Thailand: Siam Cement Group’s (SCG) planned sale of up to 30% of shares in its subsidiary SCG Packaging has received the approval of the Securities and Exchange Commission. SCG is awaiting better market conditions for the sale, after it postponed the initial public offering (IPO) in mid-March 2020 following the coronavirus outbreak. The company said, “Once the overall situation becomes clearer and more conducive, SCG will proceed with its IPO and the listing of its shares on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.”

SCG said that it is selling the shares to raise funds for ‘international and domestic business expansion.’

Russia: Gornozavodskcement has announced that its Akkermann brand cement conforms to the standard for sulphate-resistant CEM-I cement. The Siberian Research Institute of the Cement Industry issued the certificate of conformity to the cement, which contains a ‘unique formulation’ of 100% ordinary Portland cement with special sulphate resistance.

Gornozavodskcement quality director Irina Ilyina said, “The production of this special cement in Perm Territory, where several large transport and industrial facilities are under construction, will significantly reduce transport and procurement costs for builders, as well as improving the quality and durability of products.”

Germany: Lhoist has taken advantage of the alkaline soils around its Istein, Baden-Württemberg quarry in producing a range of six white wines, two red wines and a rosé under its Kalkweingut label. The grapes are grown on reclaimed sections of the quarry and harvested between August and October. The company says that the limestone ‘has a high nutritional value and retains the warmth of the Sun,’ which, in conjunction with the warm climate of South Baden, gives the wines a ‘Mediterranean’ expression.

Philippines: Gebr. Pfeiffer has received an order for a modular four-roller ready2grind 2500 vertical grinding unit to Big Boss Cement’s Porac, Pampanga plant. It says that the mill will have a production capacity of 70t/hr of cement, ground to a fineness of 4000cm2/g. The company will additionally supply a packing plant module for bag and bulk loading.

Gebr. Pfeiffer said that in spite of delays to the unit’s commissioning due to coronavirus lockdown, it “has experienced specialists on site and is therefore able to support the customer in this phase.”

Morocco: HeidelbergCement subsidiary Ciments du Maroc made sales of US$88.4m in the first quarter of 2020, down by 9.8% year-on-year from US$100m in the corresponding quarter of 2019. Cement volumes fell by 9.9%. Ciments du Maroc said that it increased its capital expenditure by 43% to US$1.51m from US$824,000.

Russia: Eurocement subsidiary Lipetskcement has announced that its CEM-II sulphate-resistant cement has been found to conform to the new Russian standard for its class of products. This enables its use in special types of construction, including hydraulic engineering, land reclamation, transport infrastructure and oil and gas wells.

Russia: Eurocement subsidiary Kavkazcement has announced its acquisition of a Hitachi excavator for use at its clay quarry. The reasons behind the choice of excavator were its high productivity and low operating costs.

Kavkazcement director general Oleg Lopatin said, “The hydraulic excavator will develop clay reserves in areas complicated by large slopes, increasing the economic efficiency of raw material extraction and ensuring the stability of the final product. Kavkazcement systematically modernises all stages of production, which allows us to guarantee high quality and reliability of product deliveries to key construction sites in the south of Russia.”

Spain: Following a partial easing of Spain’s coronavirus lockdown on 25 May 2020, LafargeHolcim España employees returning to the company’s Villaluenga de la Sagra cement plant in Toledo, Castile-La Mancha were surprised to discover that an Iberian lynx had moved in during the 2.4Mt/yr integrated plant’s 10-week suspension due to the coronavirus lockdown. Staff contacted the Castile-La Mancha Environmental Agency, which determined that the site was ‘not an ideal habitat’ for lynx due to the risk presented by vehicles inside and outside of the cement plant when operations resume. The Castile-La Mancha Environmental Agency has tweeted that it has released the one-year-old female cat at a secret location in the Montes de Toledo region, following a medical check-up and tagging.

