Global Cement News

Mexico: Cemex says it has completed the global deployment of its digital platform Cemex Go. The product is available in 21 countries with 96% of the company’s total recurring customers using it. 45% of Cemex’s total global sales are processed through the platform, over half a million payments are completed through it per year and 1.5 million deliveries use the system annually.

“We are incredibly proud that our vision of providing a superior customer experience enabled by digital technology has been deployed to our customers around the world. Cemex Go has proven itself as a game changer, an established and essential tool for our customers, accessible anywhere, any time to help them run their businesses with increased efficiency,” said Fernando A Gonzalez, chief executive officer (CEO) of Cemex. He added that platform was only part of the ‘initial’ stages of the company’s digital transformation plans.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement has published its first sustainability report following Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards. Key data from the report include a CO₂ emissions per tonne of cementitious material of 687kg CO₂/t across all operations. Its total CO₂ emissions were 16.4Mt. In 2017 it reported estimated total CO₂ emissions of 8.45Mt from its domestic operations. The cement producer had an energy consumption of 52M GJ 2018. It had a 49% production capacity utilisation rate at its Nigerian plants. The group said that it supported 37,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs in Nigeria.

Spain: Cementos Molins says that 13 of its 14 directors want to keep the company’s headquarters in Madrid following a request by a minority shareholder. This represents a hardening by the board on the issue following its move from near Barcelona in 2017, according to Crónica. The cement producer decided to move its registered address away from Sant Vicenc dels Horts in Catalonia following moves by the regional government to push for independence.

Italy: Buzzi Unicem says its ready-mix concrete subsidiary Unical has completed the largest continuous concrete casting in Europe at the Galeazzi Orthopedic Institut project in Milan. It pumped 33,000m³ of concrete continuously for 94 hours including 3300 concrete mixer journeys with 106 Unical staff on duty. The new 16-storey building will have a height of 90m once completed.

Morocco: Cement sales in Morocco during the first four months of 2019 have reached 4.8Mt, an increase of nearly 6% compared to the same period of 2018. April 2019 was the fourth straight month of improved sales. The increase reverses the trend seen in the previous two sets of four-month statistics, which saw falling volumes year-on-year in both 2017 (5.3% decrease) and 2018 (5.5% decrease).