UK: Cement companies from Asia and North America are the latest to join the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA), bringing the total number of member companies to 20. News members include Mexico’s Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC), Israel’s Nesher Israel Cement, India’s Shree Cement and Taiwan’s Taiwan Cement Corporation. The number of GCCA affiliates is also growing with the addition of the Cámara Nacional del Cemento in Mexico the Federación Interamericana del Cemento (FICEM) in Colombia and the Union of Cement Producers – Soyuzcement in Russia.

GCCA members now include: Buzzi Unicem, Cementos Argos, Cementos Pacasmayo, Cemex, Çimsa Çimento, CNBM, CRH, Dangote Cement, Eurocement, GCC, HeidelbergCement, LafargeHolcim, Nesher Israel Cement, SCG Cement, Shree Cement Ltd, Taiheiyo Cement, Taiwan Cement Corporation, Titan Cement, UltraTech Cement and Votorantim.

The association added that further applications for membership and affiliate status have been received and are being processed.

Brazil: France’s Vicat Group has acquired a majority share in Cimento Planalto (Ciplan). It has signed a binding agreement to buy a 65% share for Euro290m through a reserved capital increase. Ciplan will use the proceeds of the share to settle the ‘vast majority’ of its existing debt. Vicat noted that the transaction will be debt funded and its closing is subject to the fulfilment of ‘certain’ conditions.

Ciplan operates a 3.2Mt/yr integrated plant at Sobradinho in Bahia near to Brasilia. It also runs nine ready-mixed concrete plants and five aggregates quarries.

Vicat says that this acquisition is intended to support its targeted external growth and geographical diversification strategy. In order to ‘capture’ the Brazilian market the company plans to leverage an industrial asset base, strong brand awareness, abundant quarry reserves and a competitive position in its local markets.

Zimbabwe: Lafarge Zimbabwe is suing Gramiso Investments for an outstanding debt of over US$200,000. The cement producer and transport company entered into a prepayment agreement in which the cement manufacturing giant advanced US$500,000 to Gramiso Investments, according to the Herald newspaper. However, Gramiso Investments allegedly only paid back just over half of this amount. Lafarge Zimbabwe has taken the lawsuit to the High Court.

Chile: Cementos Bío Bío has started importing clinker at the Port of Ariqueño to support the start-up of its new grinding plant at Arica. The company unloaded 8000t of clinker, according to Arica al día. The 0.15Mt/yr grinding unit was previously scheduled to start production in September 2018.