Spain: Spain’s cement consumption in 2019 was 14Mt, up by 5.9% from 13Mt in 2018. Exports fell by 23% to 6.2Mt from 5.0Mt in 2018.

President of the national cement association Oficemen Víctor García Brosa attributed the demand growth to homebuilding but said that the housing market had a long way to go towards providing a reliable base for domestic cement production. “The 110,000 new homes that have started in 2019 represent half of the homes that were built annually before the global financial crisis,” he said. “For Spain, the real estate market should average between 180,000 and 200,000 new homes per year.” He estimated that cement consumption growth would slow to 2.0% year-on-year in 2020.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement’s nine-month net profit over the period ending 31 December 2019 fell by 35% year-on-year to US$45.6m from US$70.3m over the corresponding period of 2018. Nine-month revenues were US$1.66bn, down by 3.3% year-on-year from US$1.71bn. Sumitomo Osaka Cement predicted revenues in the fiscal year ending 31 March 2020 of US$2.23bn, which would give it an estimated net profit of US$97.5m for the whole year, down by 27% from US$134m in the 2019 fiscal year.

Belarus: Belarusian cement producers recorded production volumes of 4.7Mt in 2019, corresponding to capacity utilisation of over 100%. Volumes increased by 4.6% from 4.5Mt in 2018. The Arab Times has reported that the country imported 0.5Mt of cement with a value of US$28m. US$18m of this came from Russia, while a further US$3.7m, US$2.8m and US$2.0m came from Latvia, Ukraine and Turkey respectively.

On 6 February 2020 the State Council of Ministers reinstated protectionist licencing laws requiring importers of cement to have special permissions to bring cement from outside of the Eurasian Economic Union into the country. This affects all current sources of imported cement to Belarus apart from Russia.

India: Star Cement recorded a standalone net profit of US$6.43m in the period between 1 October 2019 and 31 December 2019, representing a decrease of 18% year-on-year from US$5.45m in the corresponding three-month period of 2018. The company attributed the decline to increased operating expenses, which rose by 16% year-on-year to US$51.9m from US$44.9m in 2019. Sales over the period rose by 6.9% year-on-year to US$60.1m from US$56.2m in the final quarter of 2018.

China: The China Commodities Watch 2020 Outlook and Health Check has forecast a ‘one-off impact on operating cash flow’ for Chinese construction materials producers, including cement producers, due to reduced demand during the on-going coronavirus outbreak. “After the outbreak, the government may increase investment in infrastructure,” in order to boost the economy, according to the report.

India: Nirma Ltd’s subsidiary cement producer Nuvoco Vistas has announced that it has entered into an agreement with Emami Group for the acquisition of the latter’s 8.3Mt/yr-capacity cement business, including a 2.5Mt/yr integrated plant in Chhattisgarh and three grinding facilities. The company says that with the completion of a capacity expansion to its 4.6Mt/yr Jojobera, Jharkhand, plant in early-2020 it will have a total installed cement capacity of 23.5Mt/yr. Nuvoco Vistas managing director Jay Krishnaswamy said, “This is a momentous development for us, and in line with our long-term ambition to become a leading building materials company delivering superior performance!”

US: Summit Materials recorded a profit of US$59.1m in 2019, up by 74% from US$33.9m in 2018. Summit Materials’ CEO Tom Hill attributed the growth to ‘sustained public sector demand coupled with improved pricing.’ The Colorado-based construction materials company’s cement section contributed sales growth of 3.5% year-on-year to US$291m from US$281m in 2018, with a 2.8% in cement volumes and a 1.7% price increase.

India: Sagar Cement’s consolidated production volumes at its integrated 2.4Mt/yr Mattampally, Telangana, and 1.0Mt/yr Tadipatri, Andhra Pradesh, plants in January 2020 were 317,000t, up by 4.7% year-on-year from 303,000t in January 2019. Accord Fintech News has reported that consolidated sales in the period fell by 1.6% year-on-year to 315,000t from 320,000t in January 2019.

