Global Cement News

Trinidad: An appeal by Trinidad Cement to challenge an injunction by minority shareholders to block its annual general meeting has been postponed, according to Radio Jamaica News. The hearing was originally scheduled for Monday 30 September 2013.

Trinidad Cement 's annual general meeting on 12 July 2013 was stopped by a high court injunction with just one hour's notice. The injunction was part of legal action by a group of shareholders holding 5.68% of the company who want to nominate five directors to the cement producer's board.

United Arab Emirates: Turkish cement producer Adana Cement has won an award for safety performance improvement at the 11th Annual DuPont Safety and Sustainability Awards, which took place in Dubai on 24 September 2013. Six award recipients were selected by an independent jury comprised of leading experts in occupational safety and sustainability.

Adana Cement was chosen for its efforts to create a safe work environment. In 2005 the company established an integrated OHSAS 18001-certified Safety Management System, before implementing further processes and improvements in 2008 after recognition that 96% of accidents were caused by dangerous behaviour, rather than conditions.

Together, these initiatives have had a profound effect in shaping a positive safety culture among employees. In particular, a multi-faceted approach, including behaviour-oriented site visits, accident information meetings, reward and sanction practices and a schedule of continuous training programmes, has resulted in a dramatic decrease in employee and sub-contractor accidents since 2008, based on statistics collected since 2003. A new record of 243 uninterrupted days without an accident was achieved in 2012, in a period when expanding production objectives were successfully met.

Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement has announced in a bourse filing it had signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia's largest Islamic bank, Al Rajhi Bank, for a US$107m loan to partially finance the construction of a second production line. The loan is to be repaid by June 2019.

Al Jouf Cement has a cement production capacity of 1.75Mt/yr or 5000t/day. The company's products include Ordinary Portland Cement and sulphate resisting cement.

South Korea: Tong Yang Cement, a subsidiary of Tong Yang Group, has filed for court receivership. The receivership with the Chuncheon District Court was lodged in an official note, as reported by the Korean Broadcasting System. Sister-companies Tongyang Incorporated, Tongyang International, Tongyang Leisure and Tongyang Networks have also filed for court receivership in recent days.

Tongyang Group will have to repay debts of more than US$1bn.

India: Indian Railways has raised a freight tariff of 15% on all commodities, including cement, from 1 October 2013. Designated a busy season charge in a railway notification, the tariff is due to run until June 2014. The charge precedes a review of the fuel adjustment component (FAC), applicable after every six months to adjust fuel prices, that was also due on 1 October 2013.