Displaying items by tag: HeidelbergCement
New technical development manager joins Hanson Cement
30 March 2016UK: Hanson Cement has appointed Robert Keough as technical development manager at its cement plant in Ketton, Lincolnshire. His role will involve promoting the sustainability credentials of concrete specifications and emphasising the use of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) as a sustainable cement replacement product.
Keough has two years’ experience working for Hanson UK’s parent company, HeidelbergCement Group, as an engineer in training, giving him a firm foundation in the organisation’s values. During this time he worked in the continuous improvement team where he focused on reducing costs and increasing operational performance across the aggregates business.
Keough, aged 26 years, holds a bachelors degree in chemistry with management from the University of Bath and a master’s degree in minerals engineering from the University of Exeter. He holds experience with the financial services company Hargreaves Lansdown.
Italy: Italian economic development minister Federica Guidi is scheduled to meet with Bernd Scheifele, CEO of HeidelbergCement, to discuss its acquisition of Italcementi. The transaction has been closely followed by the minister since its announcement and Guidi had already met Scheifele in the early stages of the process, according to the Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper. HeidelbergCement had asked for more time to complete competition requirements at the European level before this latest meeting.
Germany: HeidelbergCement has issued a Eurobond with a value of Euro1bn and a maturity date of 30 March 2023. The international bond has a fixed coupon of 2.25%/yr.
The proceeds from the bond will be used to pre-fund the upcoming Italcementi acquisition and other general corporate purposes. Subsequently, the bridge financing for the takeover will be reduced from Euro2.7bn to Euro2bn. The bridge financing will be refinanced by free cash flow, the sale of production sites and the issuance of bonds.
Court annuls information request by European Commission into cement company competition probe
11 March 2016Europe: The European Court of Justice has annulled a request for information by the European Commission into several cement producers in a cartel probe. The judgement could restrict the competition watchdog's investigative powers, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
The commission opened an antitrust investigation in late 2010 looking at the activities of Cemex, Holcim, Lafarge, HeidelbergCement and others. Originally the cement companies were suspected by the commission of colluding with rivals to fix prices and share markets in Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. However, the investigation was closed in mid-2015 due to insufficient evidence. Since then the cement producers have challenged the commission’s right to ask for the level of detail they requested. The ruling overturns a 2014 decision by the EU's General Court, which said the commission questionnaires were justified.
Lehigh Southwest Cement Company orders cement mill upgrade from FLSmidth for Tehachapi plant
29 February 2016US: The Lehigh Southwest Cement Company has ordered a cement mill upgrade from FLSmdith for its Tehachapi cement plant in California. The upgrade is planned to increase cement-grinding capacity at the plant by 23% by installing and using the hydraulic roller press for pre-grinding.
The scope of contract for the engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) project including engineering, a new clinker bin, heavy duty roller press HRP-C 1.25 with its auxiliaries, weigh feeder, set of belt conveyors, nuisance filters, bucket elevators and new electrical room for this circuit. The project will also use the new FLSmidth Tribomax wear surface. H&M Construction will provide the civil/structural engineering and construction portion of the work, working for FLSmidth. This will be the first roller press supplied in North America for FLSmidth in the last two decades.
"Our customers focus on productivity. They want high utilisation rates and minimum downtime. Wear parts are one of the key components when it comes to reducing overall maintenance cost and wear solutions like Tribomax reduce the total cost of ownership of the equipment considerably," said FLSmidth Executive Vice President for the Cement Division, Per Mejnert Kristensen.
Deliveries for the project will begin in the third quarter of 2016 and the roller press is expected to be in operation by April 2017.
Global CemFuels Awards 2016 announces winners
26 February 2016Czech Republic: The Global CemFuels Awards 2016 has announced winners in six categories. The Suez Environnement solid recovered fuel facility at Malpas Farm, Rugby, which supplies the Cemex Rugby cement plant, won Outstanding Alternative Fuels (AF) project. LafargeHolcim won AF-user company of the year. N+P, Netherlands received the award for AF-supplier company of the year for the second consecutive year. Linder-Recyclingtech won the award for innovative technology for AF use. Frederico Contente, Masias Recycling was awarded project manager of the year. Jan Theulen, HeidelbergCement was awarded CemFuels Personality of the Year.