On 29 January 2020 the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change granted environmental clearance to Sagar Cements for and upgrade to all three dry lines of its 2.4Mt/yr Mattampally plant to raise its capacity to 5.0Mt/yr. Its clinker capacity will rise from 2.0Mt/yr to 4.8Mt/yr. The expansion also includes a 36MW coal-fired power plant and a 22MW waste heat recovery (WHR) power plant.

China: The coronavirus outbreak which began in China’s Wuhan province has forced the China Cement Association to postpone its CementTech 2020 cement industry supply conference in Anhui province. The conference was due to take place on 25-27 March 2020 at the International Conference and Exhibition Centre in the province’s capital of Hefei.

There have been rumours in the press this week that LafargeHolcim is weighing up its options in South Africa. Reports in the local press allege that the building materials company has tasked Credit Suisse Group with finding a buyer for its business. This may or may not be true, only time will tell, but South Africa certainly feels like a market where LafargeHolcim should be considering its future.

As a prominent but smaller producer in the country, Lafarge South Africa is behind PPC and AfriSam in terms of clinker production capacity. InterCement’s subsidiary Natal Portland Cement and Dangote’s subsidiary Sephaku Cement have a similar production base with an integrated plant each and one or two grinding plants. Halfway through 2019 LafargeHolcim was describing market conditions as ‘difficult’ in the country with it being the sole Sub-Saharan market holding back regional growth for the group. By the third quarter the situation had reportedly improved but net sales and cement sales volumes were flat for the year to date. A clearer picture should emerge when LafargeHolcim publishes its fourth quarter results at the end of February 2020.

PPC provided its view of the market in its half-year results to 30 September 2019. Its estimate was that the South African cement industry declined by 10 - 15% for the period, creating a competitive environment. It added that the situation had been, ‘exacerbated by imports and blender activity.’ Both its revenue and earnings fell year-on-year, although a 30% rise in fuel costs didn’t help either. Sephaku Cement suffered a similar time of it, with a 19% fall in cement sales volumes during the first half, although it reported improvement in the subsequent quarter. Overall, it blamed falling infrastructure investment for pressurising the market and allowing blending activity to mount. Sephaku Cement was also wary of the local carbon tax that started in June 2019 warning of a potential US$2.8m/yr bill.

PPC noted that cement imports had risen by 5% to 0.85Mt in the year to August 2019. This followed a lobbying effort by The Concrete Institute (TCI) in mid-2019 to implore the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) to look into rising imports levels. At the time the TCI’s managing director Brian Perrie expressed incomprehension that a country with six different cement production companies with an over-capacity rate of 30% could be facing this problem. This latest broadside tails South Africa’s previous attempt to fend off imports when it instituted anti-dumping duties of 17 – 70% against importers from Pakistan in 2015. Imports duly fell in 2016 but rose again in 2017 and 2018, mainly from Vietnam and China.

All of this sounds familiar following LafargeHolcim’s departure from the ‘hyper-competitive’ South-East Asian countries in 2019. Those countries also suffered from competition and raging imports. Bloomberg pointed out in a report on the local industry in 2016 that PPC’s, AfriSam’s and LafargeHolcim’s kilns had an average age of 32 years, suggesting that efficiency and maintenance were going to be concerns in the future. Also of note is LargeHolcim’s decision to move its South African operations from one subsidiary, Lafarge Africa, to another, Caricement, in mid-2019.

Some level of market consolidation would certainly help local overcapacity. Plus, surely, LafargeHolcim’s mix of inland integrated capacity and a grinding plant near the coast could prove enticing to some of the Asian companies pumping out all of those imports. The thought on the minds of potential buyers everywhere must be, if LafargeHolcim chief Jan Jenisch was bold enough to sell up in South-East Asia, how can he not in South Africa?!”