Displaying items by tag: Iran

Armenia: The Centre for Initiatives to Economic Growth has said that government plans to implement tariffs on imported cement will negatively affect the Armenian construction industry. The research body has sent a letter to the prime minister raising its concerns, according to the ARMINFO News Agency. Local cement producers are reportedly under pressure from Iranian imports. In February 2019 the government said it was planning to impose of rate of around US$45/t on imported cement to protect local producers.

Data from the Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia shows that cement production rose by 60% year-on-year to 0.40Mt in the first nine months of 2018 compared to 0.25Mt in the same period in 2017. However, production in September 2018 fell year-on-year by 23% to 44,000t.

US: ZAG has reached a US$506,250 settlement with the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) over breaches on trade sanctions with Iran. Between mid-2014 and early 2015 OFAC says that ZAG purchased 263,563t of Iranian produced clinker via a company based in the UAE. The government body added that ZAG knew that the clinker came from Iran although it was assured at the time by the supplier that it was not subject to US sanctions. The clinker was then sold to a company in Tanzania. However, OFAC said that since ZAG voluntarily disclosed its violation of sanctions to the office it viewed the case as a so-called a ‘non-egregious case‘ and the resulting fine was far below the maximum.

The Bangladeshi cement industry has been busy over the last month. Both Vietnam and Iran have marked up the country as a major destination for their exports. No change there, but Saudi Arabia has also started to join them as its producers have started announcing clinker export deals to the country. Alongside this there have also been production upgrades announced from MI Cement, Chhatak Cement and a Saudi-led partnership. Also, just before Christmas, Shah Cement inaugurated the world’s largest vertical roller mill (VRM) with a 8.1m grinding table, supplied by Denmark’s FLSmidth, at its Muktarpur plant in Munshiganj.

Md Shahidullah, vice president of the Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association (BCMA), described 2018 as a good year for the local industry to local media. Cement sales rose to 33Mt and consumption grew by 12% year-on-year.

The country has an integrated production capacity of 8.4Mt/yr from eight plants according to Global Cement Directory data. The main plants are Chhatak Cement and Lafarge Surma Cement. Locally produced clinker accounts for about 20% of the country’s needs, with the other 80% imported from abroad. Hence, the action is really with the grinding plants and the country has over 30 of them. A market report by EBL Securities in mid-2017 reckoned that local cement production capacity was 40Mt/yr but that actual production was around 32Mt in the 2016 - 2017 reporting year due to problems with power supplies and so on. Given the focus on grinding it’s interesting to note imports of clinker. These rose by 9% year-on-year to a value of US$518m in 2017 - 2018, the highest figure since 2014 - 2015. Not all of this may be consumption related since the local currency, the Taka, depreciated against the US dollar in 2017 and 2018.

Back in 2016 the market leaders were Shah Cement, LafargeHolcim Bangladesh, Bashundhara Group, Seven Rings Cement and HeidelbergCement. They accounted for about half of the market share. Of these LafargeHolcim Bangladesh saw its revenue nearly double year-on-year to US$101m from US$58m in the first half of 2018. Its profit did double to US$6.3m from US$2.7m. The company is a joint venture between LafargeHolcim, Spain’s Cementos Molins and other partners.

Bangladesh suits a grinding-based industry due to its high level of navigable waterways and low levels of limestone. In some respects though the country is a glimpse of what future cement markets might look like. Its lack of raw materials means it focuses on grinding and a clinker-rich world plays right into this. This creates an oversaturated market full of lots of companies due to the lower cost of setting up a grinding business or cement trading. In theory this should be great for end consumers and the general development of the country. After all Bangladesh has a high population, of 164 million, and a low gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, US$4561, and similarly low per capita consumption of cement. The downside though is that reliance on external raw materials. Any changes to exchange rates or material supply puts the entire industry at risk or puts prices in flux. In the meantime though the interest by Saudi exporters adds an interesting dynamic to a crowded market.

Iran: Abdul Reza Sheikhan, the secretary of the Cement Industry Association, has warned that an increase to maritime shipping rates is further restricting exports in conjunction with US-backed trade sanctions. He said that the country has a production capacity of 87.5Mt/yr, that 48Mt is consumed domestically and that less than 15% is exported, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. He also identified ‘negative’ competition between cement producers over exports has damaged the industry. To counter this, export teams in the east, west and south of the country have been formed.

The country exports cement to 17 countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, Bangladesh and countries in Africa. It is the sixth largest exporter in the world.

Iran: Jafar Sarqeini, the Deputy Minister of Industry, Mine and Trade for Mining Affairs, says that US-backed trade sanctions have not slowed cement exports. He added that the embargo has only placed some obstacles in the way of financial transactions and return of money to the country, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. The official said that the local industry can export up to 20Mt/yr of cement. Local production capacity is forecast to reach 120Mt/yr by 2025. However, a recession in the mining sector has kept production behind capacity.

Iran: Dawood Shahrakyh, the head of the South Khorasan Industry, Mining and Trade Organization, says that the two cement plants in South Khorasan province have produced 0.77Mt of cement in the first nine months of Iranian year that started on 20 March 2018. This represents a rise of 22% year-on-year since the same period in the previous year, according to the SHATA news agency. 0.45Mt of local production was exported. The province lies on the country’s border with Afghanistan.

Iran: Masoumeh Mousavi, the head of the office of industries affairs for Industries, Mining and Trade Organisation of Hormozgan province says that around 0.4Mt of clinker was exported from the Hormozgan plant in the first eight months of the Iranian year that started on 20 March 2018. Exports from the plant rose by 40% year-on-year, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. The region has been exporting clinker to Oman, the UAE, Tanzania and South Africa. The plant has a cement production capacity of 1.9Mt/yr.

Iran: Cement exports rose by 7% year-on-year to 3.8Mt in the first seven months of the current local calendar year , which started on 21 March 2018. Abdul Reza Sheikhan, the secretary of the Cement Industry Association, added that clinker exports grew by 13.6% to 3.8Mt, according to ISNA. However international sanctions and increasing shipping costs have reduced exports in the most recent reporting month. Overall, clinker production by the local industry grew by 2.4% to 37.3Mt.

Iran: The price of cement packaging for 50kg cement bags has risen by 117% since late 2017. Mohammad Ali Bod, a member of Iranian Cement Industry Employers Association, warned that some cement plants in the country would have to stop operating if the situation was not resolved, according to the Trend News Agency.

Afghanistan/Iran: The Afghanistan Customs Department has banned imports of cement at the Farah border crossing from Iran’s South Khorasan Province. Mozaffar Alikhani, the Secretary-General of Iran-Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce, said that the ban had been implemented at the border point due to a lack of an online monitoring system, according to Eghtesadonline. The ban also includes oil products, steel products, tiles and ceramics.

Afghan officials have made contradictory statements about a ban of imported commodities from Iran. Ali Shariati, a member of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture, told the ILNA news agency that the Afghanistan Customs Department had banned cement imports and those of other materials from 16 September 2018 to bring it into alignment with US sanctions on Iran. However, Alikhani dismissed this and said that the goods in question continue to be exported as usual from Iran to Afghanistan through the border crossings of Dogharoun in Khorasan Razavi Province and Nimrouz in Sistan-Baluchestan Province.

Sakhi Ahmad Peyman, the president of the Afghanistan Industrial Association, has also described the ban as temporary.