Displaying items by tag: India

Mauritius: Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG)’s subsidiary GuarantCo has filed an insolvency petition against Dalmia Bharat Cement’s subsidiary Calcom Cement India for the alleged non-payment of US$27.5m. The Financial Express has reported that GuarantCo was the guarantor for various loans which Calcom obtained from Indian banks in 2007. A Dalmia spokesperson has stated that the procedures are intended “to put pressure on Calcom Cement,” which “has not committed any default in making payments to GuarantCo.”

India: Dalmia Bharat Cement will invest US$492m in projects to expand its cement production capacity by 8Mt/yr to 34Mt/yr from 26Mt/yr. The sum includes a consolidated investment of US$422m in brownfield developments in Eastern India to increase integrated capacity at its Rajgangpur plant in Odisha by 3.0Mt/yr, and at its Kasba plant in West Bengal by 2.7Mt/yr, to 6.6Mt/yr and 4.0Mt/yr respectively. The expansion is scheduled for completion by March 2020.

The race to find a buyer for Emami Cement heated up this week with the announcement in the local press that both LafargeHolcim and HeidelbergCement had submitted expressions of interest. The Hindu newspaper and others were also linking Nuvoco Vistas Corporation, Shree Cement and Dalmia Bharat to the sale. India’s market leader UltraTech Cement was also in talks with the company back in June 2019.

The subsidiary of Emami Group is being sold by the parent company to cut debt. Speculation on the value of Emami Cement has varied in the media from US$800m to up to US$1.26bn. This variation is possibly linked to upgrades that the company has on the way. It operates a 2.5Mt/yr integrated plant at Risda in Chhattisgarh and a 2.5Mt/yr grinding plant at Panagarh in West Bengal. It acquired a 0.6Mt/yr grinding plant at Bhabua, Bihar in 2018. This unit is being upgraded to 1.8Mt/yr. It is also yet to commission a 2.5Mt/yr grinding plant at Jaipur in Odisha. In addition, the firm has mining assets in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and near Jaipur in Rajasthan.

Global Cement Magazine staff are attending a variety of industry events this week including the Cembureau Energy Market Prospects (CemProspects) conference in Krakow, Poland, the TÇMB International Technical Seminar in Antalya, Turkey and the European Slag Association (Euroslag) conference in Thessaloniki, Greece. Watch out for reviews of each of these either in forthcoming issues of the magazine or on the website.

Of note to India, various speakers on the first day at CemProspects were extolling the virtues of that market. The country was reported as ‘promising’ in a general review of world cement markets amongst a very mixed situation. Specifically on energy markets, Darren Malone, IHS Markit said that coal imports were ‘ahead’ so far in 2019 as US suppliers benefitted from power plants maintaining orders in an election year. Imports are growing at 7%/yr as the country’s industries need energy. In the long term his view was that India would become the world’s biggest coal importer unless domestic production increases its share. Anecdotal evidence was also raised on exporting SRF from the UK to India as cement kiln coprocessing rates slowly start to rise. This point is matched by the various Indian waste deals we’ve been noticing on our sister website Global CemFuels in recent years.

Coal markets are pertinent to the Emami Cement sales because some sources quoted in the Indian media have pointed out that the cement producer does not have any coal linkages. As such it is more vulnerable to market variations. This kind of talk is clearly part of the bargaining process but, in the wider picture, cement producers’ energy sources are critical. In the context of the Emami Cement sale, this might just determine which side of US$1bn the transaction ends up on. The sale continues.

India: The excise department in the Indian state of Kerala has come to an agreement with Malabar Cement in which Malabar will burn seized contraband cigarettes and other tobacco products in its cement kilns. The company’s plant at Walayar is expected to receive up to 2t of material per month, in exchange for bags of cement from Malabar.

Pakistan: Gharibwal Cement has blamed reduced exports due to tensions on the Pakistan-Indian border and rising input costs for a reduction in its sales. Its net sales fell by 3% year-on-year to US$72.3m in the year to 30 June 2019 from US$74.5m in the same period in 2018. Its cement dispatches fell by 11.4% to 1.68Mt from 1.89Mt. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 6.5% to US$18.7m from US$20m.

The cement producer said that work on a new 0.15Mt clinker silo is in progress and this is expected to be completed by June 2020. It is also building a rainwater reservoir to capture precipitation for use in the production process. The company operates a 2.1Mt/yr integrated plant at Ismailwal in Punjab Province.

India: LafargeHolcim and HeidelbergCement have joined a bidding war for Emami Cement. LafargeHolcim is reported to have submitted an expression of interest via its subsidiary Ambuja Cement, according to the Hindu newspaper. HeidelbergCement has submitted its bids through HeidelbergCement India. Emami Cement has an expected value of around US$845m. Nuvoco Vistas Corporation, Shree Cement and Dalmia Bharat have also been linked to the sale.

