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Germany: ThyssenKrupp is reorganising its Industrial Solutions business area, its division responsible for engineering and construction. It aims to modernise its management structure by focusing on customers and business fields along with integrating the Marine Systems and System Engineering units more closely. The new position of chief operating officer will be created on the business area board for this. In addition, Johan P Cnossen will join the leadership team of Industrial Solutions to aid the reorganisation.
The new structure will be implemented at the start of the new fiscal year on 1 October 2016. Industrial Solutions will then have eight business units: Industrial Specialties, Mining Technologies, Cement Technologies, Electrolysis & Polymers Technologies, Fertilizer Technologies, Services, Marine Systems and System Engineering.
As part of the changes ThyssenKrupp’s plant technology business will be simplified by removing a layer of management. In addition the transformation program will hasten the integration of the company’s plant engineering businesses including Uhde, Polysius and Fördertechnik. Under the roof of Thyssenkrupp Industrial Solutions a uniform network structure is now being created that will make it possible to share expertise and capacities across all business units and also integrate Marine Systems and System Engineering more closely.
Brazil: Magnesita’s net operating revenue has dropped by 17% year-on-year to US$66.9m for the first quarter of 2016 from US$80.2m in the same period in 2015. The company’s sales volumes of refractory materials fell by 8.7% to 232,000t from 254,000t. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 12.8% to US$11.4m from US$13.1m. The company blamed the falling revenue on falling steel production in South America and Western Europe and on a poor construction market in Brazil negatively affecting its cement clients.
"2016 began with interesting prospects for Magnesita. While the world is mired with excess steel production, uncertainties surrounding the Chinese economy and substantial political turmoil in Brazil, we have begun to see green shoots coming out of the US (our most relevant market) and the first results of the array of self-help initiatives Magnesita has overtaken in the last few years,” said Octavio Pereira Lopes, Magnesita’s chief executive officer. He added that the quarterly drop in steel production in Western Europe was driven by a 39% drop in the UK due to capacity shutdown.
Oman: Raysut Cement Company (RCC) has recently launched a new silo at its cement plant in Salalah. The storage capacity of the new silo is 20,000t. It has a diameter of 30m and a height of 43m. RCC say it is one of the largest silos in the region.
The silo contains three compartments with a capacity of 3000 - 12,000t. It is designed to hold Ordinary Portland Cement, sulphate-resistant cement and oil well cement. The silo also contains two units for the loading of bulk cement with a delivery rate of 300t/hour. Weighbridges have been fitted beneath the silo to allow direct weighing of bulk cement before it is packed. The new silo will feed a proposed packing plant with 150t/hour of cement. This new packing plant is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2016.
RCC intends to use its new silo and packing plant to target local and international markets.
US: A worker has died from a fall at the Midlothian Ash Grove Cement plant in Texas on 10 May 2016. The worker, Roderick U Barnes, was a maintenance mechanic at the plant according to the Waxahachie Daily Light newspaper. Barnes had been working on the top of a concrete mixing tower. The Mine Safety and Health Administration and Ash Grove Cement are conducting investigations into the cause of the accident.
Austria: The Federation of Austrian Cement Industry (VÖZ) has reported that its national cement market volumes grew by 4% year-on-year to 4.6Mt in 2015. Overall sales turnover increased by 4.3% to Euro388m. Alongside this, the use of alternative fuels by the cement industry increased to 76.1% in 2015 from 75.5% in 2015.
Rudolf Zrost, CEO of VÖZ, lauded the growth in cement volumes despite a ‘difficult’ year. Looking ahead to 2016 he expected that a turnaround in housing investment and hopes for infrastructure spending in 2016 would aid the market.
He also warned against emissions trading describing it as ‘bureaucratic’, as stifling innovation and as having no basis in reality.