Displaying items by tag: Overcapacity
China: The Vice minister of Industry and Information Technology, Xin Guobin, recently led a delegation to investigate excessive cement capacity in north-east China. Xin urged local governments, industry associations and key enterprises to work together, further reduce excessive capacity and try to reverse losses in the cement industry in the region.
Companies including Yatai Cement, Liaoning Daying Cement Group, Inner Mongolia Mengxi Cement Co., Ltd, Sunnsy Cement and China Tianrui Group Cement Company Ltd have all set up cement clinker production lines in north-east China.
Smog politics and cement overcapacity
03 December 2014China has admitted once again that its cement industry is plagued by over-capacity. State news agency Xinhua came clean this week as it reported that 103 production lines have been closed for the winter months.
The principal reason given for the winter shutdown was prevention of air pollution with resolution of overcapacity presented as a handy secondary. With long term plans in place to reduce overcapacity through industry mergers, demolitions and bans on new plants this is one more offshoot from the very public problems that smog and industrial pollution has given the Chinese government.
The policy follows a similar shutdown in China's far-western state of Xinjian that has been implemented since 1 November 2014. Xinjian is away from China's main cement production heartland in the south and east of the country. The idea here is to stagger winter production from cement kilns that use coal to avoid flue gas emissions rising when coal consumption for heating also rises. Since cement consumption by the construction industry is lower in the winter, a stoppage at this time of year should affect the cement producers less. Proposals have also been made to include Inner Mongolia and Hebei into the scheme.
The three provinces in question now - Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Jilin – represent 80Mt/yr or 6% of China's total cement production capacity from 28 cement plants, according to the Global Cement Directory 2014. This is broadly in line with the proportion of national population the three provinces hold.
Back in 2012 the National Development and Reform Commission suggested that national cement capacity utilisation was 69%. Local media in China have been reporting that currently Xinjian uses 60%. Western commentators reckon that China uses only 50% of the cement industry's total production capacity. By contrast India, the world's second biggest cement producer after China, has been lamenting this year that capacity utilisation had fallen below 70%. Worldwide, excluding China, capacity utilisation rates have been estimated to be just below 70% in 2014.
Plummeting particulate matter counts are great for Beijing's cyclists and their continued goodwill towards the government. However, the implications are bad for the producers who are affected and the associated industries. As one Chinese equipment manufacturer commented on Global Cement's LinkedIn Group, "...many small manufacturers of cement plants in China will go bankrupt." Unfortunately this too is also in line with the country's strategy to reign in its cement industry through industry consolidation. It may yet turn out sunny for the state planners... once the smog clears.
Cimpor to focus on exports
16 October 2013Portugal: Cimpor wants to focus its Portuguese operations on exports, according to its CEO Ricardo Lima. The cement producer's market in Portugal is shrinking and its cement production capacity is increasingly being used for exports, Lima has told newspaper Diario Economico.
Cimpor has a cement production capacity of around 9Mt/yr in Portugal but its domestic demand is only 1.5Mt/yr. Meanwhile, export volumes have doubled since 2011. Cimpor exports to Algeria, Togo, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Gambia, Nigeria, Cameroon and northern Brazil.
Camargo Corrêa became the majority shareholder of Cimpor in 2012. Through subsequent restructuring almost 200 employees, mainly administrative staff, left the company. At present Cimpor has no plans to shut down plants in Portugal.
Vietnam set to overproduce 25Mt cement in 2013
16 October 2013Vietnam: The Vietnam Cement Association has said that Vietnam's cement production capacity will reach 70Mt/yr after three new cement plants start operation before the end of 2013. The three new projects include X18 cement project in Hoa Binh province, Phuc Quang cement project in Quang Binh province and Dong Lam cement project in Thua Thien, Hue province. Domestic consumption of cement is estimated to be approximately 45Mt/yr in 2013 giving the country an overcapacity of 25Mt/yr.
China issues guideline to cut overcapacity
15 October 2013China: China's State Council, the country's cabinet, has issued a guideline to tackle production overcapacity in several industrial sectors. According to a statement on the Chinese government's website and reporting by the Xinhua News Agency, the guideline targets the cement sector and four other sectors suffering from overcapacity including steel, electrolytic aluminium, sheet glass and shipping.
The move is a key measure for the government to achieve stable growth, restructuring, transformation and an 'upgraded' version of the Chinese economy, according to the 'Guideline to tackle serious production overcapacity'. The guideline will play a key part in current and future efforts to transform the economic growth mode and boost industrial restructuring, according to the statement.
Vietnam adds three more cement plants despite surplus
01 October 2013Vietnam: The Vietnam Cement Association (VNCA) has said that three more cement plants will open later in 2013 – X18, Quang Phuc and Dong Lam - despite the country's current cement surplus.
According to reporting by the Tuoi Tre newspaper, the new plants will raise national cement production capacity to around 70Mt/yr. Domestic cement demand is estimated at up to 46Mt/yr in 2013. The opening of the new plants will lead to a surplus of up to 25Mt/yr.
