Displaying items by tag: India

India: A Bangalore-based startup formed at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has developed an ‘eco-friendly’ cement alternative using geopolymer technology. The product claims to reduce CO₂ emissions by 21.5kg/m² of pavers produced compared to ordinary Portland cement, according to The Economic Times. It also claims to eliminate water use and offer a 15-20% cost advantage. The product achieves full strength in just three days, compared to the 28 days required for Portland cement.

Nanjunda Rao, one of four cofounders of Novacret and chief research scientist at IISc, said “The benefits are significant, geopolymer-based materials achieve full strength in just three days in tropical climates like India, compared to the 28 days required for Portland cement.”

Typical! We published a cement sector news review for 2024 in the December 2024 issue of Global Cement Magazine and a load of big important events happened afterwards. So, here is a roundup of some of the major stories that have taken place in the last two months of the year.

The TL:DR (too long; didn't read) version of ‘Global Cement News in 2024’ was: focus on the US market by the multinationals; cement joining the emissions trading scheme in China as the world’s largest market stagnates; continued rivalry between UltraTech Cement and Adani Group in India as that sector grows; markets in the Middle East and North Africa adjusting to higher exports; the drawn out divestment of InterCement in Brazil; lots of new plants in Sub-Saharan Africa reflecting demographic trends; and an emphasis on construction and demolition materials in Europe but one on aggregates in North America.

However, from November 2024 onwards… Donald Trump was re-elected as President in the US, Quikrete put in an US$11.5bn deal to buy Summit Materials, the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Azerbaijan ended in acrimony, Gautam Adani was accused of fraud by a US court and Huaxin Cement said it was buying Holcim’s majority stake in Lafarge Africa for US$1bn. These have all been covered in previous editions of Global Cement Weekly. Check them out for more information. One can tell it’s been a busy tail-end to the year though when a US$600m agreement by Heidelberg Materials North America to buy Giant Cement Holding did not make the top five, admittedly selective, noteworthy news stories of the last two months of 2024. These stories also, roughly, followed the trends highlighted in the ‘Global Cement News in 2024’ article.

To reflect on the Adani story a few weeks later, nothing much seems to have occurred. Yet. The share price of various Adani Group companies fell when the US authorities made the announcement in late November 2024 but they have mostly regained much of their value since then. The consensus by Reuters, this week, was that the US prosecutors have a strong case backed up by documentation but extradition seems unlikely. Adani himself has made public appearances in India since the allegations surfaced. One minor consequence has been that Gautam Adani exited the US$100bn Bloomberg Billionaires Index in 2024. This is likely to have been caused, in part at least, by the allegations from Hindenburg Research in 2023 and the current legal problems from the US bringing down share prices. On the cement side of Adani Group it appears to have been business as usual so far. A large-scale investment in Rajasthan was announced in December 2024 and, this week, plans to merge subsidiaries Sanghi Industries and Penna Cement with Ambuja Cements were disclosed.

Another general trend that we haven’t covered much online have been changes in the Australian market. Last week, Cement Australia, a joint venture between Heidelberg Materials Australia and Holcim Australia, said it was acquiring the cementitious division of the Buckeridge Group of Companies (BGC) for US$800m. This follows CRH’s purchase of a majority stake in AdBri that was approved by the latter’s shareholders over the summer. Around the same time, Seven Group Holdings completed its acquisition of the remaining 28% stake in Boral that it did not already own. For more on the situation in Australia and New Zealand read the article in the January 2025 issue of Global Cement Magazine.

That’s it for 2024. Unless another massive news story in the cement sector gets announced in the next week-and-a-half.

Global Cement Weekly will return on Wednesday 8 January 2025

India: Ambuja Cements will merge its recently acquired companies, Sanghi Industries and Penna Cement Industries. Ambuja Cements purchased Sanghi Industries in December 2023 and Penna Cement in August 2024. Ambuja Cements holds a 58% share in Sanghi Industries and 99.94% share in Penna Cement. The transaction is expected to be completed within 9-12 months, according to the Deccan Herald.

India: UltraTech Cement has begun transporting mineral gypsum via National Waterway 1 (Ganga-Bhagirathi-Hooghly river system) in a pilot project supported by the Inland Waterways Authority of India and Inland & Coastal Shipping, a Shipping Corporation of India subsidiary.

The consignment is being shipped from Haldia port, West Bengal, to the Gaighat terminal in Patna, Bihar. It will then be transported to UltraTech’s Pataliputra Cement Works grinding unit in Bihar. UltraTech is reportedly the first Indian cement company to utilise National Waterway 1 for large-scale gypsum transport, with the aim to cut CO₂ emissions and ease congestion on roads and railways.

India: The Rural Development Department of Himachal Pradesh has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Ambuja Cements to address the issue of non-recyclable plastic waste in the state. Under this partnership, Ambuja Cements will collaborate with the department to co-process non-recyclable plastic in its cement kilns. The initiative will cover the districts of Chamba, Kangra, Shimla and Solan, where 29 plastic waste management units have been established.

India: Star Cement has said that it plans to expand its capacity by an additional 2Mt/yr through a greenfield project in Silchar at a cost of US$47.2m. The expansion is expected to be completed within the next two years.

This announcement comes after Star Cement dismissed reports suggesting that Adani Group subsidiary Ambuja Cement had entered talks to acquire the company, as part of its strategy to expand its presence in the Northeast. According to the Economic Times, Star Cement labelled the claims as ‘speculative’ and clarified that ‘no such discussions are underway.’

Sanjay Agarwal, joint managing director of Star Cement, said “At a time when the building materials sector is growing, we are not looking to exit this business.”

