Global Cement News

Ukraine/Ireland: Ukraine's Antimonopoly Committee (AMKU) has allowed Jura-Cement Fabriken AG, a subsidiary of Ireland's Cement Roadstone Holding (CRH), to acquire control of LLC Cement in Odessa. The AMKU committee said that this decision allows Jura-Cement-Fabriken to hold over 50% of the votes in the Odessa plant's management body.

The Odessa Cement Plant started operations in 1965 and its capacity is currently 550,000t/yr. The plant was acquired in May 2005 by the Portuguese company Cimento e Produtos Associados S.A., which is owned by Cimpor, Teixeira Duarte and Engenharia e Construcoes, amongst others. LLC Cement's general director, Miguel Machado, has stated that Euro40m has been invested in the Odessa plant since 1996. CRH currently owns OJSC Podolsk Cement and LLC Lviv Concrete in Ukraine.

Indonesia/Chile: Loesche Automation has been awarded contracts for building cement mills in Indonesia and Chile.

In Indonesia PT Semen Baturaja (Persero), Palembang have placed an order for an LM46.2+2 C/S vertical mill and awarded Loesche Automation the contract for the electronic and automation engineering. The company is to deliver virtually all the equipment, from the automotive engineering to the software engineering and visualisation.

The medium voltage switching system and main drives have been supplied, as have the MCCs and low voltage main distribution. The order also covers the necessary I/O cabinets and the instrumentation and process control circuits based on Loesche Automation Basic and Detail Engineering.

In Chile Hormigones Transex Ltda, Santiago awarded the contract for a LM46.2+2C/S cement mill in Puente Alto to Loesche GmbH. Loesche Automation has been charged with providing the electronic and automation engineering for this mill.

The contract covers the delivery of the mid-voltage switching system and main drives, the low-voltage main distribution with MCCs and the supply of automation components with software engineering and visualisation. The project also included the basic and detailed engineering, the necessary I/O cabinets and the instrumentation of the process control circuits.

For both projects the software engineering is specially tailored to the requirements of the plant using Loesche solutions. In order to ensure that all of the processes run smoothly, Loesche Automation is responsible for project management, commissioning and monitoring. At the same time, Loesche Automation will carry out training services. The components are due to be delivered in May 2012 and commissioning is scheduled for March 2013.

Venezuela: The Venezuelan government has agreed to pay US$600 million to settle a claim from Cemex over the 2008 nationalization of Venezuela's cement sector. The case is one of many which the Hugo Chavez administration is facing after nearly 13 years of sweeping socialist reforms, including widespread nationalisations across the South American OPEC member's economy.

A Venezuelan government statement said the amount corresponded to 76% of the shares in the expropriated local unit but it was less than half the US$1.3bn Cemex had originally sought. "We've reached a favourable deal between both parties," Industry Minister Ricardo Menendez said in the statement. The government will pay US$240m initially, followed by four annual payments of US$90m, he said.

"We are convinced the agreement has been positive for everyone," the Venezuelan Information Ministry statement quoted Jaime Elizondo, Cemex's president for South America and the Caribbean, as saying.

The Chavez government announced the takeover of the cement sector in April 2008, targeting Cemex, Holcim and Lafarge. Lafarge and Holcim agreed to stay on as minority partners. Cemex disputed the case at the World Bank's International Center for Settlement on Investment Disputes. In late 2010, the court recognised Cemex's right to sue for the loss of its assets.

Algeria: Lafarge has agreed to undertake a project inherited from an acquisition of an Egyptian firm in 2007 according to an Algerian minister of state.

Responding to a parliamentary question in mid-November 2011, the Algerian Industry and Investment Promotion Minister, Mohammed Benmeradi, said that Lafarge had agreed to undertake the project as a minority partner, owning 49%, in accordance with a foreign ownership law passed in 2009. Lafarge originally inherited the project as part of its acquisition of the global cement interests of Egypt's Orascom Construction Industries (OCI). OCI had secured licences for a new plant at Oum El Bouaghi, in the east of the country, shortly before the Lafarge takeover was announced.

Benmeradi said that the Oum El Bouaghi project would cost US$500m and would take 12-16 months to complete. He said that Algeria is currently self-sufficient in cement, producing 17Mt/yr, of which 5.5Mt/yr comes from privately owned plants. The government has a huge capital spending programme, which points to a steady increase in demand for cement. Most of the state-owned plants are in a poor state of repair.

India: Reliance Cement Company Limited is planning to start production in Bengal. The company wants to set up a 3Mt/yr plant at Raghunathpur in the Purulia district.

Reliance Cement plans to invest US$100m in the project and has submitted its letter of intent to the Bengal state government. The government is likely to highlight the project as it prepares its 200-day performance report to be unveiled in December 2011.

The Bengal unit will be the third plant from Reliance Cement as the company embarks on a capacity expansion plan to take production to 50Mt/yr. Projects with a capacity of 5 Mt/yr were announced in 2010 for Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. In 2008, the company secured limestone-mining licences at Satna in Madhya Pradesh.