Global Cement News

India: Dalmia Bharat has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Tourism to maintain the Red Fort heritage monument for US$0.75m/yr. The deal is part of the government’s ‘Adopt a Heritage project’ initiative to persuade private companies to look after the operations and maintenance of national monuments.

Peru: UNACEM’s cement despatches for the first quarter of 2018 have fallen slightly due to a contraction in the construction market, delayed infrastructure projects and political instability leading to lower private investment. The cement producer’s income rose by 8.9% year-on-year to US$147m in the first quarter of 2018 from US$135m in the same period in 2017. Its clinker production fell by 12.9% to 1Mt and its cement production fell by 0.6% to 1.2Mt. It attributed the fall in production to a scheduled maintenance shutdown of its Atocongo plant. However, clinker exports through the Port of Conchán increased to 0.28Mt in the period.

Russia: An investment deal has been signed between the Government of Bashkortostan, the Sichuan-Sibay Industrial Park and Jiunghe Sichuan Environmental Protection Company to build a 1.8Mt/yr cement plant in Sibay. The project has a cost of Euro168m, according to the RBC News Agency. Once operational the unit is expected to create around 200 jobs. The project as orignally scheduled to open in 2018 but construction work at the site has not started yet. Further repoting by the Russian Construction trade magazine says that the general contractor for the project will be Sinoma.

China: China National Building Materials' operating revenue rose by 40% year-on-year to US$394m in the first quarter of 2018 from US$281m in the same period of 2017. Its net profit more than doubled to US$77.4m from US$23.6m.

France: The French government reportedly asked the US not to target Lafarge Syria’s Jalabiya cement plant during military operations in 2014. Emails seen and reported upon by Reuters suggest that France's Syria envoy, Franck Gellet, asked the French Foreign Ministry to protect the cement plant while it was in Islamic State controlled territory. The request to ‘not to do anything about this site without checking with us first’ was then passed to US officials. Neither the French Foreign Ministry nor LafargeHolcim commented on the emails when asked by Reuters.

LafargeHolcim is being investigated in France over claims that Lafarge Syria had paid extremist groups to keep a cement plant operational after the outbreak of war in Syria. Six former Lafarge executives have been charged so far with financing a terrorist organisation.