Emami Cement operates a 2.5Mt/yr integrated plant at Risda in Chhattisgarh and a 2.5Mt/yr grinding plant at Panagarh in West Bengal. It acquired a 0.6Mt/yr grinding plant at Bhabua, Bihar in September 2018. In addition, the firm has mining assets in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and near Jaipur in Rajasthan. Its main markets are in West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. It markets its products under the Double Bull brand.

India: UltraTech Cement has declared the scheme of arrangement between itself and Century Textiles and Industries as part of its merger process. It will issue one equity share worth US$0.14 each for every eight equity shares of the same value held by the shareholders of Century Textiles and Industries. UltraTech Cement received approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for the acquisition of the cement business of Century Textiles and Industries in late August 2018 but it faced legal challenges subsequently.

The acquisition further strengthens UltraTech Cement’s lead in the Indian market. It says it is now the only company outside of China to have a production capacity of more than 100Mt/yr in a single country. It also claims that it is the third largest cement company in the world excluding those based in China.

India: A boiler at Birla Cement’s 2.5Mt/yr Chanderia plant in Rajasthan exploded on 29 September 2019, injuring an estimated 15 people. The Hindustan Times has reported that 11 people are in a critical condition. It is believed that the furnace overheated, which caused coal to scatter over workers below. Local government says that a report will come from its administrative-level investigation within 10 days, with criminal action to follow where appropriate.

Dalmia Cement threw down the gauntlet this week with the announcement of a large-scale carbon capture unit (CCU) at one of its plants in Tamil Nadu, India. An agreement has been signed with UK-based Carbon Clean Solutions Limited (CCSL) to use its technology in building a 0.5Mt/yr CCU. The partnership will explore how CO₂ from the plant can be used, including direct sales to other industries and using the CO₂ as a precursor in manufacturing chemicals. No exact completion date or budget has been disclosed.

The move is a serious declaration of intent from the Indian cement producer towards its aim of becoming carbon neutral by 2040. Dalmia has been pushing its sustainability ‘journey’ for several years now hitting targets such as reaching 6Mt of alternative raw materials usage in its 2018 financial year and reaching a clinker factor of 63% at the same time. In an article in the November 2018 issue of Global Cement Magazine it said it had achieved CO₂ emissions of 526kg/t from its cement production compared to 578kg/t from other Indian members of the Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI). In its eastern operations it had gone further to reach 400kg/t.

Using CCU is the next step to this progression but Dalmia’s approach is not without its caveats. Firstly, despite the size of the proposed project it is still being described as a ‘large-scale demonstration.’ Secondly, the destination of all that captured CO₂, as mentioned above, is still being considered. CCSL uses a post-combustion capture method that captures flue gas CO₂ and then combines the use of a proprietary solvent with a heat integration step. Where the capture CO₂ goes is vital because if it can’t be sold or utilised in some other way then it needs to be stored, putting up the price. Technology provider CCSL reckons that its CDRMax process has a CO₂ capture price tag of US$40/t but it is unclear whether this includes utilisation sales of CO₂ or not.

The process is along similar lines to the Skyonic SkyMine (see Global Cement Magazine, May 2015) CCU that was completed in 2015 at the Capitol Cement plant in San Antonio, Texas in the US. However, that post-combustion capture project was aiming for 75,000t/yr of CO₂. Dalmia and CCSL’s attempt is six times greater.

Meanwhile, Cembureau, the European cement association, joined a group of industrial organisations in lobbying the European Union (EU) on the Horizon Europe programme. It wants the budget to be raised to at least Euro120m with at least 60% to be dedicated to the ‘Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness’ pillar. This is relevant in a discussion on industrial CO₂ emissions reduction because the scheme has been supporting various European cement industry projects, including HeidelbergCement’s work with the Low Emissions Intensity Lime And Cement (LEILAC) consortium and Calix at its Lixhe plant in Belgium and its pilots in Norway. As these projects and others reach industrial scale testing they need this money.

These recent developments provide hope for the future of the cement industry. Producers and their associations are engaging with the climate change agenda and taking action. Legislators and governments need to work with the cement sector to speed up this process and ensure that the industry is able to cut its CO₂ emissions while continuing to manufacture the materials necessary to build things. Projects like this latest from Dalmia Cement are overdue, but are very encouraging.

India: Rajasthan-based Wonder Cement has announced that Sanjay Joshi will become its executive director. Joshi brings 17 years of marketing and operations experience to the RK Group subsidiary, whose integrated cement production capacity is 6.8Mt/yr.