The Construction Products Association (CPA) has just forecast a 25% drop in construction output for 2020 in the UK due to Covid-19. And this is the optimistic prediction! It blamed the decline, which is said to be the sharpest ever recorded, on the country’s coronavirus-related lockdown. 60% of planned construction output was lost in April 2020 due to social distancing measures. This compares to a 6.5% decline in gross domestic product (GDP) forecast for 2020 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in April 2020 for the UK. OneStone Consulting’s Joe Harder in his Covid-19 Impact Analysis CIC 2025 report has forecast a 12.7% decrease in European cement production. Readers should keep in mind that construction output, GDP and cement production are all connected but not necessarily directly related.

Further details of note from the CPA include a direct link between the strength of lockdown measures and work lost, as well as differences between types of activity. So, for example, more construction output (in percentage terms) was reported lost in Scotland, where tighter lockdown measures were implemented. On the latter point, more output was lost in residential construction compared to non-residential with a similar trend reported in the repair, maintenance and improvement sector, again worsened in the residential part of this market. The sector that suffered the least was non-residential repair and maintenance as work on, currently, mostly deserted buildings and infrastructure was prioritised. One example of this may have been Aggregate Industries, the UK subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, which said this week that it had completed major works on the A14, a major regional trunk road, ahead of schedule. It didn’t directly make the link in its press release but quiet roads would have helped.

The CPA is touting the now-familiar range of letter-shaped economic recession shapes in the report, including ‘V’, ‘W’ and the dreaded ‘U’. However, the CPA’s Economics Director Noble Francis was more confident that infrastructure projects would bounce back fastest due to favourable investment cycles in utilities, government support for its high-speed railway scheme HS2 and, “greater ability to implement safe distancing for workers on larger sites.”

That last point ties in nicely with the operational guidance that the Mineral Product Association (MPA), the UK’s trade association for the heavy building material sector in the UK, released last week. This is all crucial information on a comprehensive and detailed scale along the lines released in other countries.

Much of this will be becoming second nature to cement industry workers and/or will be familiar to anyone who has watched US consultant John Kline discuss these issues on Global Cement Live. Yet there are some points worth discussing here such as ‘Avoid Distraction.’ This one’s all about remembering to keep in mind existing health and safety practices alongside all the coronavirus-related ones. All the usual health and safety regulations and advice remain in place and in some ways become even more important as there may be fewer staff working on socially-distanced sites, or first responders may be otherwise busy elsewhere. Another point from the MPA’s guidance is to ‘Provide More Time,’ which acknowledges that working with coronavirus measures will require more time. Other implications from a business changed by coronavirus are things like notifying the police when sites are closed and considering further security for such sites to minimise risk of theft. A lot of this stuff seems obvious but it’s easy to miss things.

For a recent review of the UK cement industry readers should refer to Edwin Trout’s feature in the June 2020 issue of Global Cement Magazine. One change since it was published has been Cemex’s proposal to mothball its 0.8Mt/yr South Ferriby integrated plant in Lincolnshire. The cement producer says it is not related to coronavirus but if the CPA’s predictions are accurate then it will make it that much harder to keep the plant open.

Everyone’s hoping for a ‘V’ shaped recovery from the coronavirus downturn in the UK and everywhere else around the world. Boots on the ground operating advice like that issued by the MPA and others is part of how the construction materials industries can work towards achieving this.

Mexico: Cemex has made changes to its management team with immediate effect.

Jose Antonio Gonzalez, the Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration, has been appointed as Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development.

Maher Al-Haffar, the Executive Vice President of Investor Relations, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs, has been appointed Executive Vice President of Finance and Administration. The group added that Investor Relations will now be integrated to its Finance department.

Mauricio Doehner, the Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Enterprise Risk Management, has been appointed Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications, Public Affairs and Enterprise Risk Management.

Juan Romero, the Executive Vice President of Sustainability, Commercial and Operations Development, will oversee Digital Marketing, in addition to his current responsibilities.

Luis Hernandez, current Executive Vice President of Digital and Organizational Development, will oversee Cemex Ventures, in addition to his current responsibilities.

Juan Pablo San Agustin, the Executive Vice President of Strategic Planning and Business Development, will leave Cemex. No date for his departure has been released.