Displaying items by tag: Portugal

Portugal: Cimpor has published new standard procedures for the prevention of intoxicants use at its sites. Cimpor will conduct toxological screening of employees and third-party contractors to ensure a blood alcohol level of 0.0, as well as testing for narcotics and other psychotropic substances. The new protocol aims to protect the safety of everyone at Cimpor sites and host communities. The company says that it will support the screening regimen by implementing additional education and training.

Portugal: Sacopor has inaugurated a new bag production line at its paper bag plant near Lisbon. The new line will increase capacity to 160 million bags per year from 130 million at present. It had an investment of €11.5m. The subsidiary of Cimpor sells bags to the cement mortar industries.

Portugal: Workers from Cimpor, along with those from its subsidiaries Ciarga Argamassas, Serviços and Sacopor, will participate in a three-day strike from 16 – 19 April 2024. The Portuguese Federation of Construction, Ceramics and Glass Trade Unions (FEVICCOM) announced that strike rallies are scheduled for 8am daily near the entrances to cement plants in Souselas, Alhandra and Loulé.

The workers are demanding an 8% salary increase in 2024, with a minimum of €200, a 37-hour work week starting 1 January 2025, annual bonuses, shift work compensation and public holidays in continuous work regimes. Cimpor management previously raised salaries by 4.5% at the start of 2024. This is above the inflation rate in Portugal and twice the increase seen by the civil service. Cimpor added that it had previously increased salaries above the rate of inflation in previous years.

Portugal: Taiwan Cement Corporation has purchased the remaining 60% stake of Cimpor Portugal from the Turkish group OYAK, giving it 100% ownership of the company. This acquisition, valued at €480m, also includes taking over a majority stake in Türkiye, making Taiwan Cement Corporation the ‘third largest player’ in the global cement market, according to the company. The deal strengthens the group’s presence in Portugal, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Ghana, aligning with its global expansion and sustainability-focused investments in renewable energy and technology.

Cimpor's chairman Suat Çalbiyik said "This operation represents a very important step in the company's growth and makes it a world reference in cement production."

Portugal: Taiwan Cement (Dutch) Holdings paid €65m to acquire its new stake in Cimpor, Reuters has reported. Parent company Taiwan Cement Corporation agreed to buy current majority shareholder OYAK Çimento’s 60% stake in Cimpor for €480m in November 2023.

Portugal: The Portuguese Competition Authority has approved Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC)’s outright acquisition of Cimpor. Jingshi News has reported that TCC received the approval on 1 February 2024, enabling it to proceed with its acquisition of the outstanding 60% stake in Cimpor.

Portugal: The competition authority has opened a 10-day window for public comment after receiving notification of Taiwan Cement Corporation’s proposed outright acquisition of Cimpor. The procedure is open to companies and members of the public interested in registering criticism or favourable opinions on the effects of the deal on competition.

Taiwan Cement Corporation agreed to buy current majority shareholder OYAK Çimento’s 60% stake in Cimpor for Euro480m in November 2023.

Taiwan Cement Corporation (TCC) has struck a deal to take control of the Türkiye and Portugal-based parts of OYAK’s cement business. The arrangement will see TCC grow its share of the joint-venture business in Türkiye to 60% from 40% at present and it will fully take over the Cimpor joint-venture in Portugal by purchasing OYAK’s 60% stake. Overall TCC is expected to pay around Euro740m for its acquisitions. A final agreement on the deal is expected to be signed in early December 2023.

The proposed deal follows on from when TCC originally spent US$1.1bn towards setting up joint-ventures as a junior partner with OYAK back in 2018. The situation now appears to have reversed with TCC becoming the main owner of the cement business in Türkiye and the sole owner of Cimpor in Portugal. In Türkiye this gives TCC control over the largest cement producer with seven integrated plants, three grinding plants, 47 ready-mixed concrete (RMX) plants, three aggregate quarries and one paper packaging plant. In Portugal (and Cape Verde) this puts TCC in charge of three integrated plants, two inactive grinding plants, 42 RMX plants, 15 quarries, two mortar plants and a cement bag unit.

This contrasts with last week’s news that CRH is buying one cement plant in Texas (with associated assets) for US$2.1bn. TCC is taking control of 10 plants in Türkiye and Portugal for Euro740m. It is not a fair comparison given the woes of the Turkish economy in recent years, prior joint-venture business ownership and so on. Yet it is one more example of the changing nature of cement company ownership around the world since the mid-2010s.

