Global Cement News

Canada: Christian Gagnon, the president and chief executive officer of McInnis Cement, has left the company. The board of directors announced the departure and said that the cement producer is currently recruiting his replacement. A new executive committee has been put in place to take over the management of the company until the vacancy has been filled. It is composed of the following members: Louis Laporte, Chief of Operations; Ronald Bougie, Executive Vice-President, Engineering, Construction and Operations; and Marc Baillargeon, Management Advisor acting on behalf of la Caisse.

In other changes to the company’s executive team, Ronald Bougie has been appointed with immediate effect as the Executive Vice-President, Engineering, Construction and Operations. Bougie has experience in the construction of large industrial projects including the Stornoway site, a project in which Caisse de dépôt et de placement du Québec invested. Until a new president and chief executive officer is appointed, Bougie will report directly to McInnis Cement’s Executive Committee. Bougie will have direct access to the Board of Directors to provide progress reports. The board will closely monitor the final stages of the site’s construction.

And the winner of the Italcementi assets in Belgium is… Cementir. The Italian multinational cement producer picked up Compagnie des Ciments Belges for Euro312m this week. The deal included all of Italcementi's cement, ready-mix and aggregates assets in Belgium, Italcementi's stake in an existing limestone joint-venture with LafargeHolcim and a portion of HeidelbergCement's limestone quarry in Antoing. It was offered by HeidelbergCement to the European Commission to ensure approval of its acquisition of Italcementi.

The assets from Compagnie des Ciments Belges comprise one 2.5Mt/yr integrated cement plant, three terminals and 10 ready-mix concrete plants. As ever, the add-ons confuse the final price but the deal values the cement production capacity at Euro125/t or US$138/t. This figures seems low compared to the other big sale this week of Holcim Lanka to Siam City Cement. There, the Thai producer picked up an integrated cement plant and a grinding plant with a combined cement production capacity of 1.6Mt/yr for US$400m. That values the cement production capacity at US$250/t.

Increasing its presence in western Europe makes a lot of sense for Cementir. It’s one of the smaller European multinational cement producers with 14 cement plants, often white cement producers, in Italy, Turkey, Denmark, Egypt, the US, China and Malaysia. Altogether this comes to 15.1Mt/yr in cement production capacity. In its press release, Cementir described Gaurain-Ramecroix, the cement plant it is buying, as the largest integrated cement plant in France-Benelux, region with ‘state-of-the-art’ technology and long-life mineral reserves.

Italcementi reported a 2.9% year-on-year fall in cement and clinker sales volumes in Belgium in 2015, noting a general reduction in cement consumption in all areas of the construction industry. The mineral reserves were confirmed at least as environmental clearance as granted and work began at the new Barry quarry at Gaurain-Ramecroix.

Cementir has rebuilt its revenue since hitting a high of Euro1.15bn in 2007 although it dipped again in 2014. Despite this ordinary portland and white cement sales volumes have been slowly falling from a high of 10.5Mt in 2011 to 9.37Mt in 2015. That said though its businesses in Scandinavia generated just under half of its operating revenue in 2015. So far in 2016, total group revenue rose by 2.8% to Euro210m in the first quarter of the year, with a fair portion of that attributable to Scandinavia. Bolting on a cement and concrete business in (relatively) nearby Belgium makes sense in this context provided the construction market eventually rallies.

Yet, another on-going Cementir acquisition back home in Italy may make the company reflect on the risks of buying assets in Belgium. Cementir is drawing closer to purchasing the cement and concrete arm of Sacci as it plans to pick up five cement plants and assorted ready-mix concrete assets for the bargain price of Euro125m, following a protracted bankruptcy. Cementir may remember that Lafarge sold some of these assets to Sacci for Euro290m in 2008 before the situation deteriorated. The top brass at Cementir must be praying that the Sacci’s fate doesn’t await them in Belgium.

US: Dust Control Technology (DCT) has appointed Laura Stiverson as its president. She joined the firm in 2008 and has been the general manager for five years. Stiverson has been cited as instrumental in developing a number of the company’s products, including the OdorBoss family of machines and the Fusion equipment design.

