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Indonesia: Semen Indonesia increased its cement sales by 10% year-on-year to 11.5Mt in the first five months of 2017. The cement producer was pleased with the result, despite competition concerns and lower than expected government infrastructure spending, according to the Antara news agency. Company communications chief Sigit Wahono added that the company controls about 43% of the local market and this has remained stable since 2012. At present its market depends on bagged residential retail sales.
Indian cement producers continue to defend prices 12 June 2017
India: Sagar Cements, India Cements and Bharathi Cements have continued to defend public concerns over cement pricing due to economic trends beyond their control. In a press conference the producers blamed rising input costs, distribution costs, taxes and high margins by dealers, according to the Times of India newspaper. They added that the key demand drivers for the industry are residential house building and government projects.
S Srikanth Reddy, Executive Director of Sagar Cements forecast that cement demand will rise by 10 – 18% in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh over the next two to three years due to large government-run infrastructure projects. Tamil Nadu and Kerala are expected to rise by no more than 5% and Karnataka is expected to rise by 2 – 5%.
However, despite increases in the short term, the cement producers forecast problems for the industry in the south of the country, and in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in particular, due to production overcapacity as producers increased their installed capacity in anticipation of high demand. At present they say that producers are forced to run plants at 60% production utilisation rates with high volatility in price rates in a highly fragmented market with over 50 brands.
US: HarbisonWalker International has broken ground on its new monolithic refractory plant at the Point Industrial Park in South Point, Lawrence County, Ohio. The US$30m plant was first announced in February 2017 and will be operational by early 2018. It will have a production capacity of 80,000t/yr.
Algeria: The Saoura Cement Company has ordered a MVR 5000 R-4 mill from Gebr. Pfeiffer for a new cement plant at Bechar. The 350t/hr raw cement mill will grind material to a fineness of 12% R90µm and the drive will have a power of 3800kW. Delivery for the mill is scheduled for the first half of 2018. The MVR mill is the fourth that Gebr. Pfeiffer has received an order for in Algeria.
South Africa: PPC has ‘substantially agreed’ the structure and how it intends to implement a new broad-based black economic empowerment (BBBEE) transaction. However, it is waiting for the release of the new mining charter before proceeding, according to the Star newspaper. PPC chief executive Darryll Castle has said that the cement producer’s proposed merger with Afrisam is ‘going on in the background’ and that it would have to assess the impact of the Afrisam transaction on the company's new BBBEE transaction.