The state of the economy in Türkiye may well be a factor for the change in ownership at OYAK and Cimpor as well as negative exchange rate trends. High inflation has caused problems in recent years, although the government changed its stance on avoiding putting up interest rates following the elections in May 2023. Yet, in a statement about the OYAK deal, chair Nelson Chang said that “companies that do not understand carbon will not survive in the future.” His company is about to spend Euro740m and become the fifth largest cement producer in the world on the assertion that it does understand carbon. Good luck!

Accordingly, the language in the press releases both OYAK and TCC have released is all about sustainable growth and reducing carbon emissions. However, the detail on how exactly they intend to do this is vague. What is clearer though is that OYAK is hoping that TCC invests in energy storage and related industries such as lithium-ion battery additive carbon black in Türkiye. To this end a TCC subsidiary and OYAK are collaborating on a carbon black plant in Iskenderun and further investments may be in the pipeline. TCC and OYAK are also responsible for a couple of calcined clay projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Readers may recall that the chair of Chang pronounced in June 2023 that TCC was aiming to diversify the business towards over 50% sales from non-cement sectors by 2025. However, the share from the cement business was around 68% in 2022 and this latest deal with OYAK will likely send it in the ‘wrong’ direction. The company already has a production capacity of around 77Mt/yr from its cement plants in China and Taiwan. Majority ownership of OYAK Çimento and Cimpor Portugal will bump this up to 99Mt/yr and put the company into the top five of the world’s largest cement producers by capacity.

The final question here is what kind of owner TCC intends to be to its growing cement businesses in West Asia and Europe. Publicly at least, it has come across as a backseat investor since 2018 although it has been a minority owner. This has now changed but it will be interesting to observe whether the subsidiaries in the west will be run at arm’s length or more closely and if TCC unifies its global branding and so on. Watch this space.

Portugal: Cimpor Portugal has signed a contract with Germany-based KHD Humboldt Wedag (KHD) for an upgrade to production line 7 at its Alhandra cement plant. The project is intended to increase the production capacity at the plant to 3600t/day from 3000t/day and increase the line’s alternative fuels thermal substitution rate to over 80%. It will also be the first installation of KHD’s Pyrorotor alternative fuel combustion reactor in the country.

The scope of the engineering and supply contract comprises:

• New HKSK 224/335 preheater ID fan
• New downcomer duct
• New preheater with 8064/5-type HEM cyclones
• Pyroclon R calciner with Pyrotop mixing chamber. The Pyroclon R will utilize fine refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and natural gas
• 4m x 10m Pyrorotor alternative fuel combustion reactor
• Pyrobox coal firing system for process start-up and operation balancing
• Shortening of the existing kiln and installation of new kiln inlet chamber with bypass extraction
• New kiln drive station 2 (the existing girth gear and two pinions will be reused)
• New kiln hood and take-off of tertiary air from the cooler roof
• New main kiln burner designed to use more than 50% alternative fuels (but will also be capable of burning natural gas, as well as liquid fossil and alternative fuels)
• New Pyrofloor PFC²829AW cooler with a Pyrocrusher PRC 420-3ES clinker crusher.

KHD will also be supplying its KHD ProMax software product as part of the project.

Matthias Mersmann, chief technology officer at KHD, said “The decision by Cimpor Portugal to opt for KHD pyroprocessing equipment - and especially the Pyrorotor - underlines the leading market position of KHD, as well as the outstanding capability of KHD’s unique alternative fuel-processing solution.”

Project execution will be led by KHD Germany, with support from Humboldt Wedag India and the Turkish branch office of Humboldt Wedag. Commissioning of the upgraded production line is scheduled for 2025.

Cape Verde: Portugal-based Cimpor has signed a deal with the government of Cape Verde to develop and exploit a pozzolan deposit over the next 30 years. Exploration of the site is expected to begin by late 2024. The immediate location has reserves of around 0.5Mt in an area of 108 hectares. However, the scheme also has the option to expand the site to 790 hectares, increasing the estimated pozzolan reserves to 4Mt. The project has an investment of Euro3m and is expected to create around 80 jobs.

Cimpor’s parent company OYAK Cement previously said in 2019 that it was planning to invest in pozzolan extraction in Cape Verde.