Displaying items by tag: LafargeHolcim

Philippines: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Holcim Philippines has announced plans to merge with its subsidiaries Bulkcem Philippine Incorporated and MabiniGrinding Mill Corporation. The Philippine Star newspaper has reported that the board has approved the planned merger, and that a special stockholders’ meeting will take place on 15 January 2021 to finalise the transactions.

Bulkcem Philippine Incorporated leases the Iloilo cement terminal in Western Visayas, while MabiniGrinding Mill Corporation leases the Mabini grinding plant in Calabarzon.

The board also approved the dissolution of Holcim’s Business Service Center, HuBB Stores and Services and British Virgin Islands-based WellBorne Group International.

Austria: Loesche subsidiary A TEC has won a contract for the supply and installation of a Flash Dryer for alternative fuels (AFs) in the kiln line of Lafarge Zementwerke's 1.1Mt/yr Mannersdorf cement plant in Lower Austria. The supplier said that it will complete the project in early 2021.

The company said, “Reaching high thermal substitution rates (TSR) requires firing of alternative fuels at the kiln burner. To reach a stable sintering zone for the required clinker quality a high fuel quality (high LCV, small particle size) is needed, otherwise the clinker quality may suffer or the TSR can be limited. With the A TEC Flash Dryer various waste heat sources can be used (clinker cooler flue gas, bypass gas, preheater gas, etc.). The material is dosed to the hot gas flow in the flash dryer and transported with this gas flow, while the moisture is evaporated, to a cyclone and a subsequent filter where the fuel is separated from the gas flow and on-line fed to a kiln burner or a satellite burner. In addition to the drying the lifting effect of the gas can separate 3D impurities which contributes in a further increase of the fuel quality.”

Canada: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s serious crime unit has launched an investigation into the death of one person at Lafarge Canada’s Richmond, British Columbia integrated cement plant on 19 November 2020. The Vancouver Sun newspaper has reported that the incident caused the plant to be evacuated.

Spokesperson Jill Truscott said, "We are in shock and are extremely concerned about the impact to this individual's family and friends. Steps have been taken to protect all employees on site and the surrounding community."

WorkSafe British Columbia is conducting a separate investigation.

Switzerland/France: Along with its partner Batica, LafargeHolcim is optimising the design of a low-carbon house, bringing together the latest innovations developed by the group's global research and development centre in Lyon, France.

Construction of the House of Tomorrow began at the end of October 2020 in Saint-Caprais-de-Bordeaux, Gironde. The materials used for its construction will have a CO₂ footprint more than 40% lower than a traditional house, and an optimised energy performance. The integration of these innovations in the house has made it possible for such a property to remain financially accessible to buyers thanks to controlled costs.

To achieve low CO₂ emissions performance, LafargeHolcim used its innovative cement and concrete products, all of which are available on the French market. Foundations were poured using ECOPact AA concrete, with emissions 80% lower than standard concrete. ECOPact A concrete, with CO₂ emissions 50-70% lower than standard concrete, will be used for the compression slab of the VS floor (crawl space). Airium, an insulating mineral foam, will be used to insulate the walls. A very low density concrete – 40-300kg/m³ depending on the mix – Airium represents an environmentally friendly, healthy and affordable insulation solution. LafargeHolcim’s Agilia Chape Thermic fluid screed will be used to coat the under-floor heating elements.

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has launched a Euro850m sustainability-linked bond with a coupon of 0.5% maturing in 2031. It says it is the first bond of its kind in the building materials industry and that it is part of its commitment to reach its 2030 CO₂ reduction target.

“We are proud to be the first in our industry to launch a sustainability-linked bond. The order book of Euro2.6bn demonstrates the confidence of investors in the company’s financial strength, strategy and ability to deliver on its sustainability targets,” said Géraldine Picaud, Chief Financial Officer of LafargeHolcim.

Bond investors will be entitled to a higher coupon should the company not meet its objective, incentivising LafargeHolcim to reach its target of 475kg net CO₂ per tonne of cementitious material by 2030.

South Africa: The Competition Tribunal has confirmed an agreement between PPC and the South African Competition Commission granting the company immunity from prosecution in an investigation allegedly involving price fixing and market sharing between local cement producers from 1995 to 2009. The Cape Times newspaper has reported that the ruling additionally granted the company immunity from related fines. PPC has reportedly agreed not to engage in price fixing or prohibited conduct in the future. The Commission said, "In addition, it will have to develop a competition law compliance programme."

AfriSam and Lafarge Industries South Africa paid fines related to the case. However, a case against Natal Portland Cement (NPC) was dismissed.

China: Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim has announced the formation of green building solutions partnership with Southeast University (SEU) in Nanjing for research into concretes and mortars for use in 3D printing in construction. The company says that the partnership is a step towards achieving its aim of becoming a “full 3D printing solutions provider.”

Head of research and development Edelio Bermejosaid, “Our global network of academic partners is critical in helping us think outside the box. We need the brightest minds to help us lead the next frontier of building solutions.”

2020 has been a year like no other and this clearly shows in the financial results of the major cement producers so far.

