Displaying items by tag: Shipping

Interesting news from Holcim Mexico this week with the announcement that it is planning to invest US$40m towards building a 0.7Mt/yr grinding plant in the state of Yucátan. The unit will be supplied with clinker from Holcim Mexico’s Macuspana and Orizaba integrated cement plants. This follows the news in August 2018 that Elementia’s cement company, Cementos Fortaleza, had started to build a new 0.25Mt/yr grinding plant at Merida in Yucatan. That project has a budget of US$30m.

These two projects offer a contrast to comments made by the head of Cemex Mexico, Ricardo Naya Barba, who was lamenting the state of the market to local press at the start of the month. He said that sales volumes of cement, concrete and aggregates had fallen by 12 – 15% in the first seven months of 2019. He blamed the decline partly on falling national infrastructure investment. This marked a slight improvement on Cemex’s Mexican results for the first of 2019 where sales, sales volumes and earnings were all down. At this time as well as slowing infrastructure projects the situation was also attributed to a residential sector hit by the slower-than anticipated start of the new programs.

Elementia’s Mexican cement business, Cementos Fortaleza, reported a similar picture in the second quarter of 2019. Its net sales fell by 6% year-on-year to US65.4m from US$69.7m. This was attributed to a market contraction affecting all of Elementia’s businesses in the country, as well as the redefinition of its core products for the Building Systems business unit. Earnings fell also and this was further attributed to mounting energy and freight costs. Cementos Moctezuma faced many of the same issues. Its cement sales fell by 13% to US$147m in the second quarter of 2019. It is expecting a similar picture for the remainder of the year.

Data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) shows that the value of cement sales in Mexico fell by 7% year-on-year to US$1.21bn in the first quarter of 2019 from US$1.30bn in the same period in 2018. Cement sales volumes fell by 8.2% to 10.9Mt from 11.9Mt. This was the lowest figure since 2014.

The one larger Mexican cement producer that doesn’t seem to have been overly troubled so far in 2019 is Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC). Earlier in the year the company was considered to be the Mexican cement producer most at risk from potential US tariffs due to higher reliance on exports than its competitors. Yet Mexico’s National Chamber of Cement (CANACEM) publicly said that that it didn’t consider US tariffs a significant barrier to the local industry. GCC reported growing net sales and cement sales volumes in the second quarter of 2019 due to industrial warehouse construction, mining projects and middle-income housing at the northern cities.

Two new grinding plants in a particular region of Mexico don’t necessarily reflect the state of the country’s industry as a whole. Yucatan may suit the grinding model due to a lack of raw materials or strong shipping links. The region may also be defying the gloomy national state of affairs in the construction sector. Alternatively, producers may be chasing low-cost and low-risk expansion plans in a tough market. The grinding model wins out over the clinker producing one in this scenario. In the wider picture in August 2019 Cemento Cruz Azul ordered two petcoke grinding mills from Germany’s Loesche and Austria’s Unitherm Cemcon said it had been awarded the supply of an MAS DT burner to an unnamed cement plant. These suggest that, although the sector may be having a bad year so far, things are expected to get better.

Russia: Mordovcement, the Mordvinian-based subsidiary of Eurocement, shipped a total of 2.3Mt of cement by rail in the nine months to 30 September 2019, representing an increase of 31%. In July 2019, the company says it set a Russian record for number of carriages filled with cement in a single shipment, with 210 carriages. Russian Railways recognised the company’s high shipping volumes with a formal expression of thanks for “ensuring high rates of growth in freight traffic” at a Russian Railways Company Day celebration ceremony.

Russia: Eurocement has trialled a novel cement transportation solution to increase the capacity of its Volga river barges by 100%. Firstly, the company strengthened its pallets to bear a double load. It then piled a second layer of cement in all four holds of its vessel, which successfully conveyed the 1200t load 1000km upriver to Yaroslavl from its 1.3Mt/yr integrated Sengileevskiy cement plant. Eurocement’s Director of Transport and Logistics Tatyana Dureiko has stated that this was the first time that the company has directly overseen the transportation by boat of its cement from launch to reception.

