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Spain: Cementos Portland, a subsidiary of Spanish builder FCC, saw its loss grow by 21.2% year-on-year to Euro29.5m during the first three months of 2015.
The company boosted its revenue by 9.4% year-on-year to Euro122m, while its earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) slumped by 59.9% to Euro6.3m. Cementos Portland attributed its negative results to a reduction in CO2 emission sales on the secondary market and its new accounting procedures concerning costs generated by the annual renovation of its cement plants.
Should the aforementioned effects be neglected, Cementos Portland would have boosted its results by some Euro7m for the period to a loss of Euro25.7m, versus Euro32.7m a year earlier.
McInnis Cement warehouse for New York 17 April 2015
US/Candada: Montreal-based McInnis Cement plans to build a US$40m distribution warehouse along the East River in the Bronx, New York, in the hopes of reducing truck traffic in the borough as well as developing its waterfront, according to local media.
McInnis Cement will transport cement down the river from Quebec in 35,000t loads. McInnis will still use trucks to deliver cement from the warehouse to customers, but the new facility should decrease the trucking situation in the borough. "We've done a pretty thorough analysis of the trucking effect in the local community and, in general, we believe that trucking will go down," said Jim Braselton, senior vice president of sales, marketing and logistics at McInnis Cement.
As part of the project, McInnis Cement plans to build a pedestrian pathway on the waterfront. It aims to break ground on the project by the end of the summer of 2015, with completion by the end of 2016.
US: Lafarge and Holcim have announced further details on the package of assets that they propose to divest in the US as part of their planned merger to create LafargeHolcim. The divestments include:
- Lafarge's 1.1Mt/yr Davenport cement plant in Iowa and seven terminals along the Mississippi River. The units will be sold to Summit Materials for US$450m in cash plus Summit's Bettendorf, Iowa cement terminal;
- Holcim terminals in Michigan and Illinois;
- Holcim Skyway 600,000t/yr slag grinding station in Illinois;
- Holcim Camden 700,000t/yr slag grinding station in New Jersey, along with a terminal in Massachusetts.
The proposed divestments have been negotiated with the staff of the Federal Trade Commission and remain subject to review and approval by the commission. The divestments will be completed subject to acceptance by the commission and to the closing of the merger between Holcim and Lafarge.
Lafarge Republic to hike output by 17% in 2015 16 April 2015
Philippines: Lafarge Republic Inc expects to raise its cement output by 17% with the opening of new mills at its plants in Rizal and Bulacan. Lafarge Republic president Renato Sunico said that the company expects to produce >7Mt/yr of cement by the end of 2015, up from 6Mt/yr at present.
The US$20.1m grinding mill at the plant in Teresa, Rizal that was inaugurated in April 2015 is expected to produce 850,000t/yr of cement. This increases the plant's output to 2Mt/yr. The new mill will also contribute to Lafarge Republic's commitment to sustainability as it reduces the plant's energy consumption by 40%. A similar 850,000t/yr capacity mill will also be installed at the plant in Norzagaray in Bulacan by December 2015. "The reason why we put up a new mill in Teresa and why we want to put up a new mill in Norzagaray, is because we want to make sure that we can serve demand," said Sunico.
With regards to the LafargeHolcim merger, no consolidation of the two companies' operations in the Philippines is required as Holcim has expressed plans to purchase some of LafargeRepublic's assets such as Lafarge Iligan Inc, Lafarge Mindanao Inc, Lafarge Republic Aggregates Inc and the Star Terminal at the Harbour Centre in Manila. CRH has also been given rights to acquire the remaining assets of Lafarge Republic, including the plants in Rizal, Bulacan, Batangas and Cebu.
Eurocement proposes boss Galchev for LafargeHolcim board 16 April 2015
Europe: Eurocement Holding AG, the second-largest shareholder in Holcim with a 10.8% stake, has said that it is nominating its owner Filaret Galchev for a position on the LafargeHolcim board. Galchev's name was not on a list of candidates for the post-merger board released earlier in April 2015, but Holcim's chairman had previously said that Holcim was open to giving Galchev a seat.