Displaying items by tag: data
Pakistan: The All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) says that the capacity utilisation of the local cement industry reached 94% in the nine months of the local financial year to March 2018. Demand for cement has been bolstered by local demand and growing exports so far in 2018, according to the Business Recorder newspaper. Cement despatches grew by 14.7% year-on-year to 34.8Mt in the first nine months of the 2017 – 2018 year from 30.3Mt in the same period in the previous period. Despatches grew faster in the north of the country than the south.
Turkish clinker exports jump by 32.4% to 4.93Mt in 2017
20 March 2018Turkey: Data from the Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association (TCMA) shows that clinker exports rose by 32.4% year-on-year to 4.93Mt in 2017 from 3.72Mt in 2016. Cement production rose by 6.8% to 80.6Mt from 75.4Mt. Production rose in all regions with the exception of the Aegean and Mediterranean.
Roadblocks remain in the US?
14 March 2018The latest data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) shows that cement shipments rose by 2.4% year-on-year to 95.5Mt in 2017. Readers with elephantine memories may remember that the Portland Cement Association (PCA) revised its forecast for 2017 down to 3.1% from 4.2% in a release made in late 2016. Shipments and consumption are different metrics but the PCA was heading in the right direction. Unfortunately, however ebullient the PCA’s chief economist Ed Sullivan was at the IEEE-PCA in 2017 about growth in the US in 2018 and 2019, the necessary rise required seems quite steep. President Donald Trump may have handed the major cement producers a tax break but until his infrastructure spending materializes the US construction industry is on its own.
Graph 1: Clinker production in the US, 2013 – 2017. Source: USGS.
Viewing the US as a whole is a little unfair given its wide regional variation. As can be seen in Graph 1 clinker production jumped up from 2013 to a high of 76.5Mt in 2015 before taking a dip in 2016 and then rising again to 76.9Mt in 2017. Cement shipments of Ordinary Portland and blended cement show a similar trend over the same timescale except without the decrease in 2016. Interestingly, imports of cement and clinker rose by 18% to 13.6Mt in that year. The major exporters to the US were Canada, Greece, China and Turkey, in that order.
Graph 2: Cement and clinker imported for consumption to the US in 2017 by country. Source: USGS.
From a producer perspective LafargeHolcim described 2017 as a ‘disappointing’ year, with overall net sales down slightly on a like-for-like basis. The group remained optimistic for 2018 though, with its hopes pinned on rising employment and housing construction. HeidelbergCement rode high on its acquisition of Italcementi’s local subsidiary Essroc, which enabled it to grow its business in the northeast and midwest. Its cement sales volumes rose by 2.3% to 4.1Mt. CRH noted similar cement sales volume growth of 3% and attributed this to stronger demand. Its business also benefited from the acquisition of Suwannee American Cement with its 1Mt/yr cement plant in Florida. Further growth to its production base is also expected soon as it completes its acquisition of Ash Grove Cement.
By contrast Buzzi Unicem reported a tougher year with its net sales barely increasing from 2016 to 2017. It blamed a tough first half of the year for this as well as weather-related issues due to Hurricane Harvey and then snow in December 2017. Cemex too reported harder conditions in the US, with cement sales volumes down by 6% for the year. Although on a like-for-like basis with plant sales excluded it reported this as a rise of 2%. Again, it blamed the weather but it did note an increase in residential housing construction as the year progressed.
In this kind of mixed environment for cement producers no wonder the PCA backed or, perhaps more accurately, reminded the President of his pledge to spend US$1.5tn to be invested in infrastructure. As per usual the PCA forecasts fair weather ahead for the US industry once the latest roadblock is overcome. At the last assessment it was inflationary pressure. As ever the government opening its cheque book to build things is exactly what the industry needs to build on its promise. Until then expect more of the same. One more thing to consider though is that the Trump administration is also trying to change the ratio of federal-to-state funding for cross-state infrastructure projects. If the states end up having to pay more money for these kinds of projects these may end up running out of funds, delaying or cancelling them. Counting on that infrastructure spend may be unwise until if or when the cement orders come piling in.
