Displaying items by tag: India

India: GoldCrest Cement will build a greenfield integrated plant with a 3.5Mt/yr clinker capacity and 4.5Mt/yr cement capacity. GoldCrest Cement appointed Humboldt Wedag India as engineering, procurement and construction contractor in March 2025 and targets completion by March 2027. It has signed a 40-year supply agreement with Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation for 150Mt of limestone from its upcoming Lakhpat Punrajpur mine in Gujarat.

India: Grasim Industries has appointed Hemant Kumar Kadel as its Chief Financial Officer. He will start the role on 15 August 2025. He succeeds Pavan Kumar Jain.

Kadel, aged 56 years, originally joined Aditya Birla Group in 1991 as a management trainee. He has worked across multiple businesses in the group, including Aditya Birla Nuvo, Birla White and Grasim CFD. Notable work in the cement sector includes expanding and restructuring the group’s white cement business. He currently heads the Corporate Taxation Function for Grasim Industries, where he oversees taxation, internal audit, risk management and mergers and acquisitions. Kadel is a commerce graduate from the University of Rajasthan with further qualifications from the London Business School, the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, ICFAI University and IIM Ahmedabad.

India: India Cements has successfully completed a de-bottlenecking initiative at its Banswara cement plant in Rajasthan, increasing its production capacity by 0.3Mt/yr. The company’s cement manufacturing capacity now stands at 14.75Mt/yr.

Myanmar: An Indian Navy vessel, the UMS Myitkyina, arrived at Thilawa (MITT) port on 23 May 2025, carrying 225t of cement donated by the Indian government to support reconstruction efforts after the March 2025 earthquake, according to the Global Light of Myanmar newspaper. A handover ceremony for the 4500 50kg bags of cement took place later that afternoon. The Yangon Region government supervised the transfer of the cement onto cargo trucks for distribution to affected areas.

India: Adani Group has reported record earnings for the 2025 financial year (FY2025), which ended on 31 March 2025. It finished the 12 month period with consolidated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of US$10.5bn across all of its operations. This represented a 8% rise year-on-year, and was mainly driven by continued expansion in the conglomerate’s infrastructure sectors.

Cement sales from its subsidiaries Ambuja Cement and ACC rose to more than 100Mt following expansions at several plants. It has plans to invest US$100bn across all of the sectors it is involved in, including ports, mining, cement, steel, power and more, by 2031.

“India’s consumption engine remains strong,” said Karan Adani, CEO of Adani Ports & SEZ and chair of ACC. “As manufacturing grows, trade volumes will surge.”

India: JK Lakshmi Cement has partnered with SwitchLabs Automobiles to introduce electric vehicles (EVs) into its logistics network. The company says that this represents a strategic step towards cleaner transportation and more sustainable supply chain practices. According to a press release, the EVs will operate on the route between the JK Lakshmi Puram cement plant in Sirohi, Rajasthan, and the Kalol Grinding Unit in Kalol in the state of Gujarat, a distance of around 225km each way.

The initiative builds on the success of a previous pilot project, which demonstrated a substantial reduction in CO₂ emissions while maintaining operational efficiency. By integrating clean mobility into its logistics operations, JK Lakshmi Cement aims to reduce its environmental footprint and contribute to India’s broader transition to sustainable infrastructure.

India: Shree Cement recorded sales of US$2.38bn in the 2025 financial year, down by 5.5% year-on-year. Operating expenses increased by 2.9% to US$2.17bn, resulting in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of US$528m, down by 12% year-on-year. Net profit dropped by 50% to US$141m.

Shree Cement said that the fourth quarter of the 2025 financial year brought cement sales of 9.84Mt, up by 3.3% year-on-year from 9.53Mt in the fourth quarter of the 2024 financial year. Premium products contributed 16% of sales.

India: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) has launched five carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) testbeds in the cement sector, forming a research and innovation cluster to help accelerate industrial decarbonisation. The five testbeds are collaborative industrial pilot projects between Indian research institutions and local cement manufacturers under a public-private partnership model.  The testbeds aim to help India reach carbon neutrality by 2070.

Each testbed targets a specific CCU approach. Testbed 1, in partnership with JK Cement in Ballabhgarh, will be a pilot plant capable of capturing 2t/day of CO₂ and converting it into lightweight blocks and olefins through oxygen calcination. Testbed 2, by IIT Kanpur and JSW Cement, will explore CO₂ mineralisation. Testbed-3, with IIT Bombay and Dalmia Cement, will develop catalyst-based capture at a cement plant. Testbed-4, by CSIR-IIP, IIT Tirupati, IISc and JSW Cement, will use vacuum swing adsorption technology. Testbed-5, with IIT Madras, BITS Pilani Goa and UltraTech Cement, will focus on carbon-lowering process innovations.

Bangladesh: Chhatak Cement’s plant in Sunamganj remains idle despite construction completing in March 2023, with production suspended due to unresolved gas and limestone supply issues, according to the Prothom Alo newspaper. The plant project began in 2016. New details confirm that the Bangladesh government has approved subcontracting of a cross-border ropeway to import limestone from India. Local firm Komorah Limestone Mining Company (KLMC), which already supplies limestone to Chhatak Cement, is in talks regarding the role. China-based contractor for the project, Nanjing Sea-Hope Cement Engineering, has agreed ‘in principle’ to this handover as of 18 March 2025, according to Chhatak Cement managing director Abdur Rahman.

