Global Cement News

Nepal: Dhrubaraj Thapa, the chairman of the Nepal Cement Producers’ Association, says that the country has become self sufficient in cement production. Local producers are expected to start exporting cement in the next financial year, according to the Himalayan Times newspaper. The country produced 9Mt of cement in the 2017 – 2018 financial year from a production capacity of 13Mt/yr.

US/Germany: LafargeHolcim has acquired ready-mix concrete businesses in the US and Germany. On 1 February 2019 it acquired Transit Mix Concrete, a supplier of building materials in Colorado and subsidiary of Continental Materials Corporation, for US$27m. As part of the transaction, LafargeHolcim takes ownership of Transit’s seven concrete plants and a sand quarry. Transit Mix has more than 180 employees.

In January 2019, LafargeHolcim acquired the precast and ready-mix concrete businesses of Alfons Greten Betonwerk in northern Germany. Greten operates one precast and one ready-mix concrete plant in the state of Lower Saxony. Greten employs around 100 people.

“In line with our Strategy 2022 – Building for Growth, these acquisitions will generate synergies with LafargeHolcim’s existing operations. With these further bolt-on acquisitions we are delivering on our commitment to accelerate growth in the ready-mix concrete and aggregates segments,” said chief executive officer (CEO) Jan Jenisch.

China/France: China’s CNBM and France’s Fives have signed a cooperation frame agreement for future collaboration. The cement plant equipment manufacturers will explore projects together, in plant upgrade, plant expansion and new plants to implement Fives technologies, such as the FCB Horomill grinding system, the FCB Pyro-line and Pillard burners on an international basis. The signing ceremony of the agreement took place in late January 2019 bringing together Song Zhi Ping, the chairman of CNBM and Frédéric Sanchez, the president of Fives.

Indonesia: LafargeHolcim has closed the divestment of its Holcim Indonesia. It has sold its 80.6% share of the subsidiary to Semen Indonesia for US$1.75bn. The deal was first announced in November 2018. The company said that the proceeds from the sale would ‘significantly’ improve its net debt to recurring earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) ratio by 0.2 with the target of two times or less to be achieved by the end of 2019. LafargeHolcim has been targeting divestments as part of its Strategy 2022 initiative.

Kuwait: ACICO Cement has ordered a second cement grinding mill from Spain’s Cemengal. The main equipment to be included in the contract includes a 5200 Kws ball mill with all the peripheral equipment from Cemengal and a fourth generation classifier from Magotteaux XP4i-130 for high strength cements. The projected grinding capacity will be 1Mt/yr of cement and the plant will be commissioned within the first half of 2020.

The project scope will include full engineering and complete supply of mechanical, process, electrical and automation equipment as well as the steel manufacturing from the raw materials handling areas up to the cement silos discharge. Site supervision, training and& commissioning will also be provided by Cemengal.