Displaying items by tag: Nuh Çimento
Update on Türkiye, March 2024
13 March 2024TürkÇimento revealed this week that cement production in Türkiye grew by 10.5% year-on-year to 81.5Mt in 2023. In a press release describing the progress of the local cement sector, the cement association reported that domestic sales rose by 19% to 65Mt but that exports fell by 28% to just under 20Mt. Fatih Yücelik, the chair of TürkÇimento, also said that his country was the second largest exporter of cement in the world in 2023 and that its most important target market was the US. He noted that the construction sector grew by 8% during 2023, that reconstruction projects were enacted following earthquakes in early 2023 but that no further growth in domestic sales of cement was anticipated in 2024.
As is standard for these kinds of occasions, Yücelik also raised the association’s sustainability ambitions, describing his sector as one “whose main goal is to provide low-carbon production.” He added that the Turkish cement industry supports the country’s net zero target of 2053. To this end the association has also released its first sustainability report, for 2022, covering 48 of the country’s 52 integrated plants. The Hürriyet Daily News newspaper offered one reason for this enthusiasm for sustainability: the US$30bn in investment required to meet that 2053 net-zero target. It also reported that Yücelik said that the industry needed to spend US$2bn towards meeting the incoming requirements of the European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).
Graph 1: Domestic and export cement sales in Türkiye, January – October, 2017 – 2023. Source: TürkÇimento.
TürkÇimento’s data for 2023 currently runs up to October 2023 but it supports Yücelik’s assessment. As can be seen in Graph 1, domestic sales of cement rose sharply in the first 10 months of 2023, by 20% year-on-year to 53.1Mt, yet exports fell almost as abruptly, by 18% to 13Mt. This is noteworthy, as exports had been rising steadily each year since 2018. Italy-based Cementir provided some context here in its annual report for 2023 saying that it had decided to focus on the domestic market due to greater profitability. Heidelberg Materials’ joint-venture Akçansa echoes these comments, blaming declining exports on “historically low freight rates increasing competitiveness of southeast Asian suppliers” while emphasising that the shift to the domestic market was made to meet increasing demand.
Graph 2: Revenue of selected large Turkish cement producers, 2022 - 2023. Source: Company reports.
Financial information from the larger Turkish cement producers that have released their results for 2023 follows the same pattern. Three of the four companies included in Graph 2 saw sales revenue grow in 2023. The one that saw its revenue fall, Nuh Çimento, is a major exporter. In 2022 for example it supplied 18% of the country’s total cement exports. All of these companies saw operating profit or earnings increase though.
The other big Türkiye-based news story this week was that Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC) completed the latest increase to its stakes of Cimpor Global Holdings joint-ventures in Türkiye and Portugal. TCC now owns a 60% stake of the business in Türkiye and a 100% stake in Portugal. With respect to the business in Türkiye this means that TCC now has control of the country’s largest cement producer, OYAK Çimento. Once again the CBAM received a mention, with TCC saying in its valedictory statement that it believed that, “whether it's domestic or imported cement, low-carbon cement will become the main competitive advantage for the cement companies entering the European market.”
The domestic market in Türkiye may have seen a bounce in 2023 but the attention of both TürkÇimento, TCC and others are firmly set on the wider market in the region. TürkÇimento’s Fatih Yücelik said that the country’s cement production capacity was 120Mt/yr and that the population would have to be 150m to eliminate the need for exports. Its population is currently just under 85m. Yücelik set a value of US$2bn for his sector to adjust to CBAM but he also remarked that the income from exports in 2023 was around US$1.3bn. This is not an easy investment ‘pill’ to swallow but one that the country will have to digest if it wants to keep its export levels up.
Update on Türkiye, January 2023
18 January 2023The Ministry of Trade in Türkiye said this week that it was monitoring developments in the construction industry. Specifically, the ministry is reacting to complaints it has received about the high price of cement and supply issues. It has been looking at exports of clinker and cement. The statement noted that prices had risen particularly in the last one to two months and that the government was prepared to take unspecified action to alleviate the situation.
The comments hark back to the autumn of 2021 when members of the Construction Contractors Confederation (IMKON) stopped working for two weeks in response to high prices including cement. At the time the ministry tightened its rules on exporting cement and clinker. This followed the start of an investigation into alleged anti-competitive behaviour by the regulator Rekabat Kurumu into nine cement producers in the first half of that year. Around the same time Türk Çimento, the Turkish Cement Manufacturers' Association, had also been warning about growing raw material and energy costs. It noted that declining domestic sales between 2017 and 2019 had encouraged its members to focus on export markets more. All of this was overshadowed in February 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine and global energy prices spiked. Türk Çimento then warned of the trouble that high coal prices were causing the sector.
Graph 1: Domestic and export cement sales in Türkiye, January – September, 2017 – 2022. Source: Türk Çimento.
Graph 1 above shows that the trend towards exports that Türk Çimento pointed out in mid-2021 has continued. Domestic sales fell to a low of 33.2Mt in 2019, recovered to 2021 and dropped somewhat so far in 2022. As an aside, that decline in domestic sales from 2017 to 2019 was the first the local cement industry had experienced a fall in sales since at least 2002. Exports fell year-on-year in 2018 but have increased steadily since then to 14.6Mt in the first nine months of 2022. Exports represented 10% of total sales in 2017. So far in 2022 they have accounted for 27% of total sales. Türk Çimento’s take on the picture so far in 2022 is that it expects the domestic market to decline by 10% in 2022 in all regions of the country principally due to high commodity prices. Cement exports are expected to increase but clinker exports to decrease.
