Displaying items by tag: Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement sold 0.28Mt of cement and generated US$12.5m in the first quarter of 2025, up by 57% in volume and 71% in revenue year-on-year. Clinker production rose by 14%, positioning the company ‘favourably’ for the upcoming busier summer months.

Kazakhstan’s cement sales rose by 20% to 2.03Mt in the quarter, while exports fell by 5% and imports, particularly from Uzbekistan and Russia, rose to account for 9% of the market.

Steppe Cement maintained a conservative outlook for the rest of 2025, citing rising inflation and ‘global developments’ as potential challenges, but expects market demand to remain around 12Mt, similar to 2024.

Kazakhstan: Martin Engineering has announced fresh expansion in Central Asia with a new business unit in Kazakhstan. Based in the country’s largest city and commercial centre, Almaty, in southeastern Kazakhstan, the new venture will act as a regional hub, enabling the company to bring its full range of products and services to the fast-growing mining sector across Central Asia.

The new business will be led by General Manager Oleg Glukhov, who has worked with Martin Engineering for the past seven years. He says Martin is well placed to support Kazakhstan’s leading minerals processing firms to improve operational performance and safety.

Kyrgyzstan: The Ministry of Economy and Commerce in Kyrgyzstan has initiated an anti-dumping investigation into cement imports from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The investigation covers imports over the past three years amid a ‘sharp’ rise in import volumes, according to Kun.Uz news. Cement imports increased by 130% from January – September 2024, reaching 401,000t, with Kazakhstan exporting 269,700t of cement worth US$14.3m and Uzbekistan exporting 124,000t valued at US$9.2m. Uzbekistan’s cement exports increased from 1000t in 2023 to 123,000t during January – September 2024. The investigation aims to determine breaches of fair competition rules and protect Kyrgyz producers and the domestic market.

Kazakhstan: International Cement Group has opened its fourth plant, Korcem, increasing its capacity by 38% to 5.5Mt/yr. The US$153m investment aims to support the growing construction demands in Central Asia and is expected to meet rising export demand, especially from Kyrgyzstan.

Kazakhstan: Aktobecem will build a cement plant in the Aktobe region with a production capacity of 2Mt/yr. The company intends to invest US$143m in the facility, which will create over 500 jobs, according to Trend. Construction is set to begin in spring 2025, with operations commencing in 2026. The construction of the new plant will reportedly supply 80% of the cement needs of the region and reduce logistics costs.

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement has published its nine-month trading update for 2024, showing a drop in sales of 2% year-on-year in nine months up to 30 September 2024, to US$63m. Sales volumes remained level year-on-year at 1.34Mt. Regulatory News Service has reported that Steppe Cement attributed medium-term increases in production and the stabilisation of costs to capacity expansions and other capital expenditure investments since 2022. Nine-month domestic cement consumption was 9.1Mt, in line with nine-month 2023 levels. Imports accounted for 319,000t (4%) of total consumption. Meanwhile, exports totalled 720,000t.

Regarding results for the third quarter of 2024, CEO Javier del Ser Perez said "We recovered both volumes and pricing in the third quarter of 2024, following a price adjustment in the second quarter. While competition remains strong, our plant has continued to enhance its capacity and productivity, enabling us to offset the impact of past inflation. We remain focused on driving higher volumes and cash generation.”

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement has reported a loss of US$4.4m in the first half of 2024 compared to a profit of US$61,000 in 2023. The company, which operates two cement production facilities in Kazakhstan, saw its revenue fall by 7% to US$34.4m, down from US$36.9m, reportedly due to a 4% reduction in sales volume and higher electricity and maintenance costs.

Kyrgyzstan: 174,800t of cement entered Kyrgyzstan in the first half of 2024, more than double first-half 2023 import volumes of 83,200t. Neighbouring Kazakhstan supplied 152,000t (87%) of the total, according to data from the Kyrgyz National Statistical Committee. Central Asia News has reported that other imports originated from China, Iran and Uzbekistan.

Kyrgyzstan’s first-half cement production declined by 2% year-on-year in the period under review, to 1.3Mt. However, it grew by 10% year-on-year in June 2024. The country exported 190,000t of cement throughout the first half of 2024, all of it to Uzbekistan, down by 21% from first-half 2023 levels.

