Oman: Cyclone Mekunu has forced Raysut Cement to stop production for eight to 10 days. The cement producer said that the storm caused external damage to its plant at Salalah and flooded production buildings and the stockyard.

Brazil: Cemex Latam has signed an agreement to sell its stake in Cimento Vencemos do Amazonas to Votorantim Cimentos for US$30m. Cimento Vencemos do Amazonas operates a river cement terminal in Manaus in Amazonas, according to the La Republica newspaper. The deal is subject to approval by the Brazilian and Colombian competition bodies and the Brazilian waterways transportation agency.

Nigeria: Lafarge Africa’s chairman Mobolaji Balogun says that the company plans to cut its debts by 2020 before continuing with its expansion programme. In an interview with Bloomberg he said that the cement producer wants reduce its leverage ratio to below 70% from over 100% at present.

The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim wants to take advantage of improvements in the Nigerian economy and a recovery in South Africa to grow its profits. Its total debt recently dropped to about US$600m. Lafarge Africa incurred debt to expand the production capacity at its Calabar cement plant and plans to add more production to plants in the southwest and the north of the country.

Egypt: Cemex is supplying around 0.76Mt of cement to build tunnels underneath the Suez Canal. It is also providing over 0.5Mm³ of concrete for the projects that will link the mainland to the Sinai Peninsula and the development of a commercial seaport. The work is being managed by a joint venture with Orascom Construction and Saudi Arabia’s Osman Ahmed Osman. The two tunnels will extend from the outskirts of Port-Said to the Sinai Peninsula, passing under the Suez Canal. The construction of the two 4km tunnels required the installation of three ready-mix batch plants on site to fulfil the project’s concrete demands.

India: Grasim Industries plans to invest up to US$870m in its cement business by the end of 2021. The subsidiary of Aditya Birla that also operates UltraTech Cement, wants to modernise its existing cement plants, carry out environmental upgrades and increase the production capacity of the units it acquired from Jaiprakash Associates, according to the Mint newspaper.

Aditya Birla Group’s chief financial officer Sushil Agarwal said that the company wants to increase the capacity utilisation rate of the former Jaiprakash Associates cement plants to over 85%, the standard level for the other UltraTech Cement plants. He added that on average cement plants in India have a capacity utilisation rate of 75%.

Qatar: France’s Fives FCB has released more information about its project to build a fifth production line for Qatar National Cement at its Umm Bab plant. The new 5000t/day clinker line was ordered in April 2014 and Fives has been responsible for the supply of a complete production line from raw material preparation to cement despatch. The new line is expected to be commissioned in the first half of 2018.

The line uses natural gas for fuel. Raw material preparation includes a 1000t/hr double impact rotor crusher for limestone, clay or shale, a gamma ray analyser, two limestone storage silos of 30,000t and two shale and clay storage siloes of 10,000t. For raw meal grinding the line will use a 440t/hr FCB B-mill with a diameter of 5.6m, a length of 21.2m and a power of 6600kW. It also has a FCB TSV 7500 Classifier BF.

The 5000t/day kiln consists of a five-stage single string FCB Preheater with low pressure drop cyclones, a FCB Zero-NOx Precalciner with a diameter of 5.2m fitted with a Pillard PRECAFLAM burner, a three piers FCB rotary Kiln with a diameter of 4.8m and length of 76m, a Pillard NOVAFLAM burner for rotary kiln, a clinker grate cooler with an active area of 112m², an electrostatic precipitator for cooler dedusting, a Pillard ROTAFLAM burner as auxiliary burner and a Pillard HeatGen Systems for hot gas generation. The kiln line also includes Fives TGT UP Filters for the kiln and alkali bypass. The line has a 40,000t clinker storage silo.

Cement grinding comprises two FCB B mills with a capacity of 115t/hr. These have a diameter of 4.6m, a length of 14m and a power of 4200kW respectively. Cement grinding also includes Two Fives SONAIR Filters, two FCB TSV Classifiers and two Fives SONAIR Filters. Cement storage consists of two 20,000t silos.

Finally, cement packing and dispatch includes four truck loading systems with a capacity of 250 - 300t/yr each and one big bag loading station with a capacity of 30t/hr.

The project follows collaboration between Fives and Qatar National Cement on lines two, three and four at Umm Bab.

France/Switzerland: LafargeHolcim plans to close its headquarters in Paris. The decision to move the company’s head office solely to Switzerland follows a cost cutting review at the building materials company. It will also close its corporate office in Zurich. Remaining jobs in Switzerland will be moved to the company’s Holderbank site and a new corporate office in Zug. In Paris, remaining positions will be moved to Clamart. The plan is expected to be completed by the end of 2018. Around 200 jobs will be affected.

“This painful but necessary simplification step is key to creating a leaner, faster and more competitive LafargeHolcim,” said chief executive officer Jan Jenisch. The move follows decisions to close offices in Singapore and Miami.

The decision to close its headquarters in Paris marks a further move away from the ‘merger of equals’ announced when France’s Lafarge merged with Switzerland’s Holcim in 2015. Since the merger LafargeHolcim has underperformed reporting a loss of Euro1.46bn in 2017. Former senior executives from Lafarge have become embroiled in a legal investigation looking at the company’s conduct in Syria. LafargeHolcim’s first chief executive officer Eric Olsen resigned from the company in mid-2017 following fallout from a review into the Syria affair.

Argentina: The National Commission for Protection of Competition (CNDC) has hastened an investigation into alleged collusion and coordinated behaviour in the cement industry. Cement prices increased by 13% in May 2018, according to La Nacion newspaper. So far in 2018 the price of cement has risen by 23% and the cement companies say that further price rises are expected in June 2018.

The local industry has blamed rising input prices of up to 50% due to local currency devaluation but the Argentine Peso has only fallen by 30% so far in 2018. The companies under investigation include Loma Negra, LafargeHolcim, Petroquimica Comodoro Rivadavia and others.

Bolivia: Fábrica Nacional de Cemento (Fancesa) has increased its monthly sales target following local strikes in Chuquisaca. The company estimates that it lost US$6.95m in sales during the unrest, according to the Correo del Sur newspaper. It doesn’t intend to cut the cost of cement in Santa Cruz but it will give away a limited amount of free cement bags. Fancesa also plans to start selling bulk cement through concrete firms in the city.

Venezuela: Production at FMC Venezolana’s Pertigalete plant has dropped to 30% while repair work is being unertaken on its line 6. The production line was orignally shut down in February 2018 for upgrades to its filters, according to the El Tiempo newspaper. However the maintenance work has been delayed while the plant waits for a crane. At present only line 7 is operational at the site.