Local cement producers in Vietnam face rising debts and high stock inventories due to inaccurate demand forecasts and massive investment. The country's cement sales are expected to rise by 4 - 5% year-on-year to up to 57Mt in 2013, including 49Mt of domestic sales and 8Mt of export.
Is the Indian summer over?
21 August 2013'Below expectations' was the headline message from Holcim's half-year results this week. Canada, Mexico and Morocco were all singled out as problem areas for Holcim but surely India represents the biggest headache for the debt-reducing multinational.
How badly its bottom line was hit by India in particular, Holcim declined to say. Overall its entire Asia Pacific region saw sales volumes of cement fall by 3.7% to 37.8Mt to 36.4Mt for the first six months of 2013. In 2012, India represented over half of the group's Asia Pacific installed cement production capacity. This suggests that the actual drop in sales in India was probably at least 6%, more if the other countries in the territory did better than in 2012. Overall profits for the Asia Pacific region fell by 14% to US$650m. What we do know is that Holcim announced major restructuring to its businesses in India in late July 2013 to cut costs.
The other major cement producers in India have fared similarly badly. UltraTech's first quarter profit, for the period ending on 30 June 2013, fell by 13.5% to US$111m. Its revenue fell by 2% to US$820m. Jaiprakash Associates also reported a 2% dip in its cement sector revenue to US$247m in the quarter ending on 30 June 2013. Profits fell by 24% to US$27m. India Cements' sales revenue rose by 3% to US$196m. Yet its operating profit fell too, by 41% to US$19.8m.
Both Holcim and India Cements blamed falling cement prices in the south of India. India Cements directly mentioned overcapacity. The only explanation UltraTech offered for its poor performance was rising input and logistics costs.
Problems in India are not unexpected. Overcapacity has loomed over the Indian cement industry for some time as the race for growth far overtook the increase in demand. In the wider economy, India hit its lowest gross domestic product increase in a decade, 'just 5%', for the financial year ending on 31 March 2013. Meanwhile the Indian Rupee fell to a record low of 61 against the US Dollar in late June 2013. Not good news at all for any cement producers looking to offset energy or raw materials costs from abroad.
As predicted in our overview of the Indian cement industry back in February 2013, the smaller cement producers are now likely to get picked off by the larger firms as capacity utilisation falls and fuel costs rise. It is interesting to compare this free-market led cement industry consolidation to the state-directed one happening in China.
The Indian media are certainly wise to this with reports and speculation on endless takeover rumours. One example of this is the Irish building materials conglomerate Cement Roadstone Holdings's (CRH) decision to purchase Sree Jayajothi Cements that was announced in early August 2013. However with CRH itself having just reported that it made a loss in the first half of 2013 it may be regretting that it finally has a presence in the south of India.
China: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) had finalised details of an overall plan to reduce overcapacity in the cement industry according to Xin Renzhou, an official with the MIIT interviewed by an affiliate of the Xinhua News Agency.
Xin said that the plan would require higher standards for environmental controls including fuel efficiency measures. Cement plants failing to comply with the new requirements will be ordered to make changes or face losing market access. Jing Xiaobo, another official from the MIIT, added that the through the plan China also intends to reduce overcapacity mby expanding domestic demand, accelerating its decommissioning strategy and optimising organisational structures in cement producers.
In addition to joint efforts between the MITT and the NDRC, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and other related authorities will issue a series of supporting policies on curbing overcapacity, and adopting more commercial measures to strictly control the output capacity of major industries, such as the cement industry.
Ethiopia overestimates cement demand in 2012 - 2013
13 August 2013Ethiopia: Ethiopia has produced 12Mt of cement, double its domestic demand, in the fiscal year that ended on 7 July 2013, according to a report released by Ministry of Industry (MoI). The country's current domestic demand for cement is estimated to be around 5.4Mt/yr.
The government expected a significant rise in cement demand in its Growth & Transformation Plan (GTP) that plans for per capita consumption of cement to increase from 35kg to 300kg. It had predicted that the demand would grow to 27Mt/yr, exceeding the 12Mt/yr cement production capacity of the country's 18 plants in the 2014 – 2015 fiscal year.
China prepares to cut cement capacity as output rises by 9.7% to 1.1Bt in first half of 2013
31 July 2013China: China produced 1.1Bt in the first half of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%, according to the latest statistics released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The cement inventory of the country's major cement producers increased by 0.3% year-on-year to 27.76Mt. Profit for the cement industry remained flat with a 1% increase year-on-year to US$2.49bn.
Meanwhile the government is considering a detailed plan to eliminate outdated industrial production capacity, according to the China Securities Journal. The plan is expected to eliminate outdated capacity in the cement, steel, electrolytic aluminum, plate glass and shipbuilding sectors.
Zhu Hongren, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), confirmed that MIIT and the NDRC are currently working on the plan. The plan will boost the sectors' utilisation of existing capacity by setting industry access standards and eliminating outdated capacity. To ease overcapacity in affected industries, MIIT ordered in late July 2013 around 1400 companies in 19 sectors to eliminate outdated production capacity by September 2013 and eliminate excess capacity by the end of 2013.