Global Cement News

Gaza/Israel: Israel has allowed a limited quantity of cement and other building materials into the Gaza Strip for the first time since 2007. Nazmi Muhanna, an official in the Palestinian Authority in charge of border checkpoints, said that efforts made by President Mahmoud Abbas to convince Israel to allow entry of construction material into Gaza for private sector usage had succeeded. Israel has promised to increase the quantity gradually.

"I welcome the decision which reflects our ongoing discussions with the Israelis," commented Quartet representative Tony Blair in a statement. "This is an important step in building a more positive environment for the diplomatic negotiations and in preparing the ground for the more comprehensive and transformative economic initiative, which we have been working on for the past few months."

Portugal: Cimpor intends to invest around US$1.33bn in Latin America by 2017, according to its CEO Ricardo Lima. The main objective of Cimpor is to reinforce its position in Brazil where it already operates in all regions, except in the northern parts of the country, Lima told the Portuguese news agency Lusa.

The Portugal-based cement producer will spend part of the investment building a new cement plant in northern Brazil, at either Belém or Manaus. Due to positive results in the Argentine market another plant is planned for Argentina's western province of San Juan. In October 2013 Cimpor will inaugurate a plant in Paraguay where it holds a 35% share of the market but where it currently sells its surplus Portuguese cement.

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement has reported that its income rose by 4% year-on-year to US$54.3m in the first six months of 2013 from US$52.2m in the same period in 2012. The Kazak cement producer attributed the increase to a rise in prices in an interim financial statement.

Steppe Cement reported a profit before tax of US$3.82m for the period, up from US$391,000 in the same period in 2012. However, sales volumes declined by 8% to 0.56Mt from 0.62Mt. In its statement the cement producer confirmed that it had committed to spend US$7.7m on renovating its production line #5

China: China has released a plan to cap coal consumption to below 65% of its total primary energy use by 2017 in order to tackle air pollution.

"The pressure to curb air pollution is rising amid China's industrialisation and urbanisation and increasing consumption of energy and resources," said the government plan. The plan follows widespread public awareness of air pollution since levels of particulate matter smaller than 2.5μm (PM_2.5) recorded in Beijing broke World Health Organization safety limits in January 2013.

According to a plan published on the country's national website, new industrial projects in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in north China, the Yangtze Delta region in the east and the Pearl River Delta region in the south will be banned from building their own captive power plants. These regions will also be encouraged to replace coal use with power purchased from other areas or with power generated from natural gas or non-fossil fuels such as nuclear power. The plans follows previous measures to phase outdate industrial capacity.

However environmental activists and analysts quoted by Reuters have pointed out that the system could be undermined by loopholes such as allowing areas to import energy from elsewhere.

National: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released a third list of 58 companies, including cement companies, which should cut their excess production capacity by the end of 2013 as a part of the country's economic restructuring drive. The ministry said that local authorities must ensure that overcapacity is eliminated, rather than transferred to other regions.

Regional: South-eastern Fujian province produced 52.1Mt of cement in the first eight months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 13.3%, according to data released by the local statistics bureau. Jiangxi Province produced 54.8Mt of cement in the first eight months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 21.1%.

Central Hubei province saw cement output increase by 8.3% year-on-year to 60.3Mt in the first seven months of 2013.

North-west Shaanxi province saw cement output total 53.9Mt in the first eight months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 9.3%.

Southern Hainan province has produced 10.5Mt of cement in the first seven months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 26.3%. South-central Hunan province produced 9.47Mt of cement in August 2013, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%.

Corporate: Gansu Qilianshan Cement Group plans to spend US$43.4m on acquiring a 100% stake in Longnan Runji Cement to expand into the Gansu province market. Runji Cement currently operates a 2500t/day dry-process cement plant.