The Global CemFuels Awards 2016 took place as part of the Global CemFuels Conference and Exhibition. The awards are nominated and voted for across the alternative fuels industry. The specialised annual alternative fuels conference for the cement and lime industries took place on 22 – 23 February 2016 in Prague.
Featured image: Jan Theulen, HeidelbergCement (right) and Robert McCaffrey, Global Cement (left)
Italcementi loss grows to Euro69.3m in 2015
19 February 2016Italy: Italcementi’s loss has grown by 41.7% year-on-year to Euro69.3m in 2015 from Euro48.9m in 2014. The multinational cement producer blamed this on falling revenue per unit amidst general poor markets, particularly in Egypt. Despite this its revenue grew by 3.5% to Euro4.3bn in 2015 from Euro4.16bn in 2014, boosted by a stronger fourth quarter and currency effects.
Overall cement clinker sales volumes remained unchanged in 2015 at 43.4Mt. Growth in North Africa, Middle East (Egypt and Kuwait) and the more contained growth in North America was counterbalanced by downturns in Europe, Asia and Trading.
Italcementi expects growth in North America, moderate sales growth Egypt and stability in emerging markets in 2016. Demand for building materials is expected to be stable overall in Italy, France and Belgium, with a general recovery elsewhere in Eastern European and Mediterranean markets. It plans to raise prices in all areas except for India and Thailand.
The group also announced that it has completed the procedures for the sale of non-core assets to Italmobiliare, under the agreements signed by Italmobiliare with HeidelbergCement. Italcementi will sell to its parent Italmobiliare the stakes it holds in renewable energy company Italgen and e-procurement specialist BravoSolution, in addition to a building in the centre of Rome. The asset sales will be wrapped up on finalisation of the agreement between Italmobiliare and HeidelbergCement.
Update on HeidelbergCement takeover of Italcementi
17 February 2016HeidelbergCement has finally provided a little more detail about its acquisition of Italcementi with the releases of its preliminary results for 2015. The key message is that all is well. Expected savings from the takeover are growing, less borrowing is required to make the purchase and the approvals from competition commissions around the world are rolling in.
Looking at the cost savings first, the potential for synergies or operational savings was first estimated at Euro175m at the time of the takeover announcement in late July 2015. At that time HeidelbergCement hoped to be able to deliver almost 30% of this figure in 2016. If it goes ahead this will sweeten the honeymoon period considerably following the completion of the deal. The largest savings were expected to come from the commercial area and in purchasing.
This figure then grew to Euro300m at the time of HeidelbergCement’s third quarter results in November 2015. Now, the effects of financing costs and taxes were included. At this point some more strategy about how HeidelbergCement was planning to use Italcementi’s resources started to emerge in the synergy calculations. HeidelbergCement intends to use its global trading business with Italcementi’s ‘export orientated’ cement plants. Import demand, for example in North America or Africa, that used to be bought from third party sources previously, can now be supplied by Italcementi’s plants after the merger, meeting demand and holding capacity utilisation rates up. With the publication of the preliminary results for 2015 the savings figure has grown to Euro400m with little explanation. If only it were that easy to find Euro100m down the back of my sofa.
The financing has also been proceeding smoothly. The loan value required for the takeover has fallen from Euro4.4bn to Euro2bn. Reasons for this include the exclusion of the risk of a mandatory takeover offer to minority shareholders in Morocco, some of Italcementi’s creditor banks agreeing to waive their change of control clauses and the issuance of a Euro625m bond in January 2016. The bridge financing, available initially from Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley, remains at Euro2.7bn.
Finally, competition commission approval has been granted in India, Canada, Morocco and Kazakhstan. Despite holding a cement product capacity of 10.5Mt/yr in India with 4.1Mt/yr additional capacity in development, this was unlikely to be a problem in India, with its total national capacity of 280Mt/yr. The commission implemented the Elzinga Hogarty Test and concluded that there is sufficient competition.
