
Displaying items by tag: Haiti
Cemex to divest operations in the Dominican Republic
06 August 2024Dominican Republic: Cemex has signed an agreement to sell its operations in the Dominican Republic to Cementos Progreso Holdings and partners for US$950m. The sale includes a cement plant with a capacity of 2.4Mt/yr, 12 concrete plants, a quarry and two distribution centres, as well as export businesses to Haiti.The divestment is expected to finalise in the fourth quarter of 2024, pending closing conditions.
Fernando Gonzalez, CEO of Cemex, said "This transaction advances us significantly in our portfolio rebalancing strategy which is focused on reducing our exposure in emerging markets and redeploying capital into growth investments in priority markets, primarily the US."
Colombia: Cementos Argos has introduced a share price recovery programme at the same time it has released its financial results for 2022. It plans to spend around US$50m on a share buy-back program. Its sales revenue rose by 24% year-on-year to US$2.37bn from US$1.92bn. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 7% to US$422m from US$396m. However, its net income dropped by 14% to US$81.7m from US$95.5m due to mounting financial expenses. Its cement sales volumes fell by 3.7% to 16.2Mt in 2022 from 16.8Mt in 2021.
The group blamed the decline in cement sales volumes on problems in the Haitian market as well as lower trading volumes to the Caribbean and Central America region. Sales volumes of cement and revenue grew in the US but earnings fell. In Colombia, local cement sales volumes fell but were boosted overall by exports.
Highest ever sales for Cementos Argos
10 November 2022Colombia: Cementos Argos has reported record sales and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the first nine months of 2022. Sales for the period reached US$1.73bn, with EBITDA reaching US$306m. In terms of shipments, Cementos Argos delivered 12.3Mt of cement, 2% less than in the first nine months of 2021. It delivered 5.8Mm3/yr of concrete, a year-on-year rise of 9%.
Juan Esteban Calle, president of the company, said "We are excited to deliver positive results to our shareholders that show that the strategies we are implementing, in terms of deleveraging, efficiency, network integration logistics and price recovery, are bearing fruit. Amid strong inflationary pressures in all markets, we were able to expand profitability and margins versus last year."
During the third quarter of 2022 the company saw revenues of US$414m in the US market, an increase of 23% compared to the third quarter of 2021. Its EBITDA in the US for the quarter increased by 26% to US$77m. It said that 'solid' demand helped it to increase cement sales volumes by 6% to 1.6Mt, while concrete sales rose by 4% to 1.1Mm3.
In its native Colombia, revenues reached US$143m, a year-on-year increase of 11%, with EBITDA at US$32.1m. During the three-month period, cement shipments remained stable, while the concrete business has continued its sustained recovery, supported by infrastructure and formal housing projects. The company highlighted that exports from Cartagena grew by 37% to reach 319,000t, the highest quarterly figure in the company's history.
In the Caribbean and Central America revenues rose by 8% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022 to reach US$136m, with EBITDA stable year-on-year at US£31m. However, cement shipments decreased by 13% to 1.0Mt. Cementos Argos said that this was partly due to serious social disruption in Haiti, as well as a change of government in Honduras and scheduled maintenance in the Dominican Republic. However, the company saw a 59% increase in concrete shipments to 77,000m3.
Algeria: Groupe des Ciments d'Algérie (GICA) has obtained a certificate of conformity with European standards (CE) for three types of cement. The certification should allow the company to export more products to Europe, according to the Expression newspaper. It applies to its Gica Moudhad and Gica Béton products. The move follows similar certification of products with the Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR) from the company’s Aïn El Kebira plant in July 2021. At the same time the Minister of Industry said it was helping the group with its export strategy.
In 2021 GICA exported 2.25Mt of cement to countries including the Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Mauritania, Senegal , Cameroon, Benin, Guinea, Brazil, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and a number of European countries.
Turkish coal imports, March 2022
09 March 2022Türkçimento’s Volkan Bozay took to the airwaves last week to raise the issues that the war in Ukraine is causing for Turkey-based cement producers. The head of the Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association explained, to the local Bloomberg HT channel, that the dramatic jump in the price of Newcastle Coal posed a serious threat to the sector. The price jumped nearly US$100/t in a single day in early March 2022. Bozay said that the cost of cement from a plant using imported coal would consequently rise by around US$15/t. He added that the association’s members had an average of 15 – 20 days of coal stocks.
Graph 1: Price of coal, March 2020 – March 2021. Source: Trading Economics.
In a separate press release Türkçimento revealed that Turkey, as a whole, imported approximately US$1.5bn of coal from Russia in 2021. The cement industry imported about 5Mt of coal in 2021, from all sources, although the majority of this came from Russia. Coal shipments from Russia since the start of the war were reported as ‘very limited or even not possible.’ It was further explained that each US$10/t increase in the price of coal put up plant production costs by US$1.5/t of cement.
