Global Cement News

Nigeria: BUA Cement reported sales of US$115m in the first quarter of 2024, up by 51% from US$76m in the first quarter of 2023. The producer’s cost of sales, meanwhile, more than doubled to US$83m. As such, post-tax profit declined by 33% to US$12.8m.

India: Orient Cement has successfully commissioned Phase 2 of the new waste heat recovery (WHR) plant at its Chittapur cement plant in Karnataka. Reuters has reported that the new phase raises WHR power capacity at the plant to 10.1MW.

Mexico: Cemex announced that it has reached full investment grade status after being upgraded to BBB- by rating agency Fitch Ratings. This follows Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings' upgrade announced in March 2024.

Fernando González, CEO of Cemex, said "Achieving investment grade is a milestone for Cemex. This rating is confirmation of both our strategy and our execution against it.”

Greece: FLSmidth has signed a two-year global service agreement with Titan Group to support 14 cement plants, three grinding plants and a cement terminal across locations including Greece, southeastern Europe, Türkiye, Egypt, Brazil and the US. The agreement encompasses a variety of onsite and remote services such as inspections, audits, troubleshooting and training for diverse equipment types, including material handling and storage, mills, kilns, coolers and pollution control systems.

Vice President of Service at FLSmidth, Isabelle Balmir, said "Titan Group is one of the leading international cement companies. With this contract, we are excited to continue our long-standing partnership and collaboration towards efficiency and sustainability. As we have service expertise located across the world, we are well positioned to support their global footprint."

Philippines: DMCI Holdings is 'optimistic' that Cemex Philippines will swing back to profit in 2024. Cemex Philippines saw its net loss increase to US$34.6m in 2023 from US$17.3m in 2023, representing a year-on-year increase of 50%. This was mainly due to higher costs and lower sales volume, according to The Manila Times.

DMCI Chairman and President Isidro Consunji said "We recognise Cemex Philippines' operational and financial issues, and we are positive that we can turn it around by 2025 because of its ongoing capacity expansion and the clear synergies it brings to our group."

DMCI expects Cemex Philippines to double its capacity in the Luzon region with the completion of a 1.5Mt/yr integrated cement production line, which is scheduled to commence operations by September 2024. The new production line, located at Cemex Philippines's plant in Antipolo, Rizal, will increase the company’s annual production capacity by 26%, to 7.2Mt/yr from 5.7Mt/yr.