Displaying items by tag: Government
Georgia: Georgian Cement Company (GCC) has warned of cement dumping by Iran and Turkey. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim is lobbying the government for protective legislation, according to Prime News. GCC operates a 0.3Mt/yr cement grinding plant at Poti. The country consumes 2.5Mt/yr and 1.5Mt/yr of this comprises imports. HeidelbergCement and Eurocement also operate plants locally.
Calix joins Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition Cooperative Research Centre project in Australia
30 June 2021Australia: Calix has joined as a partner of the Heavy Industry Low-carbon Transition Cooperative Research Centre (HILT CRC). The initiative brings together heavy industry players, government and research and aims to boost the capability of Australian companies to remain globally competitive by capitalising on existing mineral and renewable energy resources to become international producers and exporters of low-carbon products. HILT CRC has secured US$29m from the government. This joins funding of US$158m in direct and in-kind contributions from its partners over the last decade.
“It is a chance for us to demonstrate the technology developed for CO2 mitigation in the production of cement and lime through our European LEILAC-1 and 2 projects in an Australian setting, as well as explore other more sustainable applications for our technology in heavy industry, backed by this impressive team of researchers and industrial participants," said Calix’s managing director Phil Hodgson.
As part of the HILT CRC, Calix will continue to develop its technology for the reduction of carbon emissions from lime and cement production, and also use its Calix Flash Calciner (CFC) technology to develop other more processing applications such as for bauxite processing for the aluminium industry and production of calcined clay from kaolinite for use in new lower carbon cements.
HILT CRC’s core industrial partners include Adbri, Alcoa, Boral, Fortescue, Grange Resources, Liberty, Roy Hill and South32. The initiative has its headquarters in Adelaide and it plans to establish hubs in heavy industry regions of Gladstone, the Pilbara, Northern Tasmania, South Australia’s Upper Spencer Gulf, Western Australia's Kwinana and South West regions, the Southern Highlands of Nnew South Wales and Portland in Victoria.
US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has supported a bipartisan deal between the White House and 21 senators towards a deal on a US$953bn infrastructure package. Sean O’Neill, the PCA’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, said that, “America's economic vitality depends on an integrated, national transportation network that moves goods and people safely and efficiently, while ensuring quality of life and economic prosperity for all citizens.” The PCA added that is has continually advocated for a long-term bipartisan infrastructure package and encouraged both parties in the House of Congress to work towards enacting ‘strong’ bipartisan infrastructure legislation.
UK: The UK government has announced Euro58.2m-worth of funding to support infrastructure spending, targeting innovation and technology projects. This will include a scoping study into developing a CO2 storage testbed that will look at carbon capture and storage on an industrial scale. Other projects include a new radio telescope network, laboratories and Euro18.8m-worth of new digital research infrastructure. The government says that the new infrastructure aims to provide ‘strategic direction’ in the use of science and technology to overcome societal challenges and increase global prosperity. It said that the upgrade will secure the UK’s position as a ‘science superpower’ globally.
Fijian government issues price controls for cement
25 June 2021Fiji: The Fijian Competition and Consumer Commission has issued a price control order for cement with effect from 22 June 2021. It applies to the ex-factory, wholesale and retail supply of cement products in all qualities, quantities, grades and classes, according to the Fiji Times newspaper.
Update on Argentina
23 June 2021Two news stories merit a closer look at Argentina this week. Firstly, Loma Negra fired up the kiln on its new 2.7Mt/yr production line at the L’Amalí cement plant in Olavarría. Work on the US$350m started in 2017 but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Notably, engineers from China-based Sinoma International Engineering, who built the plant, caused a stir when they arrived in Argentina in full personal protective equipment in late 2020 to continue work on the project. Full commissioning of the second line at the plant is scheduled for July or August 2021.
Almost at the same time, the Argentine government announced it had persuaded local building materials producers to stick to reference prices for construction materials, including cement, in order to control inflation. Loma Negra, Cemento Avellaneda and Petroquímica Comodoro Rivadavia (PCR) were said to be on board with the ‘voluntary’ plan. Building materials prices generally were reported to have risen 85% year-on-year in May 2021 compared to a national inflation rate of 49%. The new arrangement is planned to last until the end of 2021 with revisions to the reference prices every two months.
Graph 1: Cement sales in Argentina including imports and exports, 2016 – 2021. Note that the 2021 figure is an estimate. Source: Asociación de Fabricantes de Cemento Portland (AFCP).
