Displaying items by tag: Türkiye

There was a great quote on BBC News from Nigerian cement mogul Aliko Dangote to start 2014 with: "Can you imagine, can you believe, that [Nigeria] has been growing at 7%/yr with no power, with zero power? It's a joke."

In the article Dangote is describing economic growth in Nigeria and the BBC points out that 170 million people in Nigeria use the same amount of power as 1.5 million people do in the UK. The author then goes on to predict that Nigeria could grow at a rate of 10 – 12%, by just solving power infrastructure in the country.

For the start of 2014 the British state broadcaster has been running a radio series on the so-called MINT economies. The term refers to the growing economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey and is being used as a new buzzword in the same fashion as BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) to describe broadly similar growing economies outside the traditional western bloc dominated by the G7.

Comparing the cement industries in the MINT countries raises some discrepancies between the desires of Western economists and the local cement industries. Mexico has a population of 118m, a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of US$1.85tr and a cement production capacity of 50Mt/yr. Indonesia has a population of 238m, a GDP of US$1.29tr and a cement production capacity of 47Mt/yr. Nigeria has a population of 175m, a GDP of US$479bn and a cement production capacity of 28Mt/yr. Turkey has a population of 74m, a GDP of US$1.17tr and a cement production capacity of 82Mt/yr.

Mexico and Turkey have the lower populations in the MINT group, the highest (and most similar) Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita at US$15,000 and are the more developed cement industries in the group with the higher cement production capacities per capita. All of the MINT countries have infrastructural issues that will require large amounts of cement in the coming years.

Highlighting Dangote's concerns we cover a cement industry news story this week from Nepal, where Dangote is considering potential locations for a cement plant. Part of the publicly reported meeting between Dangote and the Nepalese government concerned power requirements for the project. Dangote intends to generate 30MW itself and has asked Nepal to provide 30MW. From the CEO downwards the cement producer clearly understands the problems of underdeveloped infrastructure. This is not surprising given his comments above!

That MINT economies are growing powers will not surprise the cement industry. In this week's Global Cement Weekly, in addition to the Dangote story, we feature two news stories focusing on direct industry capital investment in Indonesia. Looking more widely nearly half the stories are from BRIC or MINT countries.

With this in mind Global Cement has developed its own buzzword for the cement industry in 2014: the VISA group. This group includes Vietnam, Italy, Spain and Australia, countries that have all had problems with their cement industries in 2013 such as a production overcapacity or financial losses. If readers have any nicknames of their own for groups of cement producing nations let us know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Eurocement recently trumpeted the production of two new types of cement at its Podgorensky plant in Voronezh Region. A focus on standards follows a self-declared offensive being taken by the leading Russian cement producer against foreign imports since August 2013.

When the 3Mt/yr Podgorensky plant reached its full production capacity in July 2013, Eurocement president Mikhail Skorokhod gave a press conference to promote his products over the imports from Iran and Turkey. Some of the more humorous comments Skorokhod made to the press included suggesting that Iranian cement might be radioactive and the revelation that the title of Eurocement's in-house magazine, 'All Shades of Grey', might be inspired by an erotic novel with a similar name ('50 Shades of Grey').

More seriously, Russia's southern regions between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea are vulnerable to foreign imports. Both Turkey and Iran have high cement production capacities and they have access to the country via these two seas. In addition to rising housing construction in Russia since 2010, cement demand is expected to further take a boost from building associated with the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

As stated by Skorokhod, the Podgorensky cement plant was created to fight foreign imports. Hence the focus on standards and government approval. The cement types in question - TSEM I 52.5N and TSEM II/ A-Sh 42.5N - were certified by NIIMosstroy (the Moscow Construction Research Institute) with additional testing conducted by the Voronezh Regional Center for Hygiene and Epidemiology. The move was similar to attempts made in recent years by local producers in southern and eastern Africa to focus consumers' minds on quality versus the potential risks of low-cost imports.