Project officials stated that, once the new plant begins operations, it will be capable of producing 1500t/day of clinker and 500t/day of cement, triple its previous capacity. Reporters conducted a site visit on 8 April 2025, observing that a jetty had been constructed on the riverbank to unload clinker from the plant for grinding elsewhere. A conveyor system has been set up to move cement bags directly from the plant to transport, and a new conveyor belt has also been installed alongside the existing belt.

Demand for heavy building materials in the UK dropped in the first quarter of 2025, with ready-mix concrete sales reaching a new 60-year low.¹ In an update last week, the UK’s Mineral Products Association (MPA) attributed the decline to existing economic headwinds, compounded by global trade disruptions, reduced investor confidence and renewed inflationary pressures.

Major infrastructure projects – including the HS2 high-speed railway in the English Midlands, the Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in Somerset and the Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk – failed to offset delays and cancellations by cash-strapped local councils to roadwork projects. Residential construction, meanwhile, is ‘slowly but steadily’ recovering from historical lows, amid continuing high mortgage rates since late 2024.

The most interesting part of the MPA’s market appraisal was its warning of ‘new risks emerging in the global economy.’ These concern the new tariffs raised by the US against its import partners. The possible consequences, the MPA says, imperil the UK’s supply chains, construction sector and growth.

Of particular immediacy is the threat of imports into the UK from countries that previously focussed on the US market. The MPA said that the industry ‘cannot compete’ against increased low-cost, CO₂-intensive imports. It named Türkiye, which sends around 6.9Mt/yr of cement and clinker to the US, as a key threat. Türkiye became subject to the blanket 10% ‘baseline’ tariff on 2 April 2025.

The MPA probably didn’t have a particular company in mind when it said this. However, it bears noting that Turkish interests gained a share of UK cement capacity in October 2024, when Çimsa acquired 95% of Northern Ireland-based Mannok. Besides the Derrylin cement plant (situated on the border between Fermanagh, UK, and Cavan, Ireland), Mannok operates the Rochester cement storage and distribution facility in Kent, 50km from London. The facility currently supplies cement from Derrylin to Southern England and the Midlands. It could easily serve as a base of operations for processing and distributing imported cement and clinker from further afield.

Meanwhile in South West England, Portugal-based Cimpor is building a €20 – 25m cement import terminal in the Port of Bristol. The company is subject to 20% tariffs on shipments to the US from its home country. Its parent company, Taiwan Cement Corporation, is subject to 32% US tariffs from Taiwan.

But the plot thickens… On 8 May 2025, the UK became the first country to conclude a trade agreement with the US after the erection of the new tariff regime, under which the US$73bn/yr-worth of British goods sold in the US became subject to a 10% tariff.² The latest agreement brought partial relief for an allied sector of UK cement: steel. 180,000t flowed into the US from the UK in 2024.³ In 2024, the UK exported 7120t of cement and clinker to the US, up by a factor of 10 decade-on-decade from just 714t in 2014, all of it into two US customs districts, Philadelphia and New York City.⁴

In what may be one of the first true ‘Brexit benefits,’ UK cement exporters now ‘enjoy’ a US tariff rate half that of their EU competitors, notably those in Greece. Like the UK’s more modest volumes, Greece’s 1.82Mt/yr-worth of cement and clinker exports stateside also enter via the US’ eastern seaports, at New York City, Tampa and Norfolk. Given the overlaps in ownership between the Greek and UK cement sectors, it is conceivable that optimisation of cement export flows across Europe may already be under discussion.

On 6 May 2025, the UK and Indian governments announced a trade deal that will lift customs duties on almost all current Indian exports to the UK. UK MPs are still seeking clarifications as to whether this will include industrial products that might be dumped.⁵ Theoretically, the threat from an oversupplied and fast-growing cement industry like India’s could be existential to the UK cement industry.

As the UK invests heavily in its future, including with the HyNet Consortium, imports pose a major threat. Given enough time, the UK could develop a leading position in the decarbonisation space. Will it have enough time? Existential threats certainly add a sense of jeopardy.

References
1. Mineral Products Association, ‘Weak start to 2025 for building materials sales amid growing economic headwinds,’ 6 May 2025, www.mineralproducts.org/News/2025/release16.aspx

2. HM Government, ‘UK overseas trade in goods statistics November 2024,’ 16 January 2025, www.gov.uk/government/statistics/uk-overseas-trade-in-goods-statistics-november-2024/uk-overseas-trade-in-goods-statistics-november-2024-commentary

3. UK Steel, ‘US 25% tariffs on UK steel imports come into effect,’ 12 March 2025, www.uksteel.org/steel-news-2025/us-25-tariffs-on-uk-steel-imports-come-into-effect

4. United States Geological Survey, ‘Cement in December 2024,’ January 2025, https://d9-wret.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/palladium/production/s3fs-public/media/files/mis-202412-cemen.pdf

5. Welsh Liberal Democrats, ‘UK-Indian Trade Deal: Government Refuses to Answer Whether it Has Conceded on Cheap Indian Steel Imports,’ 6 May 2025, www.libdems.wales/news/article/uk-indian-trade-deal-government-refuses-to-answer-whether-it-has-conceded-on-cheap-indian-steel-imports