Production continues to soar in February 2018 in Vietnam
13 March 2018Vietnam: 7.62Mt of cement was sold in Vietnam in February 2018, a year-on-year rise of 38%, according to the Vietnam Building Material Association. Of the sum, 5.02Mt were sold domestically, an 11% rise from a year earlier. This included 1.96Mt sold by Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (VICEM). 2.60Mt of cement were exported, a 30% rise year-on-year.
In January and February 2018, Vietnam sold 18.6Mt of cement, 85% more than in the first two months of 2017. It exported 5.5Mt in the same period, a 121% rise year-on-year. In just two months, the country has produced 22.9% of its whole year target as local demand continues to be outpaced by supply. The country faces a glut of 25 - 36Mt/yr of cement by 2020 if current production and consumption trends continue unabated.
Ukraine: Cement production fell by 4.8% in Ukraine in September 2017, with total production of 899,000t, according to the State Statistics Service. The figure was 10.7% lower than in August 2017. In the first nine months of 2017, production of cement rose by 1.5% to 7.24Mt year-on-year. The country’s total cement production is more than 20Mt/yr. This indicates a capacity utilisation rate of 48% for the first nine months.
SNIC predicts Brazilian cement industry recovery from 2018
12 September 2017Brazil: Paulo Camillo Penna, the president of the Brazilian cement association SNIC, predicts that the local industry will start to recover in 2018. His comments follow the publication of data for August 2017, according to the Valor Econômico newspaper. He added that the country would need four or five years of growth to resume the levels of 2014, the last year sales increased reaching 71Mt. Sales of cement have been falling less steeply than previously but are still projected to end 2017 with a decrease of 7%. Sales are then forecast to grow by 1% in 2018 with a more rapid recovery expected to begin in 2019.
Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines to stop gathering sales data over competition concerns
23 August 2017Philippines: The Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (CEMAP) has decided to stop collating quarterly sales data on the cement industry due to competition concerns. Instead its president Ernesto Ordonez has urged the government to gather the information, according to the Philippines Star newspaper. Its last report was in 2016. CEMAP is currently under investigation by the Philippine Competition Commission for allegations of anti-competitive behaviour.
Spain: The Spanish cement makers association Oficemen says that cement consumption grew by 11% year-on-year to 4.9Mt in the first five months of 2017. It attributed the rise to increased residential housing construction. The association forecasts that, if the growth continues, the consumption may reach 12.3Mt in 2017, the strongest figure since 2012.
However, exports have fallen by 7.6% to 3.76Mt. Oficemen said that this decline has reduced the benefit of improvements in the domestic market and kept production capacity levels of 50% at cement plants. It also raised recent increases in electricity costs as cutting the competiveness of the industry’s exports.
Brazil: SNIC, the Brazilian National Union of Cement Industry, reports that total cement sales have fallen by 9% year-on-year to 26Mt in the first half of 2017 from 28.6Mt in the first half of 2016. SNIC president Paulo Camillo Penna said that the figures were in line with the organisation’s forecasts and that they show a deceleration in the decline of cement consumption. Consumption is expected to pick up in the second half of the year and SNIC predicts that it will fall by 5 – 9% for the year as a whole.
Cyprus: The Statistical Service of Cyprus has stopped reporting data on the cement industry following a request by a local cement producer. It has announced that to safeguard ‘statistical confidentiality’ it will no longer disseminate monthly data for the production, sales and exports of cement and clinker. The department of the Republic of Cyprus apologised to the users of the data stating that it is obliged, under the provisions of the Statistics Law of 2000, to respect the request.
The island’s main cement producer is Vassiliko Cement, which operates an integrated plant in the southern Republic of Cyprus. Italy’s Italacementi owned a minority stake in the company before its takeover by HeidelbergCement. LafargeHolcim’s subsidiary Boğaz Endüstri ve Madencilik runs a cement grinding plant in the so-called northern Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.