Star Cement has a total installed production capacity of 7.7Mt/yr. Its operations include a 1.67Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Meghalaya and four grinding units.

India: Ambuja Cements has started a strategic partnership with Finland-based Coolbrook to use its RotoDynamic Heater (RDH). The technology uses renewably powered electrical heat to replace or reduce the amount of fossil fuels used for reaching high temperatures in cement kiln pre-calciners. No indication of the price or which cement plants will be upgraded with the equipment has been disclosed. The deal is intended to help Ambuja Cements meet its targets of reaching an alternative fuels thermal substitution rate of 28% and a renewable energy rate of 60% by 2028.

Ajay Kapur, CEO - Cement Business, Adani Group, said, “We continuously seek out innovations which drive efficiency and decarbonisation across our cement manufacturing value chain. Leveraging our Adani Group’s green power generation capabilities, we will be able to reduce fossil fuel dependence, costs, and emissions, ultimately delivering the best value for our stakeholders.”

India: FLSmidth has won an order for the delivery of its core grinding technology. The order includes two high pressure grinding rolls (HPGR) (3m diameter × 2m width), installation, commissioning, start-up support and a service agreement. The equipment is expected to be installed and commissioned during 2026. With this new order in India, FLSmidth has won a total of 15 HPGR orders or commitments in 2024. The value of the order has not been disclosed.

Many readers will be aware that Gautam Adani was accused of fraud by a US court this week. In a brief statement, Adani Group said that the allegations were “baseless and denied.” The indictment relates to a solar power project, but what does this mean for Adani Group’s cement businesses?

The charges by the US Department of Justice allege, following an investigation, that Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani and Vneet Jaain, executives of India-based renewable-energy company Indian Energy Company, committed “...securities and wire fraud and substantive securities fraud for their roles in a multi-billion-dollar scheme to obtain funds from US investors and global financial institutions on the basis of false and misleading statements.” A number of other individuals have also been accused, along with the two Adanis and Jaain, of participating in a US$250m bribery scheme to Indian government officials connected to a large-scale solar energy project. The indictment related to the period 2020 - 2024 and further alleges on several occasions that “Gautam Adani personally met with an Indian government official to advance the bribery scheme.” The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also started a connected civil case.

The problem here is that the indictment has rocked the value of Adani Group’s subsidiaries and reduced the credit ratings of some of them. This in turn will make it harder for these companies to raise money in the future for expansion. Various reports in the media said that the group’s companies had lost something in the region of US$30bn as stock prices fell by around 20%. They have since rallied somewhat. And lest we forget, Adani Group has some serious expansion plans. In the cement sector, it is targeting a production capacity of 140Mt/ yr by 2028. Recent transactions include Ambuja Cement’s purchase of Penna Cement for US$1.25bn in August 2024 and a planned acquisition announced in October 2024 of a 47% stake in Orient Cement for US$451m. The group was also linked in the local media to a bid to buy Heidelberg Materials’ India-based business in October 2024.

All of this comes with a price. International credit ratings agency S&P put Adani Ports, Adani Green Energy and Adani Electricity on a downgrade warning. Then, Fitch Ratings and Moody’s followed. Moody’s, for example, downgraded its outlook for seven Adani Group companies to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’ but it affirmed ratings on them. It commented that the allegations “could have a broader credit impact on all rated Adani group issuers” and that they would “likely weaken the Adani group’s access to funding and increase its capital costs.” It added that its actions recognised “...the possibility of broader weaknesses in the governance structure across the rated Adani group entities as well as potential operational disruptions, including on their capital-spending plans, while legal proceedings are going.” The decision by the ratings agencies does not appear to have directly affected Adani Group’s cement companies, Ambuja Cements or ACC, so far. The group may get lucky here given that these companies focus on the domestic market. Thus their credit ratings may remain more buoyant, regardless of what happens next.

As with a number of other global issues at the moment, the outcome of the recent US presidential election may also play into this case. Attorney Ravi Batra told the Press Trust of India that the incoming Trump administration might view the Adani charges as so-called ‘lawfare.’ This is where legal processes are used to target a nation’s economic or other opponents. In addition the current chair of the SEC, Gary Gensler, announced his intention to step down from the role in January 2025. It seems unlikely that the Trump administration might intervene in a legal case involving a foreign company accused defrauding US citizens but the possibility of realpolitik playing a role shouldn’t be totally discounted.

This is the second major international scandal overhanging Adani Group since the disclosures by Hindenburg Research back in early 2023. Those allegations were relatively easy to shrug off given that its accuser was an investment research firm with a reputation for using its findings for short selling shares. Hindenburg Research was not a neutral bystander. This time round, the US judicial system has become involved and the consequences are bigger both reputationally and from any potential legal outcome. In the short term, the credit implications for Adani Group as a whole are becoming apparent. Various companies and countries have stalled or cancelled planned investments. However, the cement business is smaller than the group’s power and transport concerns. It also operates domestically. We’ll have to wait and see what the wider implications for Adani Group are. The first thing to watch for the cement business will be any effect on its expansion plans.

India: The cement sector in India is forecast to reach a market size of 509Mt/yr by the 2029 financial year. A report published by Infomerics Ratings made the prediction based on a market size of 382Mt in the 2023 financial year and a compound annual growth rate of 4.9%. The credit agency noted the cement sector’s mean growth rate of 5.37% over the last decade and the low cement consumption per capita compared to the global average. It also pointed out that the local cement sector “…faced significant pricing challenges, primarily due to weak demand across various regions.” Demand was reportedly low during the first half of the 2025 financial year leading to lower prices particularly in the south of the country.