Data from the Asociación de Fabricantes de Cemento Portland (AFCP) doesn’t show any obvious signs of disruption from inflation so far in 2021. Cement sales grew by 50.5% year-on-year to 4.55Mt in the five months to May 2021 from 3.02Mt in the same period in 2020. The cement market in Argentina didn’t shut down but it hit a low of 0.41Mt in April 2020 before compensating with a strong second half of the year, most likely due to pent-up demand as the economy reopened following local coronavirus-related lockdowns. At the time of writing the AFCP has forecast that cement sales will reach 11.3Mt in 2021, a slight rise over the 11.1Mt reported in 2019, when the market was more stable. However, cumulative sales to May 2021 are slightly behind similar sales in 2019.
Loma Negra’s upgrade at its L’Amalí plant follows Holcim Argentina’s inauguration of a new 0.5Mt/yr clinker production line at its Malagueño cement plant in Cordoba in May 2021. This project also added a 0.63Mt/yr cement grinding unit at the site as well as a new 120,000 bag/day despatch unit. Altogether it had a price of US$120m. This followed the announcement in late April 2021 that the subsidiary of LafargeHolcim was planning to open 1000 new branches of its Disensa retail chain in the country by 2024.
Loma Negra reported a 13% drop in sales to US$436m in 2020 from US$500m in 2019. However, its adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 3% to US$139m from US$136m. This was partly aided by the sales of its Paraguayan operations during 2020. At face value, Cemento Avellaneda had a tougher time of its in 2020 with its sales down by 22% to Euro111m and EBITDA down by 9% to Euro37m. However, once adjusted on a like-for-like basis with constant currencies and without a hyperinflation adjustment, its sales and earnings actually rose by 22% and 45% respectively.
Holcim Argentina’s director Christian Dedeu was interviewed by national news agency Télam in May 2021 around the time of the upgrade at the Malagueño cement plant was officially completed. When asked by the company had made the investment he said that the country had potential for both the residential and infrastructure sectors. He also pointed out that the subsidiary of Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim had been forced to import clinker at times of high demand previously. The announcements for both the Loma Negra and Holcim Argentina new lines were made at the end of 2017 when the market hit a high in sales volumes. Since then the country has faced rocketing inflation, further delays to it debt repayment programme to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the coronavirus pandemic. Producing more commodities, such as clinker, domestically certainly seems enticing with high inflation and unfavourable foreign currency exchange rates. So, the new production lines from Loma Negra and Holcim Argentina are well timed in this sense unless they get hit by any mounting input costs, from imported raw materials for example. On the other hand the government’s measures to curb inflation such as reference prices for cement may constrain the cement producers’ flexibility. As the local construction industry slowly recovers after 2020, continued uncertainty lies ahead.
Kuwait: The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has banned all export and re-export of cement and other construction materials from Kuwait. However, it has allowed individual citizens to import construction materials for personal use. The ban is part of a raft of a measures intended to stem the increase in building material prices. The Kuwait News Agency has reported that cement prices rose after the resurgence of the coronavirus outbreak in India suspended Indian imports.
The ministry subsidises building materials including cement and concrete. In May 2021 it paid US$45m towards such subsidies. It continues to monitor the cement market and cement production for ‘unlawful’ price rises.
Kuwait’s cement production capacity is 9.0Mt/yr, while 2020 consumption was 6.0Mt.
Cameroon: Two cement trucks masquerading as belonging to a United Nations agency have been seized by customs officials. The smugglers were pretending to be transporting food and pharmaceutical products in transit to Chad, according the Ecofin Agency. The cement is believed to have originated from Nigeria. The operation by customs authorities was part of the ongoing Halcomi (halte au commerce illicite) initiative.
Mozambique: Carlos Mesquita, the Minister of Industry and Trade, has said that the government was expecting the price of cement to fall following the opening of the Chinese-backed Dugongo Cement plant at Matutuine in Maputo province. He made the comment in response to a letter by other cement companies asking for government intervention to keep the price high, according to the Journal Notícias newspaper. They alleged that the newcomer is breaking competition legislation. The price of cement has reportedly dropped by as much as 70% since the new plant opened in May 2021.
“We, as a government, know what we’re doing,” said Mesquita. “We have been saying, with regard to cement and to other industries, that we have to assess the costs of production in order to arrive at adequate profit margins and a reliable final price.” He added that Dugongo Cement is the only cement producer currently producing clinker locally.
US: The California Senate has voted in favour of a proposed bill which will require the State Air Resources Board to develop a plan for the state’s cement producers to achieve net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by the end of 2045. A 40% reduction compared to 2019 levels would also be mandated by the end of 2035. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NDRC), an environmental advocacy group that is sponsoring the bill, has called for measures such as requiring public construction projects to use reduced-CO2 cement and establishing purely performance-based specifications for legally defining cement to be adopted by the eventual strategy if the bill passes into state law. The proposed bill will next move to the California State Assembly as part of the local legislative process.