Displaying items by tag: Southern Province Cement

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement Company plans to upgrade its Jizan cement plant in Abha with a new 10,000t/day clinker production line to replace the plant’s existing clinker lines. The producer plans to launch the project in mid-late 2021.

Many Saudi Arabian cement producers have reported increased annual sales and profits in recent weeks. Southern Province Cement’s sales revenue rose by 27% year-on-year to US$440m in 2020 from US$347m in 2019. Net Profit after zakat and tax increased to US$162m from US$123m. Other producers enjoyed similar boosts. The reason can be seen in the country’s domestic cement sales. They rose by 21% year-on-year to 51Mt in 2020 from 42Mt in 2019. After a promising start to the year the coronavirus pandemic hit local production hard in the second quarter of 2020. However, it nearly doubled year-on-year in June 2020 and kept up the pace thereafter.

Graph 1: Domestic cement sales in Saudi Arabia, 2010 – 2020. Source: Yamama Cement.

Graph 1 above puts the cement sales in 2020 into context over the last decade. Sales hit a high in 2015 but then started to wane as infrastructure spending dried up due to lower oil prices and decreased government spending. A ban on exporting cement was subsequently relaxed but the general market appeared to adapt to the new situation. This changed significantly in 2020 with analysts attributing the turnaround to programs organised by the Ministry of Housing. This growth has carried into 2021 with NCB Capital forecasting an increase of 3.5% in local cement sales in 2021 due to the ongoing housing programs, the country’s so-called ‘Giga’ projects and investment by its sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), as part of its 2021 - 2025 strategy. They reported that demand created by the country’s large-scale projects began to be felt along the supply chain in the fourth quarter of 2020 and associated contracts have started to be issued.

To give an example of the scale of some of these schemes, one of the proposed giga projects is to build a new city called Neom from scratch near the Red Sea coast. The resulting conurbation is intended to showcase new technologies and diversify the Saudi Arabian economy away from hydrocarbons. It has a price tag of US$500bn. An airport was built in 2019 and a next step was announced in January 2021, introducing a 160km linear city without roads called ‘The Line.’ Doubtless it will require lots of cement to realise the dream in whatever forms it happens to end up taking.

The wider picture here is that global oil prices hit a low in April 2020 as coronavirus lockdowns triggered a worldwide drop in demand although they then started to recover. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates that Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product fell by just under 4% in 2020. In response the PIF has upped its investment in the local economy including in the ‘Giga’ projects like Neom. There has been scepticism internationally about whether these projects will progress any further beyond press releases and actually get built. However, the cement producers’ financial results, cement sales figures and reporting from analysts like NCB Capital show that some investment is happening and it’s having results. The sector still faces a battle against overcapacity. It had a production utilisation rate of just under 70% despite the increase in cement production in 2020. Yet cement producers in Saudi Arabia have done well. While the Saudi Arabian government continues to spend on infrastructure in order to rebalance its economy this looks set to continue.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement has appointed Hamad bin Sulaiman Al-Bazai as the chairman of its board of directors. Other appointments include Muhammad bin Nasser Al Nabit as vice-chairman of the board and Saud bin Safar Al Burgan as secretary.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement has appointed Aqeel bin Fateis bin Saeed Kadsa as its chief executive officer (CEO). He was assigned to the position in July 2020. He holds a degree from the King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals and joined Southern Province Cement in 1997. Most recently he worked as the Executive Vice President for Manufacturing Services.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement has appointed Aqeel Futis Kadasa as its chief executive officer (CEO) following the resignation of Safar Mohammad Dhufayer. Kadasa holds a degree in chemical engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals and has over 25 years of working experience. He started his work at Yamama Cement, then worked in the Saudi Electricity Company in the Department of Engineering Services and later joined Southern Province Cement in 1997.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement’s sales revenue rose by 37% year-on-year to US$165m in the first half of 2019 from US$121m in the same period in 2018. Its net profit after Zakat and tax grew by 53% to US$56.3m from US$36.8m.

Bangladesh: Saudi Arabia’s Southern Province Cement has signed a deal with Peakward Enterprises in Hong Kong to export 1.5Mt of clinker to Bangladesh. The first shipment was scheduled to start on 31 December 2018 and they will run until the end of June 2020. No value for the contract has been disclosed.

Saudi Arabia: Cement sales of companies operating in Saudi Arabia recorded an increase of 11.5% in July 2017. Sales rose to 3.49Mt in July 2017, compared to 3.13Mt during July 2016. Cement production in Saudi Arabia grew by 5% year-on-year to 3.37Mt in July 2017 from 3.2Mt, according to Yamama Cement Company.

Southern Province Cement topped the sales list with 409,000t sold in July 2017, although this was 5.32% less than the 432,000t that it sold in July 2016. Yamama Cement was the second most prolific seller, with a year-on-year sales growth of 17.5% to 369,000t from 314,000t in July 2016. Meanwhile, Tabuk Cement registered the lowest sales of 61,000t in July 2017, a 17.6% fall from 74,000t in the year-ago period.

In June 2017 cement companies’ sales in Saudi Arabia dropped by 40.6% year-on-year to 2.08Mt from 3.5Mt in June 2016. This is likely due to the earlier timing of Ramadan combined with temperatures of up to 45°C (113°F), both of which will have significantly reduced demand for building materials.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement (SPC) has launched trial operations of a third production line at its plant in Tuhama. The new line has 5000t/day of production capacity. The trial period will last about four months.