Displaying items by tag: Thang Long

Vietnam: Semen Indonesia plans to invest up to US$300m towards building a cement plant in Vietnam in the next five years as part of its business expansion in Southeast Asia. The Indonesian state-run cement producer intends for its subsidiary Thang Long Cement to build a 1.5Mt/yr cement plant, according to General Director Dwi Soetjipto. Construction is scheduled to start in early 2015 with a operation due to start in 2018.

Thang Long Cement currently holds a cement production capacity of 2.5Mt/yr and the new plant is intended to meet the increasing demand for cement in Vietnam and other Asian countries, including Singapore, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Semen Indonesia holds a 70% stake in Thang Long Cement. It has set a target of becoming one of the leading cement producers in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam will not face a shortage of cement in either the short or long term as the supply is estimated at 75 - 76Mt/yr in 2015 while demand in 2014 is estimated at 65 – 67Mt/yr, according to the Ministry of Construction. The local cement industry had around 2.59Mt of unsold products, mainly clinker, at the end of April 2014.

Vietnam: Thang Long Cement has exported 30,000t of cement cargo in bulk packed with Jumbo bags to Peru. This is the first and largest shipment of cement the Semen Indonesia subsidiary has exported to Peru in 2013. Since May 2013 Thang Long Cement has exported over 750,000t of products.

Vietnam: Indonesian cement producer Semen Gresik has bought the Vietnamese cement company Thang Long Cement. The purchase was included in a conditional sales purchase agreement between Semen Gresik and Ha Noi General Export Import Joint Stock Company (Geleximco). Semen Gresik refused to state the value of the deal or the percentage of shares it had acquired.

"I am afraid we cannot mention it right now, but we are the majority. We will let you know in a month from now," said Dwi Sutjipto, Semen Gresik CEO. With the acquisition Semen Gresik hope to increase its market share and production capacity in Vietnam.

Thang Long Cement has a total production capacity of 2.3Mt/yr. Two new factories are expected to open soon, in the Quang Ninh and Binh Phuoc provinces, increasing the company's total capacity to 6.5Mt/yr.

Vietnam: Vietnam's Ministry of Construction has proposed the creation of an association for cement and clinker exporters to curb 'unhealthy' competition among them. The proposal has been sent to the prime minister for approval.

In its proposal the ministry said that Vietnam's cement and clinker exports have been 'badly affected' because some companies cut export prices to 'unfairly' compete with the rest. At present Vietnam has eight cement and clinker exporters. Six, Vicem, Ha Long, Thang Long, Cam Pha, The Vissai and Cong Thanh, are domestic. The remaining two, Chinfon and Phuc Son, are joint venture companies.

The ministry has called on local cement companies to cooperate rather than undercut each other in order to liquidate their large inventories through exports. The inventories are the biggest challenge facing the industry, it said. Exporting is considered a temporary measure to deal with the rising inventories which were caused by frozen real estate market and unplanned construction of cement factories nationwide.

Vietnam held around 2.8Mt of cement in inventories at the end of June 2012. The figure is expected to rise to 6Mt by the end of 2012, an increase of 23% on year-on-year.