Global Cement News

India: Reliance Cement plans to set up a cement plant and raw material quarry in Sedam Taluk, Gulbarga District, as well as a 3Mt/yr cement grinding plant in Gowribidanur Taluk at a cost of US$114m.

As per the pre-feasibility report for the Sedam project, which was submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF), Reliance said that it will set up an integrated 5.5Mt/yr cement plant with 3.6Mt/yr clinker production capacity and a 75MW power plant. Reliance is also setting up a 5Mt/yr limestone mine in the Tilkur and Hebal Villages, both in Sedam Taluk. The project is expected to be completed in 24 months, once the Karnataka government has approved it. Reliance is awaiting the Terms of Reference (TOR) from the MoEF, for which it had applied on 7 April 2014.

The project cost is estimated to be US$428m for the Sedam cement plant. For mining activity, Reliance has placed the initial cost at US$52.5m. Reliance received a Letter of Intent (LOI) from the Department of Mines and Geology in Karnataka to mine on 9.29km² at the Tilkur and Hebal villages. The mining activity in the leased area is scheduled to be for 5Mt/yr of limestone. The LoI was granted to Reliance cement on 30 July 2010.

Nigeria: Dangote Group has invested US$250m in a coal-based power plant in its effort to provide an alternative source of power for is plants across the country to reduce the cost and difficulty accessing electricity.

Dangote Cement's Group CEO, Devakumar Edwin, said that the initiative will help the group in running its businesses in all parts of the country. He noted that the group has installed a 54MW coal power plant in Gboko, Benue State and is currently working towards installations at Ibeshe in Ogun state and Obajana in Kogi State. Edwin, who said that the group was currently importing coal from South Africa, revealed that it has started exploring coal opportunities in Nigeria, especially in Enugu State. It has also established a separate division for coal exploration.

Edwin noted that inadequate power supply due to Nigeria's low supply of gas has affected Dangote's cement production, while the cost aspect has also impacted on the economy and increased cost for consumers.

"In this country, the major issue is power," said Edwin. "Any economy will climb to double digits, once there is power at the right price. With affordable power people will produce products locally, will gravitate to the private sector, leading to the creation of a middle class and more employment in the country."

Russia: The renovation of the Podgornoe railway in the Podgorensky District of Voronezh Region has now been completed at a total cost of Euro14.8m. Eurocement contributed Euro8.92m to the joint venture project, which was carried out with JSC Russian Railways.

"This is an excellent joint project between big businesses," said the governor of the Voronezh Region, Alexei Gordeev. "Eurocement and JSC Russian Railways were able to reach an agreement on joint investments in the station's renovation, which made it possible to substantially increase its cargo throughput. It was very fortunate for us that one of the largest cement plants was opened in the Podgorensky District of the Voronezh Region. Productivity tripled in the last year alone and all this is thanks to the efforts of the cement plant. Now the railroad is ready to meet the cargo transportation needs of the enterprise." According to the president of Eurocement, Mikhail Skorokhod, the station's renovation will support the shipping of up to 2Mt/yr of cement from Eurocement's plant.

As part of the renovation, existing routes were extended and underwent major repairs, which allows trains of increased length (up to 71 cars) to be used, overhead contact lines were repaired and upgraded and the system underwent a transition to the Ebilock-950 centralised microprocessor, which is designed to control switches and signals at the station. In total, 2.6km of track and 36 turnouts were laid, 13km of overhead contact lines and carrier wires were replaced, 245 new supports were installed and the station area was renovated.

Nigeria: With a national production capacity at over 28Mt/yr, which far outstrips national demand of 20Mt/yr, Nigeria looks set to effectively end cement imports by 2017, according to UniCem's managing director, Olivier Lenoir. This is coming on the back of on-going strong national production capacity expansion by virtually all of the major cement producers operating in the country. By 2016, Dangote Cement will have increased its production to 50Mt/yr, Lafarge 15Mt/yr and UniCem to 5Mt/yr.

Zambia: Lafarge Zambia's CEO, Emmanuel Rigaux, said that its profit went up by 66% during the first six months of 2014, largely driven by favourable volumes, the launch of cost-control measures, improved industrial performance and positive foreign exchange gains.

"Our priority to improve our level of customer service through innovative new products, a re-focused sales and customer service team and state-of-the-art logistical solutions, have started to show results," said Rigaux. "Together with improvements in operational and industrial performance at our Ndola and Chilanga plants, we have managed to attain encouraging first half results despite a challenging environment in Zambia and key export markets."

Cement production grew by 13% to 600,000t, despite domestic and export markets facing challenges with stiffening competition, cost inflation and a number of changes in the regulatory environment. Lafarge Zambia expects continued efforts on the customer and cost-control sides to enable the firm to grow profitably and meet the needs of domestic and export customers, with a strong focus on infrastructure and mining projects in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Rigaux said that Lafarge Zambia's current capacity expansion projects in Ndola and Chilanga would also enable the company to remain the preferred supplier of construction solutions in Zambia and the DRC. He added that cement demand is expected to remain strong for the rest of 2014, saying that innovative products, services and solutions would be introduced as required to satisfy the growing demand in the construction sector.