Displaying items by tag: Government

Australia: A report commissioned by the Queensland Ministry of Mines has investigated the causes of all 47 deaths in mines and quarries in the state between 2000 and 2019, concluding that systemic, organisational, supervision or training failures caused the deaths in almost all cases. The report proposed that the state government should require quarry operators to use the Serious Accident Frequency Rate (SAFR) as their metric for health and safety monitoring, calling the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) unreliable because it is prone to manipulation, being “a measure of how the industry manages injuries after they have occurred. It is possible, therefore, to reduce the LTIFR without making the industry safer,” said the report’s author Sean Brady.

In the Australian 2019 financial year, ending 31 July 2019, six people died in Queensland’s quarries and mine.

Spain: LafargeHolcim España says that a planned Euro8m investment to its Sagunto integrated cement plant is dependent on talks with the Valencian local government on the medium and long-term use of its quarry. Plant director José Luis Coleto said that this expenditure is part of a Euro20m package that LafargeHolcim has scheduled for the country until 2022. He added that the plant has spent Euro3.5m on the plant in 2019 on control systems upgrades and installation of an automated laboratory.

Bolivia: Antonio Pino, Vice Minister of Hydrocarbons, says that a new gas pipeline will have to be built to supply the Potosí cement plant at Chiutara. This may delay the start of the new plant to as late as early 2022, according to the El Potosí newspaper. The 1.3Mt/yr integrated unit was previously planned to start operation in February 2020.

The project was supported by the country’s previous government administration through the creation of Empresa Publica Productiva Cementos de Bolivia (ECEBOL. The plant is being built by Sociedad Accidental Imasa Polysius, a joint venture created by Polysius and Imasa.

Cape Verde: Turkey’s OYAK is planning to invest in pozzolan extraction following a meeting between OYAK's Cement Concrete Paper Group chairman Suat Çalbiyik and prime minister Ulisses Correia e Silva. Mining activity has remained muted since Cabocem, an Italian company, closed in 2013, according to Sapo. OYAK has operations in the country via Portugal’s Cimpor, which it acquired in 2019.

Russia: Russian producers sold 2.4Mt of cement in January 2020, up by 9.6% from 2.2Mt in January 2019. This is in line with Unioncement’s optimistic forecast of 6% year-on-year demand growth. The coming construction season promises sustained growth due to the planned renovation of housing stock, the implementation of integrated development projects and an increased share of roads built using cement concrete, in line with the country’s 2020 Housing and Urban Environment programme and President Putin’s social initiatives.

China: The China Commodities Watch 2020 Outlook and Health Check has forecast a ‘one-off impact on operating cash flow’ for Chinese construction materials producers, including cement producers, due to reduced demand during the on-going coronavirus outbreak. “After the outbreak, the government may increase investment in infrastructure,” in order to boost the economy, according to the report.

There have been rumours in the press this week that LafargeHolcim is weighing up its options in South Africa. Reports in the local press allege that the building materials company has tasked Credit Suisse Group with finding a buyer for its business. This may or may not be true, only time will tell, but South Africa certainly feels like a market where LafargeHolcim should be considering its future.

As a prominent but smaller producer in the country, Lafarge South Africa is behind PPC and AfriSam in terms of clinker production capacity. InterCement’s subsidiary Natal Portland Cement and Dangote’s subsidiary Sephaku Cement have a similar production base with an integrated plant each and one or two grinding plants. Halfway through 2019 LafargeHolcim was describing market conditions as ‘difficult’ in the country with it being the sole Sub-Saharan market holding back regional growth for the group. By the third quarter the situation had reportedly improved but net sales and cement sales volumes were flat for the year to date. A clearer picture should emerge when LafargeHolcim publishes its fourth quarter results at the end of February 2020.

PPC provided its view of the market in its half-year results to 30 September 2019. Its estimate was that the South African cement industry declined by 10 - 15% for the period, creating a competitive environment. It added that the situation had been, ‘exacerbated by imports and blender activity.’ Both its revenue and earnings fell year-on-year, although a 30% rise in fuel costs didn’t help either. Sephaku Cement suffered a similar time of it, with a 19% fall in cement sales volumes during the first half, although it reported improvement in the subsequent quarter. Overall, it blamed falling infrastructure investment for pressurising the market and allowing blending activity to mount. Sephaku Cement was also wary of the local carbon tax that started in June 2019 warning of a potential US$2.8m/yr bill.

PPC noted that cement imports had risen by 5% to 0.85Mt in the year to August 2019. This followed a lobbying effort by The Concrete Institute (TCI) in mid-2019 to implore the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) to look into rising imports levels. At the time the TCI’s managing director Brian Perrie expressed incomprehension that a country with six different cement production companies with an over-capacity rate of 30% could be facing this problem. This latest broadside tails South Africa’s previous attempt to fend off imports when it instituted anti-dumping duties of 17 – 70% against importers from Pakistan in 2015. Imports duly fell in 2016 but rose again in 2017 and 2018, mainly from Vietnam and China.

All of this sounds familiar following LafargeHolcim’s departure from the ‘hyper-competitive’ South-East Asian countries in 2019. Those countries also suffered from competition and raging imports. Bloomberg pointed out in a report on the local industry in 2016 that PPC’s, AfriSam’s and LafargeHolcim’s kilns had an average age of 32 years, suggesting that efficiency and maintenance were going to be concerns in the future. Also of note is LargeHolcim’s decision to move its South African operations from one subsidiary, Lafarge Africa, to another, Caricement, in mid-2019.

Some level of market consolidation would certainly help local overcapacity. Plus, surely, LafargeHolcim’s mix of inland integrated capacity and a grinding plant near the coast could prove enticing to some of the Asian companies pumping out all of those imports. The thought on the minds of potential buyers everywhere must be, if LafargeHolcim chief Jan Jenisch was bold enough to sell up in South-East Asia, how can he not in South Africa?!”

India: The government of Andhra Pradesh terminated JC Company subsidiary Trishul Cement’s limestone extraction lease of an area in Konappalapadu, Ananthapurama District, which had previously been extended for five years in 2015, for the company’s failure to establish an integrated cement plant in the area. The state-government also revoked a 20-year lease granted in mid-2007 of a plot of land for a cement plant on which no work had been undertaken. Hans India News has reported that JC Company has dissolved Trishul Cements by incorporation.

Ghana: Carlos Ahenkorah, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, says that government is considering a temporary block on imports on cement. However, he added the catch that it would only do this if local producers could ensure ‘fair’ pricing, according to the News Statesman newspaper. He made the comments at an award dinner organised by CIMAF.

India: 13 employees of Jammu and Kashmir Cements Limited (J&K Cements) have been suspended following an incident in which J&K Cements managing director Ishtiyaq Drabu was locked inside the 0.4Mt/yr J&K Cements Khrew plant, where he says he was ‘held hostage and threatened.’ In a charge sheet against the employees, he further alleged that they had ‘left their place of duty unauthorised’ in order to assemble at the main gate, where the trap was sprung. The Daily Excelsior newspaper has reported that the action was taken by the employees in order to demand payment of their salaries. “The intervention of the police saved my life,” said Drabu.

550 J&K Cements employees have not received wages since December 2018 and US$3.91m is missing from the state-owned producer’s pension fund. Drabu has been able to draw his salary every month since his appointment in January 2019.