbon products such as EvoCem cement, which uses limestone as a clinker substitute.” He continued “The new vessel is expected to start operations with a hybrid system, where electric power will replace about 25% of its diesel fuel. This is expected to reduce Scope 1 emissions by about 40% compared to the current emission intensity seen in the Accolade II operation. By 2031, we aim to achieve 100% electric power capability, further reducing Scope 1 emissions to less than 10% of the current emission intensity seen in the Accolade II operation. This milestone is a crucial step forward in our on-going net zero emission journey.”

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies and the Scientific and Technical Centre for Building (CSTB) have extended their current strategic partnership for a further three years. The partners plan to assess current and future technologies, in particular with regard to clay-based cement technologies, such as Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies’ H-EVA and H-P2A cement products.

Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies co-founders Julien Blanchard and David Hoffmann said "We are convinced that our extended partnership and shared planning will keep on providing us with optimised timeframes for certifying our promising future clay-based technologies, such as H-EVA and H-P2A. We look forward to bringing these new technologies to market, as they, like our current technologies, benefit from very strong interest."

UK: Cemex’s corporate venture capital and open innovation unit Cemex Ventures has increased its stake in green hydrogen production technology developer HiiROC. Cemex Ventures described hydrogen as a ‘breakthrough approach’ to CO₂ reduction in the cement sector.

Head of Cemex Ventures Gonzalo Galindo said "This news comes at a critical moment, when COP28 has brought the world together to address and refocus the climate agenda and buckle down on the responsibility of governments and private corporations to deliver on their decarbonisation objectives ahead of 2030. With our increased investment in HiiROC, we are especially proud to be number one in the use of hydrogen in the cement sector and are committed to keep scouting new ways to deploy hydrogen at a grand scale at Cemex’s 60 cement and grinding plants.”

Canada: A provincial offences court has fined Heidelberg Materials Canada US$142,000 for ‘failing to take every precaution reasonable in circumstances under which three contractors were injured at its Picton cement plant. The workers were reportedly injured in a flash fire while replacing the plant’s jet air blower, after company engineers mistakenly overrode digital signals on both open valves between the gas supply and the area where the repair was taking place.