Displaying items by tag: Philippines

Philippines: Cement producers say that if the government does not implement a permanent safeguard duty on cement imports they may reconsider investment plans to upgrade their plants. Representatives of Taiheyo Cement, Republic Cement, Holcim and Cemex made the comments at public hearings by the Tariff Commission, according to the Philippine Star newspaper. The commission is conducting an investigation to determine whether the provisional safeguard duty imposed by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on cement imports should be kept.

During the hearings, Cirilo Pestaño II the executive director of the Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (CEMAP), lobbied the government to impose a higher ‘definitive’ safeguard duty. He said that imports of cement rose by 64% year-on-year to 1.74Mt in the first quarter of 2019 from 1.06Mt in the same period in 2018 despite the provisional safeguard measure being in place.

Vietnam: Long Son Cement has launched the Vu Dinh 125, a 7000t cargo ship at the Hai Phong Pacific Shipyards. The vessel will be used to transport bulk cement to the central and southern domestic markets and for export to China, Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines.

Philippines: Cemex Philippines has broken ground on the new US$235m production line at its Solid Cement plant at Antipolo in Rizal. The new production line will increase the plant’s production capacity to 3.4Mt/yr from 1.9Mt/yr, according to BusinessWorld magazine. The upgrade is intended to support the government’s ‘Build, Build, Build' infrastructure program.

Philippines: Republic Cement has lunched its first Fast Laboratory On Wheels (FLOW), a mobile laboratory dedicated to providing technical support to construction and building industry players. The mini-truck, which has a pull-canopy converted into a laboratory, carries equipment and apparatus that can perform tests on concrete, aggregates and cement.

“The growing demand for quality construction solution is a primary motivation for Republic Cement’s move to establish its first mobile laboratory,” said Republic Cement president and chief executive officer (CEO) Nabil Francis. FLOW is intended to support the country’s rapid infrastructure development, under the government’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ program.

The mobile laboratory can be transformed into a demonstration area where technical training may be conducted. It can also be despatched quickly to a specific site to provide analysis within hours. FLOW will be deployed in the greater Metro Manila area and regions in Luzon such as Calabarzon and Central Luzon from June 2019.

Philippines: Data from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) shows that imports of cement rose by 64% year-on-year to 1.74Mt in the first quarter of 2019 despite the introduction of a 4% tariff in January 2019. Imports were 1.06Mt in the same period in 2018, according to the Philippines News Agency. The production capacity utilisation factor of local producers is also reported to have fallen. The DTI says it will continue to monitor the situation.

Philippines: The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) expects San Miguel Corporation’s acquisition of a majority stake in Holcim Philippines to reduce the price of locally produced cement. Trade Secretary Ramon M Lopez said that he expected operational synergies and economies of scale to ‘hopefully’ bring down prices, according to the BusinessWorld newspaper. He also noted that import duties on imports of cement could also provide a ‘healthy competitive environment.’

San Miguel Corporation agreed to purchase LafargeHolcim’s 85.7% share in Holcim Philippines in early May 2019. The deal is expected to be completed by the end of 2019.

Jan Jenisch and the team at LafargeHolcim only went and bloody did it! Apologies for readers not wanting yet more column inches on LafargeHolcim but when the world’s largest cement producer leaves an entire sub-continental market it deserves mention.

First Indonesia, then Malaysia and now the Philippines. LafargeHolcim will soon no longer produce clinker in Southeast Asia. That’s a region with 651 million inhabitants or around 8% of the world’s total population. All of those people need cement and other building products as their nations build houses, infrastructure and so on. And LafargeHolcim is no longer there.

The reason, of course, is local production overcapacity in many of these countries and rampageous importers pulling in cheaper product from elsewhere. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) includes Thailand and Vietnam, two of the world’s largest cement exporters. The region also borders China, the place which could produce 40% of the world’s cement if it so wanted. So, understandably, LafargeHolcim pulled the plug. Note that the recent divestments in the region didn’t include its seabourne trading wing, LafargeHolcim Trading. Oh no! Clearly, if you can’t beat them, you join them instead.

So, what to say about the Philippines sale? Unlike the divestments in Indonesia, this sale has valued the production base more highly. LafargeHolcim’s integrated production capacity, including the upgrade at its Bulacan plant, is being sold for over US$175/t with the partial share factored in. And that’s not even including the grinding plant at Mabini. The sale in Indonesia was US$120/t or lower. The Duterte administration’s infrastructure drive (Build, Build, Build) and muscular government action on imports have doubtless played their part here. Yet still LafargeHolcim sold. In the words of chief executive officer (CEO) Jan Jenisch the area was ‘hyper competitive.’

Back home at the group’s headquarters in Switzerland, the potential revenue of over US$4bn from the three ASEAN divestment is poised to trickle onto the balance sheets for 2019. If it were all to go towards debt reduction then these proceeds could pile drive the group’s net financial debt to below Euro10bn. This would be good place to be if the on-going Chinese-US trade tiffs became a little hotter, say, or in the case of a fresh banking crisis. Alternatively the group could pick a new region for development and start all over again or focus on diversifying its business along the building materials chain. And let’s not forget the potential legal bill from the on-going investigation into Lafarge Syria’s conduct during the Syrian civil war.

Throughout this whole exercise, from the outside looking in at LafargeHolcim’s actions, the thought has persistently been: what do they know that everyone else doesn’t? The answer, it may turn out to be, nothing. Yet, rightly or wrongly, we’re marvelling at the bravado of it all.

Philippines: LafargeHolcim has agreed to sell its 85.7% share in Holcim Philippines to San Miguel Corporation for US$2.15bn. Holcim Philippines operates four integrated cement plants and one grinding plant. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2019. It will be subject to regulatory approval.

“With the divestment of our activities in the Philippines, we are completing our exit from the increasingly hyper-competitive arena in South East Asia. While this decision is based on our strategic portfolio review, we have reached very attractive valuations allowing us to achieve a new level of financial strength,” said Jan Jenisch, chief executive officer (CEO) of LafargeHolcim.

Philippines: Republic Cement has held a rally assembling over one thousand construction workers at its Norzagaray Plant to aim for five million safe man hours. The cement producer has reached 4.5 million man hours at its expansion projects at Bulacan, Batangas and Iligan. This includes no lost-time injuries or fatalities.

“Safety is not a punishment. It’s not a punishment to wear your helmet, boots, or harness. It’s a gift of life - the life of your fellow workers and of your family,” said
Roy Ruedas, Project Lead at Aboitiz Construction.

Philippines: Ramon Lopez, the head of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), says that there is no need to impose a price cap on cement yet. However, he said that the government might intervene if the price of cement reached around US$4.6/bag, according to the Philippine Star newspaper. The DTI applied a US$4/t tariff on imported cement in mid-January 2019 for a period of 200 days in response to a surge in imports.