Incorporated in 2004, DCT supplies open-area dust suppression equipment for applications in recycling, demolition, waste and scrap handling, mining, slag and ash management, coal processing, landfills and other industries. Headquartered in Peoria, Illinois, the company supplies its dust and odour control products to customers around the world.

India: Ingo Gruber has been appointed the Executive Director, Manufacturing and Technology, of Dalmia Bharat Group’s refractories business. Gruber will be responsible for four manufacturing plants in India, one in China and the India Technology Centre.

Gruber joins Dalmia Bharat after spending 25 years in international refractory markets with experience in manufacturing, technology and process improvement. He also brings knowledge in manufacturing and technology integration strategies during mergers and acquisitions. Previously, Gruber held various leadership roles at RHI and its group companies across Europe.

The Refractory business of Dalmia Bharat Group comprises two specialty companies: OCL Refractories and Dalmia Refractories. Established in 1954 as a unit of OCL India, OCL Refractories is a leading refractory supplier to domestic and international steel plants. Set up in 1959, Dalmia Refractories, previously Shri Nataraj Ceramics and Chemical Industries, specialises in high alumina refractory bricks for the Indian cement industry.

Back in the May 2016 issue of Global Cement Magazine we asked key people at the Portland Cement Association how they thought the US presidential election might affect the local cement industry. Wisely, for an advocacy organisation with offices in Washington DC, no one would be drawn, citing a lack of information. At that point it was still unclear who was going to be on the final ticket. However, we all missed a trick because one candidate, Donald Trump, had been talking about building ‘a border fence like you have never seen before’ since at least mid-2014. And that fence could potentially require a lot of cement.

Researchers at market analysts Bernstein’s sent a note to clients last week ahead of the Republican National Convention looking at the implications of if Donald Trump became president of the US and actually set out to build his 40ft high concrete wall between the US and Mexico. The result would be a 2.4Mt boost in demand for cement from cement producers near to the border. In terms of market demand Bernstein concluded that this would add over 1% to cement demand in both 2018 and 2019, a healthy ‘shot in the arm’ to the already pepped-up US cement industry, which is currently growing at around 5%/yr.

Map 1: Map of cement and ready-mix concrete plants near to the US - Mexico border. Source: Bernstein Materials Blast. Note – Bernstein does not show the Capitol Cement plant in San Antonio.

Needless to say, Bernstein’s calculations pile-drive assumptions into assumptions, atop of Trump’s political rhetoric. It bases its calculations on a border wall similar to the Israeli West Bank barrier built out of precast concrete panels. It also tries to model how much concrete and cement would be required depending on the differing height’s Trump has trumpeted at his rallies.

The kicker to this tongue-in-cheek analysis is that the construction company that stands to benefit the most from this infrastructure project is Mexican!

Cemex has significantly more cement plants and ready-mix concrete plants than any other company within a 200-mile zone either side of the border. Looking at integrated cement plants alone, it has six plants in the regions near to the proposed wall from the east and west coasts. Its nearest competitors, CalPortland with four plants and Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua with three plants, are more regionally based in the western US and Chihuahua state in Mexico. Clearly Cemex didn’t rate the chances of Donald Trump’s wall actually happening when it agreed to sell its Odessa cement plant to Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua in May 2016.

All of this goes to show that, wherever you stand on the Donald Trump presidency bid, if you manufacture cement near the US-Mexican border you might be working overtime if he (a) actually becomes president, (b) actually manages to start building his wall and (c) actually decides to make it using cement. Yet before anybody starts popping champagne corks consider this: there might also be unintended consequences for the cement sector. Restricting current legal and illegal migration trends from Mexico to the US might have a greater negative effect on the US cement industry, and the overall economy, than ordering one large infrastructure project. Working that one out is harder than a guesstimate of how much cement a border wall might consume. Probably best not to ask at this stage who might actually pay for the Great Wall of Donald Trump.