Germany: Gerold Keune has resigned as the chairman of the management board of KHD. He cited personal reasons. His resignation takes immediate effect. 

He will be succeeded by Yizhen ‘Mario’ Zhu. He will hold the post until the end of December 2019. In addition, Tao Xing has been appointed as an additional member of the management board. Zhu already served on KHD’s Management Board from 2011 to 2017. Xing served as member of KHD’s Supervisory Board in 2015 and as member of the Management Board in 2016.

Australia: Nick Miller plans to start working as the new chief executive officer (CEO) of Adelaide Brighton on 30 January 2019. He succeeds Martin Brydon, who is retiring. Miller was previously announced in the role in October 2018 but his start date was yet to be confirmed.

Philippines: The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) has elected Nabil Francis as its new president. Francis is currently the head of Republic Cement and has been in post since mid-2017. He has worked for a variety of cement producers since 1998 including Ciments Calcia in Europe, Italcementi in Sri Lanka, India and Bulgaria, and HeidelbergCement in Morocco. The ECCP is a bilateral foreign chamber that promotes European interests in the Philippines and vice versa.

Zambia: China’s Sinoma International has signed a US$480m deal to build a 5000t/day clinker production line for Central African Cement. Sinoma will supply a cement plant with a 7.5MW waste heat recovery unit, two 25MW captive thermal power plants and cement mills with a capacity of 2Mt/yr. The project is a joint venture between Sinoma and ZCCM-Investment Holding, an investment company owned by the Zambian government. Sinoma will own a 51% stake in the project.

Paraguay: The Paraguayan Chamber of Construction says that there is a shortage of cement. The builder’s forum has attributed this to a downturn in the economy following the institution of the new government in the summer of 2018, according to the Hoy newspaper.

India: Ambuja Cement has introduced a comprehensive Group Personal Accident Insurance (GPA) policy for truck drivers. The new policy has a policy cover of around US$7m. It is set to benefit nearly 12,000 drivers, who are third-party employees, in case of accidental death or permanent disability. The subsidiary of Switzerland’s LafargeHolcim says it is the first cement company in the local sector to start such as a plan.

“Road safety has been a big challenge as we have little control beyond our plants’ premises. Introduction of Group Personal Accident Insurance policy for the truck drivers – who operate for round-the-clock dispatches – is yet another step by Ambuja Cement to exhibit how much we value them and their work,” said Ajay Kapur, the managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of Ambuja Cement.

UK: QPA Northern Ireland (QPANI) will change its name to MPA Northern Ireland (MPANI) in 2019. QPANI is the trade association for the mineral products sector in Northern Ireland with 87 members employing just over 5000 people. It has been an affiliate of the Mineral Products Association (MPA) since 2009.

“Our move from QPANI to MPANI was endorsed by our members as they believe the time is right to take this important step. The reference to minerals in our new title recognises the fact that our membership base is wide and varied across our Industry in Northern Ireland representing the extraction and processing of hard rock, sand, salt, lime and chalk into products that support and sustain our quality of life,” said Gordon Best, director of QPANI. He added that the association had
an ‘excellent’ working relationship with the MPA, other MPA regions in the UK and with the Irish Mining and Quarries Society (IMQS) in the Republic of Ireland.

Canada: Lehigh Hanson Materials has signed a deal with SaskPower to give it exclusive rights to fly ash from the coal-fired Shand Power Station near Estevan in Saskatchewan. This expands on an existing 10-year agreement signed in 2012 to market Boundary Dam Power Station fly ash. An estimated 0.22Mt/yr of fly ash will be sold from the Boundary Dam and Shand Power stations.

US: Lehigh Cement has applied to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection to expand the quarry at its Nazareth cement plant. It wants to increase its mining area by a third to 112 hectares from 84 hectares according to the Express-Times newspaper. A public consultation period on the application will run until late December 2018.

India: Oman’s Raysut Cement plans to invest around US$700m in India by 2022. Joey Ghose, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company, said that about US$200m has been set aside to buy majority stakes in two local producers in early 2019, according to the Hindu newspaper. Raysut Cement wants to increase its total cement production capacity to 20Mt/yr. The investment will be funded by internal revenue and loans.

The cement producer is holding talks with companies in Chhattisgarh and the coastal region of Gujarat respectively. Each company has a production capacity of around 1.2Mt/yr. Raysut Cement also intends to invest up to US$500m in these companies following their acquisition by 2022, bringing their capacity up to 5Mt/yr.

Outside of India, Raysut Cement also says it is interested in buying a 70% stake in Kenya’s ARM Cement for US$100m. It is also in discussions to acquire buy cement producers in Uganda and Djibouti. It currently has projects in development in Somaliland and Somalia. The company also holds a majority stake in Pioneer Cement Industries Georgia.