China: Taiwan Cement has published information on behalf of its shipping subsidiary Ta-Ho Maritime concerning the latter’s purchase of two 84,000t capacity bulk carrier vessels at a price not exceeding US$70m from Japan-based shipbuilder Sumitomo. The deal contains an option to purchase a third unit for not more than US$35m, to be exercised before 30 September 2019.

Russia: After two years of transporting its product by land only, Siberian Cement has reported a busy summer shipping window in 2019. In the two months to the end of August 2019, it shipped 15,500t of cement to Novy Port on the Gulf of Ob, Arctic Ocean. The company has announced its intent to move 17,000t in 2020 and 13,000t in 2021 by means of it 1000t-capacity barges.

Spain: FYM-HeidelbergCement has launches a new clinker conveyor at the Port of Malaga. The new Euro2.5m project started by loading 4800t of clinker onto a ship bound for Ireland. The conveyor will continue to be tested in August 2019 with 30,000DWT and 40,000DWT vessels. The enclosed conveyor has a load capacity of 650t/hr. the project also included setting up two storage areas in the Pescadería area of the city.

Sri Lanka: The Sri Lankan Navy has rescued nine sailors from the ‘Sri Lanka Glory,’ a barge that transports clinker to the Rugunu cement grinding plant in Galle. The barge was forced off course by gale-force winds off the coast of Rumassala, according to the Daily Mirror newspaper. A previous attempt to retrieve the seamen from the damaged vessel by tug had failed.

Canada: McInnis Cement has closed a US$380m refinancing deal. US$230m will be provided by an increase McInnis Cement’s senior loan from a syndicate of 11 Canadian and international banks and the remaining US$150m comes in the form of a loan by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) and Beaudier. This refinancing also makes it possible to repay a bridge loan granted by BlackRock in 2016.

The cement producer also provided details on various projects it is undertaking. Two new cement silos will be built at the company’s integrated cement plant at Port-Daniel–Gascons. Nearly 200 workers will be mobilized on the site during the peak construction period of the two silos, during the autumn of 2019.

Its Bronx Terminal in New York, US has doubled its loading capacity for customers. A second truck-loading lane is now fully operational. A new 40,000t warehouse is currently under construction at its Providence Terminal in Rhode Island, US bringing the total storage capacity to 75,000t. A new truck-loading lane will also be added and commissioned in time for the 2020 spring construction season. McInnis Cement has also confirmed the charter of the NACC New Yorker, a 24,000t self-unloading vessel, in conjunction with Nova Marina Carriers. It will join other vessels in its fleet including the NACC Quebec (14,000t), the Cielo di Gaspesie (35,000t) and the Resolute unloading barge.

Germany/US: Germany’s Baltrader and US-based United Bulk Carriers (UBC) have launched the Cement Carrier Alliance (CCA) to cooperate the marketing of their respective fleets of pneumatic cement carriers. The aim of the deal is to offer a wider range of vessel sizes to existing and new customers while enhancing marketing to current and developing markets. The two companies operate 15 self-discharging cement carriers with a range of 3000 – 15,000DWT vessels.

Both companies will remain independent entities each operating out of their own offices while offering continuity in their customer relationships. CCA will be jointly represented by the UBC office in Philadelphia and the Baltrader office in Hamburg.

China: Cosco Shipping Bulk, part of Cosco Group, has signed a strategic deal with Conch Logistics, the logistics subsidiary of Anhui Conch. The agreement will see the two companies jointly develop in the cement logistics sector, according to Asia Shipping Media. In December 2018 Anhui Conch ordered four 12,500DWT bulk carriers from the Jiangdong Shipyard with delivery scheduled in 2020. Cosco Shipping Bulk operates the largest bulker fleet in the world with total capacity of over 33MDWT.