Displaying items by tag: Pakistan

Pakistan: Thatta Cement has appointed Mohammad Abid Khan as its company secretary. He succeeds Shabid Yaqoob who has stepped down from the role.

Pakistan: Thatta Cement’s sales rose by 35% to US$16.7m in the half-year to 31 December 2018 from US$12.4m in the same period in 2017. Its cost of sales rose by 48% to US$12.5m from US$8.4m. Its profit for the period fell by 6.5% to US$2.2m from US$2.3m.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 16.5% year-on-year to US$51.3m in the six months to 31 December 2018 from US$63.7m in the same period in 2017. The cement producer said that its cost of sales rose by 14.2% due to mounting packaging, coal and other fuel prices. Its revenue grew by 6.2% to US$250m from US$235m. It attributed this to higher export volumes of cement and clinker. Its local sales of cement and clinker fell by 8.4% to 2.99Mt from 3.27Mt. Exports more than doubled to 1.02Mt from 0.5Mt. Accordingly, overall sales volumes increased by 6.8% to 4.01Mt from 3.76Mt.

The company reported that levelling work at its Samawah 1.2Mt/yr integrated cement plant project in Iraq started in January 2019. Civil work is scheduled to start in March 2019 and commercial production at the unit planned to start in mid-2020.

Pakistan: Power Cement has provided an update on construction work towards building a third line at its Nooriabad plant. 97% of the equipment ordered from Denmark’s FLSmdith has been received. 22% of errection work has been completed. The design phase of a new 40MW grid station and its fixing has been completed and civil work has commenced. Overall civil work is reported 91% complete.

The cement producer ordered the new 7700t/day line from FLSmidth in 2017. China’s TEPC has been handling the construction and errection contract. China’s CECC Tianjin (Pakistan) Electric Power Construction has been in charge of civil construction.

Pakistan: Local cement despatches grew by 5.9% year-on-year to 40.9Mt in 2018 from 38.6Mt in 2017. Exports increased by 42% to 5.9Mt from 4.6Mt, according to data from the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association. Overall, all cement despatches rose by 9.4% to 46.8Mt from 42.8Mt. By region, despatches and imports grew faster in the south of the country and exports fell by 7.8% in the north. Exports to Afghanistan fell by 12% but exports to India rose by 2% and overseas exports increased by 155%.

Iraq: Pakistan’s Attock Cement has completed civil, mechanical and electrical construction work on its grinding plant at Basra. The unit is now ready for commissioning. The company is currently obtaining permission to import clinker. Once granted the company will start importing clinker and commence trial production at the plant. The producer first announced its intention to build the plant in 2013.

Pakistan: Shariq Siddiqui, chief executive officer (CEO) of Pakistan International Bulk Terminal (PIBT), forecasts that coal imports for cement producers will rise to 10Mt/yr in 2020 from 8Mt/yr at present. This growth will be driven by new cement production capacity that is being commissioned, according to the News International newspaper. Overall, total coal imports are expected to grow to 30Mt/yr in 2020 driven by new coal-fired power stations.

Pakistan: Local cement sales fell by 1.41% year-on-year to 19.6Mt in the first half of the reporting year to December 2018. The decline, the first in nine years, has been blamed in a cut in development spending, according to the News International newspaper. The All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) said that the decline in domestic cement consumption was more pronounced in the northern region where most of the country’s production capacity is based. Cement sales fell by 5.95% to 15.5Mt in the north but they increased by 20.7% to 4.1Mt in the south. Despite this, exports rose by 48% to 3.6Mt, supported by plants in the south.

Pakistan: Two contract workers at Lucky Cement’s plant in Pezu, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province have been killed in a gun attacked on a bus. A third worker was wounded in the incident, according to the Dawn newspaper. Local police are searching for the killers.

Pakistan: The Sindh High Court has ordered the provincial government to take possession of around 1100 acres of land of Rohri Cement’s plant while a dispute concerning the lease of the land is decided. The Sindh government has argued that the lease of land was illegal was the cement producer’s representatives have asked the court to grant a grace period, according to the Dawn newspaper. The case continues.