Displaying items by tag: Lafarge Egypt

The one thing that the Egyptian cement industry really didn’t need this year was any more jolts. Since the gargantuan 13Mt/yr government/army-run El-Arish Cement plant at Beni Suef opened in 2018, the sector has been stuck in production overcapacity and struggling to catch up. Yet, like the rest of us, they got one nasty surprise in the shape of the coronavirus pandemic. This has added stress to the whole situation and we can see some of this in various news stories that Global Cement has covered recently.

HeidelbergCement’s local subsidiary Suez Cement has been busy in recent days making changes to its corporate structure in the form of a tender offer to buy a 100% stake in Egyptian Tourah Portland Cement. Production stopped at Tourah Cement in June 2019 due to market conditions. This follows yet more lacklustre financial results earlier in September 2020 that show the pain that it and other cement producers have been enduring. Suez Cement’s loss nearly doubled year-on-year to Euro38m for the first half of 2020 and its sales fell by 18% to Euro145m. This was blamed on production overcapacity and a coronavirus-related lockdown. Other producers, both multinational and local, have experienced a similar situation.

Suez Cement also announced in mid-September 2020 that its Ready Mix Beton subsidiary had secured a contract for the supply of concrete for the construction of two new monorail lines connecting the country’s new city projects. Unfortunately, as Suez Cement’s chief executive officer (CEO) Jose Maria Magrina explained in an interview to Daily Egypt News in July 2020, “the New Administrative Capital (NAC) is a very big project, but in the end it has not offset the decrease in informal buildings that have been stopped.” Despite Suez Cement being a major supplier and the proximity of its plants to the site, overall sales have gone down.

Graph 1: Cement consumption in Egypt. Source: Cement Division of the Building Materials Chamber of the Federation of Egyptian Industries.

Magrina’s gloom is shared by other industry figures with a general assumption that perhaps up to a quarter of the country’s 20-something cement plants may have to close in the next year or so. Coronavirus has only deepened this view as the government’s response was to cease issuing construction licences for private buildings in Greater Cairo, governorate capitals and major cities from late May 2020 for six months. Solomon Baumgartner Aviles, the CEO of Lafarge Egypt, said in July 2020 that local cement demand fell by 6.5% year-on-year in the first half of 2020. He added that coronavirus had ‘strongly’ impacted the building materials sector with a big effect on the individual market, and with the licence halting exacerbating the situation further. As data from the Cement Division of the Building Materials Chamber of the Federation of Egyptian Industries shows above in Graph 1 demand peaked at 56.5Mt in 2016 and has since declined to a low of 48Mt in 2019. By month the sector recovered in January and February 2020 respectively with growing cement sales on a year-on-year basis but this has since declined with losses in most months subsequently. This is set against a production capacity of 81.2Mt/yr in 2018, giving an excess of 30Mt/yr and a utilisation rate of 59%.

One story that was mentioned in the local press this week is that Arabian Cement Company (ACC) had started negotiations with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Commercial International Bank – Egypt to secure new loans worth over US$20m. The ACC has denied this publicly in a statement to the Egyptian Exchange but it’s a sign of the trouble that is expected in the sector given the current circumstances.

All of this leaves cement producers scrabbling to hold on until the market picks up again, takes action in other ways or the government intervenes. Some analysts expect the market to stabilise in the medium to longer term as work on large infrastructure projects like the NAC mounts. Suez Cement’s Jose Maria Magrina has said that, “the government must, within the law, dictate norms that will rationalise the market, while making sure that companies survive since current prices do not cover the costs of production.” Local press has since reported that the Ministry of Trade and Industry has started trying to help cement companies, including measures such as limiting production to balance supply and demand, and decrease the surplus in the market. Another option is a coordinated export subsidy programme in coordination with the government but nothing appears to have happened yet after several years of discussion. Unhelpfully for any export aspirations, Egypt finds itself in a very cement export-heavy part of the world, wedged as it is between North Africa, Turkey and Southern Europe.

Hope springs eternal though as, almost unbelievably, Egyptian Cement Group’s CEO Ahmed Abou Hashima surfaced last week to remind everyone that his company still plans to inaugurate its new integrated cement plant in 2021. The project to build a new 2Mt/yr unit in Sohag has been brewing since 2017 when it was announced with China-based Sinoma on board as the engineering partner. It was originally scheduled to open in the first half of 2020 but it was delayed by coronavirus. Let’s hope the picture looks better when it finally opens.

Egypt: Solomon Baumgartner Aviles, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Lafarge Egypt, says that cement demand fell by 6.5% year-on-year in the first half of 2020. In an interview with the Daily News Egypt newspaper he said that coronavirus has “strongly impacted the building materials sector” with the biggest effect on the individual construction market as people decided to save their money instead. He added that a government decision to halt licences for building, expanding, upgrading, amending, or supporting construction work for private housing in larger cities had also compounded the problem. Despite this he praised the government for supporting infrastructure projects, which are operating at full capacity.

Aviles also outlined how Lafarge Egypt has developed an integrated plan on Health, Cost and Cash to tackle the coronavirus crisis. So far it has donated over 80,000 masks and gloves, made 200L of antibacterial gel available, and supported public hospitals by refurbishing 460 ventilators.

Egypt: Siemens has submitted an integrated survey of the digitalisation potential of various industries in four zones to the Ministry of Industry (MoI) with a view to improving the competitiveness of the country’s products. Daily News Egypt has reported that the Germany-based technology company has already signed contracts for the supply of digital efficiency solutions with El Ameria Cement and Lafarge Egypt. It is also negotiating with Misr Beni Suef for the installation of thermal emission measuring units at its 3.5Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Beni Suef, Maadi.

Egypt: Lafarge Egypt has been named as the sole cement supplier for base construction work by China State Construction Engineering (CSCE) for the Central Business District in the New Administrative Capital. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim will supply its cement based on a framework of the long-term partnership between Lafarge Egypt and CSCEC to erect several high-rise buildings, including a tower that is set to be the tallest in Africa. It will use its Hydrocem Plus cement product for the project. Lafarge Egypt will also take part in the concrete pouring for the foundations.

"We are proud to hold such a long-term cooperation with CSCE for the construction of such a historical project and we value their trust in our products’ quality, which magnifies our capabilities in providing tailored and unique products and solutions to meet our customers' needs. Additionally our capability as a company helped us supply large quantities of cement in a short time which helped complete the pouring in 40 consecutive hours only," said Hussein Mansi, Chief Executive Officer of Lafarge Egypt.

Lafarge Egypt is also engaged in a number of projects in the New Administrative Capital project, including different types of concrete products and steel fibres.

Egypt: Lafarge Egypt's total investments in the local cement market will hit US$3.2bn at the end of 2015, according to CEO Hussein Mansi.

Mansi said that Lafarge Egypt intends to expand in the local market with US$16.8m of new investments in a recycling project. The project is expected to start within six months of the required land being supplied by the government. In the near future, Lafarge Egypt will supply national projects currently being executed by the government such as the New Administrative Capital project and New Suez Canal projects.

Mansi said that Lafarge Egypt plans to increase its current market share, which is currently estimated at 14%.