Displaying items by tag: data

Spain: According to the latest data from Oficemen, cement consumption in Spain recorded an average increase of 1.8% in 2024, after rising by 4.3% in November 2024. The figures align with the 1.3% growth observed from January to October 2024. November's boost brought the monthly consumption to 1.34Mt nearly 56,000t more than in November 2023. Despite a 41% growth in exports in November 2024, adding 154,387t, an 8.8% year-on-year decline. From January to November 2024, Spain exported 4.54Mt of cement, 0.44Mt or 9.7% less than the same period in 2023.

Aniceto Zaragoza, general director of Oficemen, said "These positive figures are in line with the forecasts we gave at the beginning of 2024, where we expected a moderate recovery towards the end of the year. With 11 months of data now available, it is not risky to predict that we will close the year with slight positive growth, as we anticipated in January 2024. This trend makes us look at 2025 with some optimism, expecting a more solid increase in consumption."

Vietnam: Vietnam produced 167Mt of cement in the first 11 months of 2024, up by 3% year-on-year, according to the latest data from the General Statistics Office (GSO). In November 2024, the country’s cement output increased by 12% year-on-year to 17.2Mt, according to the GSO. In 2023, Vietnam produced 120.1Mt of cement, down by 5% year-on-year.

Pakistan: In November 2024, there was a 6% increase in total cement despatches, reaching 4.15Mt compared to 3.93Mt in November of the previous fiscal year, according to the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA).

Local cement despatches during November 2024 were 3.34Mt, reflecting a 2% year-on-year increase from 3.27Mt in November 2023. Exports rose by 21% year-on-year, from 662,374t in November 2023 to 803,258 tonnes in November 2024. However, the first five months of the current fiscal year saw a 5% decline in total cement despatches, amounting to 18.8Mt, down from 19.8Mt during the same period last fiscal year. Domestic despatches fell by 12% to 14.8Mt, while exports experienced a 29% year-on-year increase, reaching 4.02Mt.

An APCMA spokesperson noted that domestic cement sales could improve if the government reduced duties and taxes, which would lower consumer costs and boost demand, helping to utilise the sector's idle capacity.

Türkiye: Cement exports from Türkiye to Uzbekistan decreased by 21% year-on-year in the period from January to October 2024 compared to the same period in 2023, and amounted to US$11.4m, according to Trend. Türkiye's global cement exports from January to October 2024 decreased by 7% and amounted to US$3.6bn.

In October 2024, Türkiye exported cement products worth US$765,000 to Uzbekistan, marking a year-on-year decline of 69%. Overall, it exported US$365m worth of cement, up by 1% year-on-year. To note, Türkiye exported cement worth US$4.3bn from October 2023 to October 2024.

Spain: Cement consumption in Spain has seen a cumulative increase of 1.3% in the first 10 months of 2024, compared to a decline of 0.5% at the end of the third quarter of 2024, according to the latest data from Oficemen. This increase is largely due to 14.5% growth in October 2024 consumption compared to the same month a year earlier, reaching 1.37Mt, the highest since 2019. Despite the domestic gains, cement exports fell by 1% in October 2024 to 0.41Mt, contributing to a 13% decline in the cumulative annual data up to October 2024. Since November 2023, exports have decreased by 16%, totalling 0.47Mt.

Oficemen’s general manager Aniceto Zaragoza said "These positive figures are in line with the forecasts that we made at the beginning of 2024, when we were expecting a moderate recovery in the final stretch of the year."

Puerto Rico: The Puerto Rico Economic Development Bank (BDE) has reported an increase in cement sales, reaching 1.41 million 43kg bags in October 2024, the highest since March 2023. This marks a 15% rise from October 2023, with recent months averaging 1.28 million bags.

BDE President Luis Alemañy said "We see a recovery in the construction sector, particularly in cement sales, which predicts a good impact on infrastructure development and job creation in Puerto Rico. Although the 2024 fiscal year closed with a 1% decrease in cement sales compared to the previous year, the start of the 2025 fiscal year shows a 6% increase in sales between July and October. This allows us to anticipate a progressive recovery in this key sector for our economy."