Naturally Bozay’s appearance on a television news show carried a lobbying aspect. He called for government import standards – such as the sulphur ratio, lower heating values and volatile matter limits - to be relaxed to allow coal to be imported more freely from sources such as Colombia, Indonesia and South Africa. There was also a push to let in more alternative fuels such as tyres and waste-derived fuels. The bit that Bozay didn’t mention though was how many of his members had long term coal supply contracts in place to cushion them, from short term price inflation at least. Yet, if coal shipments from Russia have simply stopped, then the price is irrelevant. A cement kiln configured to run on coal stops when it uses up its stocks.
Turkey was the world’s fifth largest cement producer in 2021 according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). Türkçimento data shows that in 2020 it exported 145,000t of cement to Russia by sea. Overall it exported 16.3Mt of cement and 13.5Mt of clinker. The US, Israel, Syria, Haiti and Libya were the top destinations for cement. Notably, Ukraine was the sixth largest recipients of cement, with 752,000t imported, although anti-dumping legislation introduced in mid-2021 looked set to reduce it until the war started. Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Cameroon and Belgium were the principal recipients of clinker. Cumulative cement exports for the year to October 2021 were up by 3% year-on-year compared to the first 10 months of 2020. Clinker exports were down by 27% though. Overall domestic production and sales in Turkey rose by 9.5%, suggested an estimated production figure of 79Mt for 2021.
Other fallout in the cement sector from the war in Ukraine this week included Ireland-based CRH’s decision to quit the Russian market. It entered the region in 1998 through a subsidiary based in Finland and was operating seven ready-mixed concrete plants via its LujaBetomix joint venture. CRH says that all operations in Russia have now stopped. In 2021 it sold its lime business in Russia, Fels Izvest, to Russia-based Bonolit. Although selling concrete plants is not trivial, these are far cheaper assets than clinker production lines. Germany-based HeidelbergCement, Italy-based Buzzi Unicem and Switzerland-based Holcim each operate at least one integrated cement plant in Russia. So far these companies have publicly expressed dismay at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Ukraine and made donations to the Red Cross.
Graph 2: European Union Emission Trading Scheme price, 2020 – March 2022. Source: Sandbag.
Finally, one more surprise this week has been a crash in the European Union (EU) Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) carbon price from a high of Euro96/t in early February 2022 to Euro58/t on 7 March 2022. As other commentators have stated, normally the carbon price would be expected to follow the energy market, but this hasn’t happened. Instead investors have pulled out, possibly to maintain liquidity for other markets.
With the US set to ban Russian oil, gas and coal imports and phase-outs to varying degrees promised by the UK and the EU in 2022, we can expect more turbulence from energy markets in the coming days. As the Turkish example above shows, all of this can... and will... have effects on cement production.
Algeria: Groupe des Ciments d'Algérie (GICA) has completed the export of 41,000t of clinker to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Algeria Press Service has reported that the company exported the clinker, produced at the Hadjar Soud (SCHS) cement plant, from the port of Annaba.
Chief executive officer (CEO) Youcef Merabet said, “Hadjar Soud cement plant, which operates two production lines totalling 0.9Mt/yr of cement production capacity, will promote its exports in 2021 especially as the demand for clinker will exceed 200,000t.”
Caribbean Cement exports clinker to Haiti
03 September 2019Haiti: Jamaica’s Caribbean Cement has begun exporting clinker to Haiti. The Jamaica Observer reports that the first shipment of 7500t of clinker was of surplus material from the company’s 1.3Mt/yr Rockfort Plant. The plant has received US$162m in capital expenditure since 30 June 2015.
José Antonio Cabrera appointed president of Cemex Dominicana
30 January 2019Dominican Republic: Cemex has appointed José Antonio Cabrera as the president of Cemex Dominicana. He succeeds Alejandro Ramírez, who has been named president of Cemex Colombia, according to the El Nuevo Dia newspaper. The business has operations in the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Puerto Rico.
Cabrera previously served as Vice President of Strategic Planning at Cemex Egypt, as well as Vice President of Strategic Planning for Cemex's Asia, Middle East and Africa (AMEA) region. He first joined Cemex in 2000 and has held positions including Commercial and Operations Director of Cemex Spain and Project Manager of Strategic Planning for Cemex Spain and the Mediterranean region.
Cement exports to Haiti from Dominican Republic wane
19 January 2018Haiti: Cement exports from the Dominican Republic to Haiti have fallen significantly following an import ban introduced in October 2015. Data from the Adocem, the cement association of the Dominican Republic, shows that almost a third of cement produced in the country was exported to Haiti, according to Diario Libre. However this fell to 16.1% by November 2017. Local cement production is 4.77Mt with 3.82Mt sold domestically and the rest exported.
Dominican Republic: Alejandro Ramirez Cantu has been appointed as the president of Cemex Dominican Republic. Ramirez succeeds Carlos Emilio Gonzalez, who has held the position since 2011, according to the Diario Libre newspaper. Ramirez will also be responsible for the operations of Cemex in Bahamas and Haiti. He has worked for the building materials producer since 2000, managing operations in Thailand, Puerto Rico and Costa Rica.