This leaves the possibly trickier approvals outstanding in Europe and the US. Belgium is likely to be the main issue in Europe given that the two companies run 73% or 4.5Mt/yr of the market in production capacity. Divestments are expected here.
In the US, precedent should save HeidelbergCement from interference. HeidelbergCement’s and Italcementi’s combined cement production assets will give it a production capacity of 16.4Mt/yr or around 14% or market share. This will make it the second biggest producer in the country after LafargeHolcim which had its merger approved in 2015. There are no obvious overlaps in their clinker production assets except for a minor one in Pennsylvania which holds both the 2Mt/yr Ordinary Portland Cement Essroc (Italcementi) Nazareth Plant and the 0.13Mt/yr Lehigh White Cement (HeidelbergCement). These two plants are unlikely to be considered in competition with each other.
So, continued smooth sailing is expected for the takeover. Since most of the information regarding the acquisition has come directly from HeidelbergCement it was unlikely to appear otherwise. Let’s see whether this remains the case when Italcementi releases its financial results for 2015 later in the week on 19 February 2016.
India: HeidelbergCement India has successfully commissioned a waste heat recovery unit at its Narsingarh cement plant in Damoh, Madhya Pradesh. The new power plant will use waste heat generated by the clinker lines at the plant. It will be able to generate up to 12MW of power from this source.
HeidelbergCement profit rises by 16% in 2015
16 February 2016Germany: HeidelbergCement has reported that its operating income or profit has risen by 16% year-on-year to Euro1.85bn in 2015 from Euro1.6bn in 2014 in its preliminary results for 2015. Its revenue grew by 6.7% to Euro13.5bn from Euro12.6bn in the same period. It attributed the growth to efficiency drives, price increases in key markets, lower energy costs and currency effects due to a weakening Euro.
“2015 was by far the best year for HeidelbergCement since the financial crisis,” said Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the Managing Board. “Despite the slowdown of the global economy in the course of the year, we were able to significantly increase our operating income as anticipated. Our strict focus on improving efficiency and margins in recent years, our advantageous geographical positioning, and continuous investments in growth have made a significant contribution.”
The group reported that sales volumes of cement remained stable in 2015. A rise in cement deliveries in North America and Africa almost compensated for the decrease in Europe and Asia. Sales also benefited in the fourth quarter of 2015 from mild weather extending the construction period in parts of Europe. Overall the group reported that sales volumes of cement, clinker and ground-granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS) fell slightly to 81.8Mt in 2015 from 81.1Mt in 2014. A similar trend was reported in the fourth quarter of 2015.
By region, overall sales revenue rose in Western and Northern Europe in 2015 driven by demand for building materials in the UK, price increases, currency effects and reduced energy costs. Despite all of this cement sales volumes fell slightly. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia both sales revenue and volumes fell in 2015 mainly due to decreased demand in Ukraine and Russia. In North America both sales revenue and volumes grew in 2015 with a particular positive trend in the west of the US. Revenue grew by 22.9% to Euro3.75bn. Sales volumes in cement grew by 1.9% to 12.3Mt. Asia-Pacific reported both sales revenue and volumes falling in 2015 led by a downturn in Indonesia and Malaysia. Sales revenue and volumes grew in Africa-Mediterranean Basin in 2015 in most countries with the exception of Ghana, where sales volumes fell due to negative effects due to the falling oil price.
HeidelbergCement noted in its preliminary results that the ‘evaluation of potential synergies was provisionally concluded at the start of 2016’ for its takeover of Italcementi. As such its cost-saving target for the takeover has been raised from Euro300m to Euro400m. Approvals have been granted by the competition authorities in India, Canada, Morocco, and Kazakhstan. Discussions with the competition authorities in the US and in Europe are currently ongoing. HeidelbergCement expects the purchase of the 45% stake to be concluded in the first half of 2016.