On 6 November 2024, Donald Trump appeared before followers in Florida, US, to declare victory in the 47th US presidential election. A sea of red baseball caps reflected the promise of the former president, now once again president-elect, to Make America Great Again. What Trump’s triumph means for the cement industry is not so straightforward. One lesson of President Trump’s 2017 – 2021 tenure as 45th president is that a Trump presidency comes with winners and losers.

Alongside the international heads of state posting their congratulations to Trump via social media was the Portland Cement Association (PCA), which represents US cement producers. In a post to LinkedIn, it took the chance to set out its priorities for the upcoming presidency, set to commence on 20 January 2025. These include collaborating on ‘market‐based initiatives’ to further reduce US cement’s CO₂ emissions, addressing ‘regulatory burdens’ that currently hinder the uptake of alternative fuels (AF) and ensuring favourable policies and funding for the use of alternative cements under federal transport programmes, which are up for renewal in 2026, as well as collaborating on carbon capture, utilisation and storage.

The post was suitably diplomatic for an organisation that will have to work with the incoming administration for the next four years. Reading the policy priorities against some of Trump’s campaign promises, however, they may be more pointed. As part of his plan to stimulate economic growth, Trump has proposed an unspecified reduction of the ‘regulatory burden’ of environmental standards. He also purports to want to replace renewables with increased use of fossil fuels – in direct opposition to the PCA’s goal to slash the US cement industry’s coal and petcoke reliance from 60% to 10% by 2050. The PCA’s stance is not merely ideological: its roadmap is founded on the legally-binding Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation. Trump, who considers the Paris Agreement a ‘disaster,’ has the stated aim of withdrawing the US from the treaty – for a second time!

The PCA included a positive note that “We can all agree that the ultimate goal of our industry and the government is to best serve the American people.” In case there were any doubt as to what it feels best serves those people, it concluded that it will work with all federal officials to help communities in the US to build ‘a more resilient, sustainable’ country.

Producers themselves, in the US and many other markets, had been finalising first-half or nine-month financial results when the Trump news broke. Now came half-anticipated strategy discussions – and a surprise: in market after market, trading in cement stocks opened on the up. Ireland-based CRH’s share price spiked by 15%, before settling on a rise of 6% day-on-day. Mexico-based Cemex’s rose by 7% and Switzerland-based Holcim’s by 5%. Investors, clearly, glimpsed opportunity in uncertainty for these US-involved operators.

Trump’s campaign successfully positioned him as the disruptive outsider, despite being the known (or, at least, known-to-be-unpredictable) quantity of the two candidates. His promise to Americans was increased affordability; to corporations, deregulation. Either way, he stands to overhaul the past four years’ policy on the economy. All of this may keep Wall Street high-ballers placing their bets on Cemex or CRH, or on Holcim North America after it eventually joins them on the New York Stock Exchange. The prospect of more money in homebuyers’ pockets is attractive, especially to allied sectors like property development, where Trump himself worked for over 40 years. The cement industry, meanwhile, will be taking a hard look at what the Trump proposition might mean for its market.

US Geological Survey (USGS) data tracks a favourable market trend under the present Biden Administration – to date – for a US cement industry that has also grown in production terms. Consumption was 120Mt in 2023, up by 14% over the three-year-period from 2020, while production was 91Mt, up by 4% over the same period. President Biden has signed into law two major pieces of legislation – the Inflation Reduction Act and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – with a combined value of US$1.94tn in additional public spending, to President Trump’s none. However, the Republican president previously proposed investing an additional US$200bn in 2018.

Trump voters may have perused the USGS’ most recent monthly cement figures, for July 2024, before casting their votes. The figures recorded a 5.2% year-on-year decline in total cement shipments in the year-to-date, to 58.6Mt. Both Eagle Materials and Italy-based Buzzi noted a recent lack of growth in US sales volumes in their latest financial results. Another possibly alarming trend for the industry – and anyone with a protectionist mindset - is the growth of imports, which rose from 14.8Mt in 2019 to 26Mt in 2023.

