Global Cement News

India: Martin Kriegner has been appointed CEO of Lafarge India as part of the current group-wide reorganisation drive. He will hold responsibility for all of Lafarge's cement, aggregates and concrete activities in the country.

"I am happy to return to India as Country CEO, at a time when the construction sector is evolving quickly in the country. By combining all of our activities together we will be able to support this evolution by offering integrated and innovative solutions at an earlier stage of construction in close proximity with our customers, allowing the full benefits of our innovative products and services to be realised," said Kriegner.

Martin Kriegner, an Austrian citizen, joined Lafarge in 1990 and became the CEO of Lafarge Perlmooser AG, Austria in 1998 before he moved to India as head of the cement activity in 2002. Prior to this assignment he served as regional president, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lafarge has four cement plants in India: two plants in the state of Chattisgarh and a grinding plant each in Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Given the legal scuffles over the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) emissions timetable it was nice to see this week how Ash Grove Cement is responding at its Midlothian plant in Texas. The plant is seeking tax breaks on potential upgrade work that it is planning to implement before the current 2013 deadline for the EPA legislation.

For those following the fight between the EPA and the US cement industry here is a recap on the story so far:

The EPA issued a national emission standard for hazardous air pollutants rule to reduce the sector's air toxics in September 2010, alongside a new source performance standard to cut criteria pollutant emissions. In May 2011 the EPA both partly granted and denied petitions from cement industry representatives and environmentalists. In December 2012 the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia remanded the cement air toxic rule back to the EPA, delaying the deadline for the cement industry to seek a rehearing or review. Then in April 2012 the cement industry agreed not to seek a rehearing if the EPA extended its deadline until September 2015. The EPA has now sent for the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) to review its proposed revisions to its emissions rules, ahead of a tentative 15 June 2012 deadline.

While the EPA and the cement sector continue to battle it out plants like Ash Grove can do little except keep an eye on the bottom line until the dust settles... in whatever legally mandated fashioned is eventually approved. The Global Cement Directory 2012 lists 22 wet and semi-wet kilns in the US. While some are mothballed, others are likely to be affected by the rules. While the arguments continue the upgrade timetables of these plants hangs in the balance.

France: Gérard Lamarche has been appointed as a director at Lafarge at its Ordinary General Meeting in Paris on 15 May 2012.

Lamarche graduated from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve with a Bachelor's degree in Economic Sciences and a specialisation in Business Administration and Management. He also completed the Advanced Management Program for Suez Group Executives at the INSEAD Business School.

He began his professional career in 1983 with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in Belgium, and became a mergers and acquisitions consultant in the Netherlands in 1987. In 1988, he joined the Venture Capital Department of Société Générale de Belgique as an investment manager. He became the special projects advisor to the president and secretary of the Suez board of directors in 1995 where he later became the group's senior vice president in charge of planning, control and accounts management. He was appointed senior executive vice president – finance of the Suez Group in March 2004, becoming executive vice president - finance of GDF SUEZ, and member of the management and executive committees of the GDF SUEZ Group in July 2008.

Lamarche is a director of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (Belgium) and has been a managing director since January 2012. Lamarche is also a Director of Total and Legrand.

Five of the big European producers posted their first quarter results this week and the figures were frosty.

Mirroring the north-south fault-line tearing Europe's economies apart, Germany's HeidelbergCement, Switzerland's Holcim and France's Lafarge showed improvements in overall sales volumes for the first quarter. Italy's Italcementi and Greece's Titan saw total sales volumes fall.

Looking closer, the results revealed that Western Europe was a dead zone for everybody. Despite its restructuring, Lafarge's sales fell by 11% in the region for the quarter. Similarly HeidelbergCement's sales fell by 6%, Holcim's sales fell by 13% and Italcementi's sales fell by 11%. Titan, by contrast, posted a 4% decline in sales in its heartland in Greece and Eastern Europe. Unsurprisingly it attributed the fall to the collapse of the construction sector in the wake of the Greek debt crisis. Even the weather seemed to be against European production, with more than one report blaming an unusually cold February 2012 for the poor results.

As is usual for European cement news in recent years the action in the first quarter of 2012 was all elsewhere, and this is where new profits have been found for these European producers, specifically in Asia and the Americas. It's in these places that Lafarge, Holcim and HeidelbergCement have reported sales increases of 10% and above for the quarter. Unfortunately 'elsewhere' for Italcementi and Titan has included Egypt with all its ongoing political and economic uncertainty, and the US where demand is in a sustained slump.

Bruno Lafont, CEO of Lafarge, summed it up nicely: "Emerging markets continue to be the main driver of demand and Lafarge benefits from its well balanced geographic spread of high quality assets." In a bid to capture some of that spread, it was also announced this week that the Italcementi subsidiary, Ciments Français, is striving to acquire a 6.25% stake in West China Cement. No wonder!

Each of the five producers are continuing to find savings in Western Europe through restructuring efforts but how painful will it become before the market revives? Unfortunately HeidelbergCement's outlook is the most candid. "In the Western and Northern Europe Group area, HeidelbergCement expects further economic growth but a slight overall dip in demand and falling sales volumes in cement and aggregates." Yes, it's going to get worse. Let's hope it's a warm winter in 2013.

Columbia: Columbia's largest cement company, Cementos Argos (Cemargos), has named Jorge Mario Velásquez as its chairman.

A civil engineer with over 30 years' experience in cement, Velásquez replaces José Alberto Vélez, who remains at the head of parent company Grupo Argos. The changes are part of the company's ongoing corporate restructuring process, which includes splitting off non-cement assets to its investment arm, Inversiones Argos.