Eurocement clearly wants to fight imports head on given that, according to CMPRO data, total cement imports to Russia nearly doubled from 2.8Mt in 2011 to 5.1Mt in 2012. Turkey, Belarus and Iran were the main importers in 2012. In 2012 cement imports as a percentage of consumption hit their highest level since 2008. At the same time Russian consumption of cement rose by 13% to 65Mt in 2012 from 58Mt in 2012.

Back in August 2013, Skorokhod said that the Podgorensky plant had cut imports to the southern ports. With no figures available yet for imports in 2013 we can only wait and see.

Lawlessness, strike action and increases in energy inputs are the three factors hindering Turkish investment in Egypt.

These concerns arose in a meeting held last week between the Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Hatem Saleh and a Turkish trade delegation. It was also reported that Turkish investors have applied to build a cement plant in the Sinai region of Egypt.

Investing in Egypt by a cement company seems risky given that both Italcementi and Lafarge have shown problems in the country in their recent financial reports. Italcementi reported a loss in sales in its first half results for 2012 partly due to the Egyptian market. Lafarge saw volumes fall by 11% in its second quarter in Egypt due to limited gas supply.

Nationally cement demand fell by 8% in 2011 to 45.2Mt due to the political unrest of the 'Arab Spring'. In January 2012 the government cut energy subsidies to heavy industry, including cement, to narrow its budget deficit.

Lawlessness is certainly a concern. In August 2012 Suez Cement suspended construction of a plant expansion project amid civil unrest. It had also suffered from strikes at its plants earlier in the year. Earlier in the month Egypt launched air strikes in the Sinai region close to the border with Gaza killing 20 people. Previous to this a group of Chinese cement workers working in the Sinai were kidnapped in January 2012.

Yet Titan, despite its losses so far in 2012, reported in its first half results at the end of August 2012 that the construction sector maintained its positive momentum in the country. In addition, it said that demand for building materials grew absorbing production from new cement plants entering the market.

Recent developments supporting this optimistic trend have included Arabian Cement increasing its capacity to 5Mt/yr with the opening of its second production line. FLSmidth recently won a contract to operate and maintain two production lines for Egyptian National Cement. ASEC Cement expects full production of 1.9Mt/yr at Minya to begin by the first quarter of 2013.

With a mixed picture emerging, the cement industry in Egypt shows potential for those producers willing to take the risks, or those able to minimise them. Even at the proposal stage the new Turkish project in Sinai has been linked with the al-Maghara coal supplies of the northern Sinai.

Reporting the annual results for Turkish cement producer Adana Çimento opened up an issue familiar from many of the international big players' annual reports last year: currency fluctuations.

The conversion rate between the US dollar and the Turkish lira rose from US$1 to Turkish lire 1.55 at the end of 2010 to US$1 to Turkish lira 1.89 at the end of 2011. This created the alarming situation where the company's annual sales rose by 3% from 2010 to 2011 if you measured it in Turkish lira, but fell by 15% if you measured it in US dollars!

Great news for currency speculators playing with so-called 'hot money' but not so great for manufacturers seeking stable trading conditions. As for the company's shareholders, if they are paid their dividend in Turkish lira then it's the value of the lira that is important. If the shareholders have to change Turkish lira into their own 'foreign' currency in order to spend it (or keep it in the bank), into dollars for example, then that's when they could lose out.

This is particularly bad news for a country like Turkey with its strong export market. Although looking at the nation's top export destinations in 2010 reveals a roll call of instability, including Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt. Regardless of the price, these countries are going to need cement when the dust settles from ongoing political turmoil, something we also cover in another story this week with reports of striking at Egyptian plants. Cement isn't likely to be coming from Saudi Arabia though, which we see is enjoying demand driven by government-funded construction projects.

Elsewhere this week we have stories on the impact of the Indian Budget on the cement industry, yet more Dangote projects in Cameroon and Liberia and promising signs from Taiheiyo in Japan.