A defining feature of Trump’s original presidency, alongside Covid-19 lockdown, was his still-ongoing trade wars. We can expect Trump to resume his roll-out of new tariffs as soon as he can. This might include cement plant equipment produced in other jurisdictions, such as the EU. Compared to the roster of goods he previously denied entry to the US, however, 26Mt/yr of cement will be less easy to wrangle with in a country with a domestic shortfall of 29Mt/yr.

Whatever happens in politics, the US cement sector remains very strong, with historied local ownership and some of the most innovative plants in the industry globally. Global players continue to seek to maximise their US-facing presence, as evidenced by Brazil-based Votorantim Cimentos’ contemplation of an initial public offering (IPO) for Votorantim Cimentos North America, announced on 7 November 2024. For the industry, the day-to-day grind – and pyroprocess – goes on.

After all, Trump did not enact many of his more disruptive proposals, such as building a Mexican border wall, after his win in 2016. See Global Cement’s analysis of that proposal here. But even this record is an unreliable guide for what to expect in 2025 – 2029. Not only did Trump himself win the popular mandate this time around, but his allies also gained majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, comprising the US legislature. This betokens a different pace and scale of possible changes.

In 10 weeks’ time, the US cement sector will be lobbying an entirely new regime. Now is the time for it to prepare whatever arguments will appeal to incoming lawmakers to allow it make the best of such opportunities as may be available.

Argentina: Cement shipments remained below pandemic and pre-pandemic levels in October 2024, which marked the sixth decline so far in 2024, according to Clarion newspaper. October 2024 saw shipments down by 20% year-on-year and 1.1% month-on-month, according to the Portland Cement Manufacturing Association (AFCP). In October 2024, sales dropped to 907,421t. 7.9Mt of cement was sold in the first 10 months of 2024 compared to 10.7Mt in the same period in 2023. Consumption also suffered a year-on-year decrease of 20% ​​and a monthly decline of 1.3%. The industry attributes the downturn primarily to a halt in national public works, as well as rising costs such as taxes on limestone and quarry exploitation fees.

Damián Altgelt, executive director of AFCP, said "The cement sector is going through a difficult year, with a drop of close to 25% compared to 2023. We confidently hope that the macroeconomic measures that the government is undertaking will allow us to overcome this transition period soon and recover the highest levels of activity again. In the past four months we have seen around 0.9Mt of cement sold (per month), which is clearly higher than the very depressed levels we had in the first half of 2024.”

Pakistan: Despite low domestic cement demand, exports rose in October 2024, with total despatches reaching 4.36Mt, a 9% increase compared to 4Mt in October 2023. The All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association reported a 51% increase in export despatches, from 714,325t in October 2023 to 1.1Mt in October 2024. This increase offset the slow local market demand, which saw a minor decline of 0.5% in domestic despatches to 3.28Mt from 3.3Mt.

Over the first four months of the 2024 financial year (July – October 2024), total cement despatches (domestic and exports) fell by 8% to 14.6Mt from 16Mt in the previous year's corresponding period. Domestic despatches decreased by 15% to 11.4Mt, whereas exports grew by 31%, reaching 3.2Mt from 2.5Mt.

Spain: Spain's cement consumption declined by 0.5%, with 10.9Mt consumed by the end of the third quarter of 2024, 50,760t less than the same period in 2023, according to Oficemen. However, a 7.1% increase in consumption in September 2024 was also observed, with 1.22Mt consumed, 80,515t more than in September 2023.

General manager of Oficemen, Aniceto Zaragoza, said "The latest cement consumption data continues to corroborate our forecasts for the end of 2024, which pointed to a slight improvement from the summer onwards. At the same time, the positive evolution of building permits could indicate that we are witnessing a moderate change in trend, although, as we have indicated on other occasions, we must wait to see if these works are actually carried out in the short term."

Since September 2023, 14.4Mt of cement were consumed, marking a 1.8% decline year-on-year. Despite a 16% increase in cement exports in September 2024, the annual cumulative data for the first nine months still shows a 14.7% decline, equating to a reduction of 617,855t. Since September 2023, exports have fallen by 17%, resulting in a reduction of 955,590t.