Displaying items by tag: Tunisia

Tunisia: A planned strike by workers at Carthage Cement for late October to early November 2017 has been cancelled. The decision to call off the industrial action follows a meeting between Finance Minister Ridha Chalghoum and UGTT Secretary General, Noureddine Taboubi, according to African Manager. Further meetings between the management of the cement producer and the unions have been scheduled.

Tunisia: Ciments de Bizerte has nearly doubled its loss to Euro5.7m in the first half of 2017 compared to Euro3m in the same period in 2016. The cement producer’s revenue fell by 8.4% year-on-year and its operating income fell to a loss of Euro2.5m from Euro1.9m, according to the L'Économiste maghrébin magazine. The company operates a single cement plant at Bizerte with a clinker production capacity of 0.9Mt/yr.

Tunisia: Carthage Cement’s cement sales have fallen due to a ban on sales to Algeria. Its clinker production volumes fell by 27% year-on-year to 0.57Mt in the first half of 2017 from 0.78Mt in the same period in 2016 and its cement production fell by 13% to 0.72Mt from 0.83Mt. Cement export sales fell by 79% and overall its sales fell by 18% to Euro31.6m from Euro38.7m. However, the cement producer said it increased its market share in the period.

Tunisia: Fire fighters have controlled a fire that broke out at the Djebel El Ouest cement plant. The fire started on the ground floor of the plant, according to Tunis Afrique Presse. It then damaged electrical cabling and equipment. It is suspected to have been caused by a short circuit in an electrical machine caused by rising temperatures. No casualties have been reported.

Tunisia: Al Karama Holding, a state-owned company, has initiated a bidding process to sell its stake in Carthage Cement. The company has started a consultation process with investment banks and consultation firms to help it sell its direct and indirect stakes in BINA Group, that includes Carthage Cement, according to the African Manager website. The deadline for bids is 16 June 2017. The government owns an estimated 41% share of the cement producer.

Tunisia: Finance Minister Lamia Zribi has said that the Tunisian government has decided to sell its share in Carthage Cement. It owns an estimated 41% share of the cement producer, according to Tunis Afrique Presse. Zribi said that the decision was due to financial problems at the company as well as issues with production and export. Carthage Cement's chief executive Ibrahim Sanaa has blamed a rise in production costs on a poor construction market and production overcapacity.

Portugal: Semapa’s sales revenue from its cement business fell by 1.35% year-on-year to Euro471m in 2016. Its earning before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 0.3% to Euro85.1m. It attributed the slight fall in revenue to a fall in turnover in Portugal and Tunisia, although it noted that it rose in Brazil.

Its sales volumes of Ordinary Portland Cement rose by 5% to 4.99Mt from 4.73Mt but its clinker sales fell by 13% to 0.42Mt from 0.48Mt. Despite the poor state of the construction market in Brazil, the cement producer’s local firm, Supremo Cimentos, managed to increase its sales as its Adrianópolis plant increased its production in the year following its opening in mid-2015.

Spain: Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV) has made a loss of Euro225m in 2016. It increased from a loss of Euro62m in 2015. It reported that its sales fell by 7.6% year-on-year to Euro536m in 2016 from Euro580m in 2015. It attributed this to the sale of its US subsidiary, Giant Cement, falling sales in Tunisia, a decrease in the value of the Tunisian dinar and rising fuel prices.

The cement producer’s sales volumes of cement fell slightly to 7.2Mt in 2016. However, once sales from Giant Cement are removed then, its sales volumes rose by 1.6% due to a 49% increase in exports from Spain. This compensated for declining markets in Spain and Tunisia.

The cement producer said that overall cement consumption in Spain fell by 3.1% to 11.1Mt in 2016, although this was partially offset by exports rising by 5.6% to 9.8Mt. Reduced domestic demand and rising exports have led to clinker production rising slightly in 2016 to 17Mt. It added that cement consumption increases were slowing down in the US, although the regions its subsidiary Giant Cement operates in reported above average increases of almost 11% to November 2016 in the South East, Mid Atlantic and New England regions. In Tunisia it reported that the market fell by 3.9% to 7.2Mt and that exports to Algeria and Libya had fallen.

Tunisia: A new 1Mt/yr cement plant in Sidi Bouzid is set to open in 2018, according to Director General of Manufacturing Industry Brahim Chebili in an interview with African Manager. The project is budgeted at US$220m and will create 300 jobs.

Tunisia: Carthage Cement’s turnover grew by 17% to US$66.2m in the nine months to 30 September 2016, compared to US$55.8m a year earlier. Locally, the firm’s sales reached US$42.3m, a rise of 21% from US$34.9m in the same period of 2015. This growth helped Carthage Cement bring its market share up to 19% in Tunisia, compared to 15.5% a year earlier. This bucked the trend in the sector, which contracted by 3.3% year-on-year between the review periods.

In terms of exports, sales fell by 2% to US$8.4m from January to September 2016, against US$8.5m in the first nine months of 2015. The third quarter of 2016 saw a higher decrease year-on-year, of 16%. The firm said it was due to a lower demand from Algeria in particular.