The first jolt is that several major Chinese cement producers have seen their sales fall. Following a tough first quarter due to coronavirus, the Chinese industry then overcame floods in the summer, to eventually report a decrease in cement output of 1.1% year-on-year to 1.68Bnt in the first nine months of 2020. The world’s largest cement producer, CNBM, reported a slightly smaller drop in sales year-on-year in the first nine months of 2020. This relatively small fall, just below 1%, may be due to CNBM’s size and diversity of business interests. Other large Chinese producers have noted bigger losses, such as Huaxin Cement’s 9% sales decline to US$3.04bn and Jidong Cement’s 5% sales fall to US$3.8bn. However, Anhui Conch actually saw a 12% rise in sales to US$18.7bn.

Graph 1: Sales revenue from selected cement producers, Q1 - 3 2020. Source: Company reports.

Graph 2: Cement sales volumes from selected cement producers, Q1 - 3 2020. Source: Company reports.

LafargeHolcim’s sales look worse in Graph 1 than they really are because the group was busy divesting assets in 2019. Its net sales fell by 7.9% on a like-for-like basis to US$18.7bn in the first nine months of 2020, a rate of change similar to HeidelbergCement’s. Being a properly multinational building materials producer brings mixed benefits given that these companies have suffered from coronavirus-related lockdowns in different times in different places but they have also been able to hedge themselves from this effect through their many locations. In the third quarter of 2020, for example, LafargeHolcim was reporting recovering cement sales in its Asia-Pacific, Latin America and western/central parts of its Europe regions but problems in North America. Again, HeidelbergCement noted a similar picture with cement deliveries up in its Africa-Eastern Mediterranean Basin Group area, stable in Northern and Eastern Europe-Central Asia and down elsewhere. How the latest round of public health-related lockdowns in Europe round off a bad year remains to be seen.

The other more regional producers are noteworthy particularly due to their different geographical distribution. Cemex has seen a lower fall in sales revenue and cement sales volumes so far in 2020, possibly due to its greater presence in North America. What happens in the fourth quarter is uncertain at best, with US coronavirus cases rising and the Portland Cement Association (PCA) expecting a small decline in cement consumption overall in 2020. Along similar lines, Buzzi Unicem appears to have benefitted from its strong presence in Germany and the US, leading it to report a below 1% drop in sales revenue so far in 2020, the lowest of the decreases reported here for the western multinational cement companies.

Looking more widely, UltraTech Cement, India’s largest producer, had to contend with a near complete government-mandated plant shutdown in late March 2021. The figures presented here are calculated for comparison with other companies around the world due to the difference between the standard calendar financial year (January to December) and the Indian financial year (April to March). However, they suggest that Ultratech Cement suffered a 14% fall in sales to US$3.9bn and an 8% decline in sales volumes to 56Mt, among the worst decline of all the companies featured here. This is unsurprising given that UltraTech mostly operates in one country. Sure enough it bounced back in its second quarter (June – September 2020) with jumps in revenue, earnings and volumes.

Finally, for a view of a region that hasn’t had to face coronavirus-related economic disruption of anything like the same scale, Dangote Cement has reported solid growth so far in 2020, with rises in sales and volumes both above 5%. Economic problems at home in Nigeria have seen relatively higher growth elsewhere in Africa in recent years but now the pendulum has swung back home again. The big news has been that the company has pushed ahead with plans to turn Nigeria into a cement export hub, with a maiden shipment of clinker from Nigeria to Senegal in June 2020. The vision behind this has expanded from making Nigeria self-sufficient in cement from a few years ago into making the entirety of West and Central Africa cement and clinker ‘independent.’

The big news internationally this week was of the reported effectiveness of a Covid-19 vaccine in early trials by Pfizer and BioNTech. It might not yet make it into people’s arms at scale but it shows that the vaccine appears to work and that others in development and testing may do too. Building material manufacturer share prices didn’t rally as much as airlines or cinema chains on the news, construction has carried on after all, but this is a positive sign that normality for both health and wealth is on the way back at some point in 2021. One point to consider, given the wide regional variation with the economic effects of coronavirus, is what effect a disjointed global rollout of a vaccine or vaccines might have. A building material manufacturer dependent on a region that stamps out the virus later than other places might face an economic penalty. Recovery seems likely in 2021 but it isn’t guaranteed and the implications of the coronavirus crisis seem set to persist for a while yet. Here’s hoping for a different outlook at this point in 2021.

Tanzania: Mbeya Cement, part of LafargeHolcim Tanzania, has launched Lafarge Tembo Pozzi, a pozzolana-based cement product. It is intended to replace imports of fly ash, according to the Daily News newspaper. At present the country imports 40,000t/yr of fly ash for the construction industry.

France: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge France says that it will continue to provide its regular service to customers as operations continue into a second national coronavirus lockdown in 2020. This was made possible by the government’s decision to permit the continuation of construction and industrial activities, according to the company.

It said, “The company has learned a lot since the containment last spring and is prepared to guarantee the best possible service for all of its markets, even under the specific conditions linked to the acceleration of the Covid-19 epidemic. All activities - cements, concretes and aggregates - will therefore operate normally throughout the country.” It added, “All our sites are now showing sufficient stock levels to deal calmly with the coming months.”