Displaying items by tag: market

US: The Market Intelligence Group at the Portland Cement Association (PCA) has made an additional update to its Winter 2020 – 2021 economic forecast. Senior vice president and chief economist Ed Sullivan revised the association’s assessments regarding the path of Covid-19, vaccine supply, government Covid-19 relief and inflationary pressures.

The association said that it expects domestic cement consumption to grow by nearly 1% in 2021, fuelled largely by residential construction. It estimated ‘weak’ non-residential construction performance, with soft economic activity affecting government funds at federal state level. It added that the new federal government Covid-19 relief targeting state government would likely limit public cement’s drag on 2021 cement consumption growth.

Spain: Oficemen, the Spanish cement association, reports that domestic cement consumption fell by 10% year-on-year to 13.3Mt in 2020 from 14.7Mt in 2019. Consumption at this level was last reported in 1967. The 12-month accumulated consumption figure began to fall in April 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions and the association does not expect growth in 2021 despite an improvement in December 2020. Cement and clinker exports fell by 3.4% to 5.99Mt from 6.20Mt. It has forecast anything between a 3% rise and a 3% fall in consumption in 2021, due to coronavirus-related uncertainty.

The figures suggest that capacity utilisation in the cement industry is at roughly 60% nationally, according to the El Economista newspaper. Oficemen president Víctor García Brosa said that this level ‘cannot be indefinitely maintained.’ The association called for a recovery plan committed to infrastructure development, residential construction and rehabilitation and energy efficient transport.

Mali: A strike by two hauliers unions based in Senegal has caused cement shortages. The Union des Routiers du Sénégal and the Intersyndicale du Secteur des Transports Routiers both started strike action in late December 2020, according to Bamako News. The country has three main cement plants - Ciments et Matériaux du Mali (CMM), Diamond Ciment (DCM-SA) and Ciments d'Afrique (CIMAF) – but these companies only have a production capacity of 2Mt/yr. This is estimated to be 50% of Mali’s national requirement of 4Mt/yr. Commentators have called for a national cement supply policy in response to the situation and to reduce reliance on imports.

India: Credit ratings agency ICRA expects cement demand to rise by 20% year-on-year in the 2022 Indian financial year, which starts in April 2021, allowing the local market to return to volumes previously seen before the coronavirus pandemic. In its latest report the credit ratings agency predicts that growth will be supported by rural demand, including affordable housing, and recovery in infrastructure segment, according to the Press Trust of India. Cement production capacity is forecast to increase by up to 22Mt compared to 17Mt in the previous year. Most of this additional capacity is expected to be in the eastern region. Capacity utilisation rates should recover to 64% from 56%.

Switzerland: CemSuisse, the Swiss cement association, says that cement deliveries fell by 1.5% year-on-year to 4.15Mt in 2020. Deliveries remained stable in the first quarter before falling by 3.3% year-on-year in the second quarter at the same time of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. They subsequently recovered to a small increase in the third quarter before falling by 3.1% year-on-year in the fourth.

Brazil: Cement producers sold 60Mt of cement in 2020, up by 11% year-on-year. The Valor Econômico newspaper has reported that residential and commercial renovations and new projects contributed to the increase. The National Cement Industry Association (SNIC) has forecast that growth will not exceed 1% in 2021. It said that this will be due to an economic downturn and the end of the government’s emergency aid programme.

Russia: Soyuzcement, the national cement manufacturing union, has forecast a 4% year-on-year fall in cement production in 2020. Greater declines are expected in the central and southern federal regions. It observed that only half of the country’s production capacity was used in 2020. However, the organisation has credited government subsidies for mortgages as staving off the worse economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic in the first half of the year by stimulating construction.

Cameroon: Dangote Cement’s subsidiary in Cameroon estimates that it had a market share of 39% in the first nine months of 2020. It reckons the total cement market in the country was over 2.6Mt in the same period and that it sold around 1Mt, according to the Ecofin Agency. It said that the market was mainly driven by individual construction projects and public housing estates. In February 2020 the subsidiary of the Nigeria-based company said it planned to do better business in 2020 by focusing on the construction sites of stadiums, roads, hotels and other construction projects in preparation for the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations, postponed to 2022.

The cement producer operates a 1.5Mt/yr cement grinding plant in Douala, with a dedicated jetty for offloading clinker that opened in 2015.

Denmark: FLSmidth has announced the reinstatement of its 2020 guidance. The guidance predicts full-year sales of Euro2.28bn, down by 18% year-on-year from Euro2.77bn. Earnings before taxation, interest, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin is expected to decline to 6.0% from 8.1%. The company said that the guidance is “subject to higher uncertainty than usual” and conditional upon “no further escalation of Covid-19, no further extensive lockdowns or travel restrictions occurring before year-end, a gradual improvement in business sentiment for the remainder of 2020, and business improvement implementation of around Euro28.2m, of which Euro18.8m relate to the previously communicated improvement activities and around Euro9.40m relate to further improvement activities in cement.” It added, “The cement industry has been severely impacted, and the timing and extent of a rebound remain uncertain. Our goal for the cement business is to generate more stable, higher-margin earnings.”

Australia: Adelaide Brighton has recorded a net profit of US$21.1m in the first half of 2020, compared to a US$13.0m loss in the first half of 2019. Revenues fell by 7.3% to US$508m from US$548m due to a 12% construction decline over the period, according to the company. Residential construction fell by 16%, however mining and infrastructure activity remained consistent with levels in the first half of 2019. Adelaide Brighton said, “Cement demand is likely to continue to benefit from a strong production outlook for gold, nickel, and iron ore in particular, and stable demand from the alumina sector.”