Commercially, Türkiye-based cement producers have reacted to high energy prices by upping their own product prices in turn. OYAK Çimento, for example, reported significant rises year-on-year in sales revenue and earnings in the first nine months of 2022. Net sales grew by 160% year-on-year to Euro403m and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 202% to Euro106m. Akçansa and Çimsa reported a similar situation.
Despite the high energy costs, both investment and merger and acquisition activity has continued in the cement sector in 2022. In August 2022 Fernas Group completed its purchase of two integrated cement plants, a grinding plant and associated ready-mix concrete assets from Çimsa Çimento for US$110m. Later in the year, in November 2022, Safi Çimento acquired Sancim Bilecik Çimento’s integrated plant from Aşkale Çimento. Various upgrade projects to cement plants were also reported including projects at KÇS Kipaş Çimento’s Kahramanmaraş plant, Nuh Çimento’s Hereke cement plant, MEDCEM’s Silifke plant and OYAK Çimento’s Ünye plant.
Recent reporting by the Economist newspaper suggests that the government is targeting the domestic housing sector in response to higher than inflation price rises even compared to Türkiye’s high consumer price inflation rate. The next general election in June 2023 may also be encouraging legislators to look at the accommodation needs of their constituents. Whether this is connected to the Ministry of Trade’s recent decision is unknown. Cement producers have followed the money to lucrative export markets in recent years. How far the government is willing to intervene in this strategy could mark a change in direction for the sector.
Nuh Çimento to expand waste heat recovery unit at Hereke cement plant
16 September 2022Turkey: Nuh Çimento has applied for environmental clearance for the expansion of a waste heat recovery (WHR) unit at its Hereke cement plant in Marmara. En Kocaeli News has reported that the company seeks to expand the plant’s power capacity by 66% to 29.6MW from 17.7MW. The company estimates that the project will cost US$4.38m. Its construction will employ 50 people.
Nuh Cement exports 4.5Mt of cement in 2020
01 March 2021Turkey: Nuh Cement exported 4.5Mt of cement in 2020, corresponding to 22% of Turkish seaborne cement and clinker exports and over 2% of global seaborne cement and clinker in the year. It says the volume is the highest recorded in any year by a Turkish cement producer. The company also delivered the highest exports to the US from Turkey.
Nuh Cement international sales and marketing and port director Abdulhamit Akçay said, “I would like to extend my gratitude first and foremost to our respected clients, my export and port team under my command, production group management, maintenance group management, the purchasing department, the finance department, the human resources department, the information technology department and all other units and colleagues whose names have not been referred to, and our general manager and lastly but especially to our group chief executive officer who has led us with a unique leadership.”
Dal Teknik Makina completes upgrade project at Nuh Çimento
06 February 2018Turkey: Dal Teknik Makina has completed an upgrade project on Kiln Line 1 at Nuh Çimento in Kocaeli. Key features of the project included increasing the line’s production capacity, decreasing its energy requirements, making savings on power consumption and lowering the exit temperature of the clinker. The work has increased the plant’s production capacity to 3400t/day from 2800t/day. Other benefits of the update include decreasing the specific heat consumption of clinker to 740kcal/kg clinker from 870kcal/kg clinker, reducing electrical power consumption by 7kWh/t and increasing the raw mill capacity to 185t/hr from 160t/hr. The exit temperature of clinker was also reduced to 55oC plus the ambient temperature.
This project involved the design, manufacturing and erection of the pre-heater tower cyclones group, kiln feed transport system, clinker cooler, kiln hood, removing of dust cyclone at tertiary air duct, cooler vent fan modification, main bag filter duct modification and kiln inlet seal and commissioning of the system.
The first part of the upgrade project was the modification of the pre-heater tower, which as a result reduced the pressure drop, improved heat transfer and separation efficiency, and heat consumption. The second part of the project was the retrofit of the grate cooler. The clinker cooler, kiln hood, cooler fans and cooler vent fan were replaced by Fons Technology International. In this part, kiln hood, cooler vent, exit pipe of waste heat recovery (WHR) unit and tertiary air duct were modified as well. The third part was to replace the horizontal duct of main bag filter inlet with an inclined one in order to avoid dust accumulation. The last step was the replacement of the pneumatic kiln feed by bucket elevator.
The project followed Dal Teknik Makina’s Filter-To-Filter Pyro-Process Concept.
KHD wins order to upgrade Nuh Çimento ball mill
09 May 2017Turkey: KHD has been awarded the contract to upgrade Nuh Çimento’s existing ball mill grinding unit in Hereke-Kocaeli located in Marmara. With this upgrade, the plant will increase the grinding capacity from 212t/hr to 408t/hr at 4000cm3/g according to Blaine. This will be the largest upgrade project to date for KHD. Commissioning is scheduled for the start of 2018.
NUH Cimento’s plant contains one of the largest ball mills in the world with a diameter of 5.8m, a length of 17.84m and a 10.4MW drive unit. The mill has been used for around nine years at the site. For the upgrade, KHD will install two new identical Comflex grinding systems next to each other, which can be operated independently, in addition to the existing ball mill system. The new compact system will allow for a significant reduction in the installation height of the Complex system.
The contract includes: two Comflex SC16-3250 clinker grinding units; two roller press RPM 16-170/180 with Rolcox system for control and monitoring; two VS 620 type cascade separators as static classifiers; two Sepmaster SKS-VC 3250 type efficiency separators as dynamic classifiers; two HKSK 190/265 system fans; and a two years spare parts package including one spare roller.