A couple of stories have popped up this week regarding restrictions on cement imports. First, authorities in Taiwan have launched an anti-dumping investigation into Vietnamese cement. Secondly, and perhaps more surprisingly given its growing economy, the authorities in Kyrgyzstan are planning to ban overland imports of cement from within Central Asia. More on that later…

First, to the Far East, where Taiwan’s Trade Remedies Authority has launched an anti-dumping investigation into cement and clinker imported from Vietnam. It will assess imports covering the year from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024 and target seven specific Vietnamese cement producers among others. The Vietnamese companies are mandatory respondents – they will be compelled to answer investigators’ questions.

Vietnamese cement has long been among the cheapest in the region due to the country’s drive to hit production targets, rather than simply meeting demand. The situation has resulted in a vast amount of cement available for export. This, coupled to Vietnam’s long, indented coastline, makes it easy to ship cement overseas.

Even with export volumes falling by 1.2% year-on-year to 31.3Mt in 2023, around a third of Vietnam’s capacity, this is a massive volume of cement - and it’s only getting cheaper. The average export value of Vietnamese cement and clinker fell from US$46-48/t at the start of 2023 to just US$31-32/t in May 2024, a decline of 30-35%. These changes have been due, in part, to an increase in tax on clinker exports from 5% to 10% on 1 January 2023 and an anti-dumping investigation launched by the Philippines in March 2023. Falling prices and volumes represent a ‘double-whammy’ for producers, several of which have announced that they made losses in the first half of 2024. Vicem’s top management said that challenges also arose at home due to a reduced demand following limited civil engineering projects and a stagnant real estate market.

It is easy to see why Taiwanese cement producers may feel threatened by the prospect of greater volumes of cheap cement on their doorstep. Taiwan only made 4.9Mt/yr of cement in the first half of 2024. With domestic prices in the region of US$65-70/t according to Cement Network, this provides a very attractive margin of US$33-39/t for Vietnamese producers to export to Taiwan. It will be interesting to see how far the country’s authorities are willing to go to protect the country’s producers and whether any anti-dumping policies lead to further falls in the landed volumes of Vietnamese cement.

Meanwhile, 4600km to the west, Kyrgyzstan has announced that it will enforce a six-month road import ban on several types of cement including Portland cement, alumina cement and slag cement. The ban, affecting both cement and clinker, will take effect on 1 October 2024 and last for six months. According to the State Statistical Committee of Kyrgyzstan, the country saw a 76% year-on-year increase in cement imports – mainly from Iran, Kazakhstan, China and Uzbekistan - between January 2024 and May 2024. The total import volume over the five months was 125,737t. For a country that made just 1Mt over the same period, this is a major change.

The overland import ban is more of a surprise than the Taiwan / Vietnam situation, as Kyrgyzstan recently reported that the North of the country was experiencing a ‘construction boom’ and cement shortages. However, two new plants due to start production in the coming months could help the country out... unless it too would like to export its newly-developed cement production capacity.

And here we arrive at a ‘classic’ impasse. From Pakistani cement in South Africa, to price arguments in West Africa, import bans in Central Asia and Vietnamese cement in Philippines and Taiwan, more and more exporters are finding that their markets are already self-sufficient in cement, with the US perhaps the notable exception. Soon there will be nowhere left for cement to be exported to. Are we at peak cement?

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement reported on 12 July 2024 that its revenue in the first half of 2024 was impacted by lower average cement prices. In the first six months of 2024, sales of cement fell 4% to 0.72Mt from 0.75Mt in 2023. The company generated sales of US$32.4m, down 9.6% from US$36bn in 2023. During the first half of 2024, the cement market in Kazakhstan declined by 1.6% year-on-year from 2023, with much of the decline concentrated in the first quarter. Overall demand in the Kazakh cement market was 11Mt in 2023, and is expected to be similar in 2024. Looking ahead, the company anticipates further growth and increased sales in 2024.

A spokesperson for Steppe said "The cost of transport and some utilities, particularly electricity, have significantly increased year-on-year. However, sales focus in local markets, better production levels and higher productivity have partially compensated for these increased costs."