Global Cement News

Jordan: Ahmed Shireen Korayem, chief executive officer and managing director at the Egyptian cement producer El Nahda Industries, has been appointed as a board member by the Arab Union of Cement & Building Materials (AUCBM) during the ongoing Arab-International Cement Conference, which is currently taking place in Amman, Jordan.

Sudan: Atif Saeed has been appointed as the new chief executive officer at Habesha Cement Company.

Egypt: Cemex’s chief executive officer (CEO) Fernando A González was part of the First Movers Coalition panel at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Sharm El Sheikh on 8 November 2022. He participated alongside the World Economic Forum’s president Borge Brende, Microsoft president Brad Smith, ReNew chair and managing director Sumant Sinha, Volvo Group chief purchasing officer Andrea Fuder and US Special Climate Envoy John Kerry.

Cemex is a founding member of the First Movers Coalition, a partnership between the World Economic Forum and the US Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry. It is the only buyers’ club working to scale new technologies across the heavy industry and heavy-duty transport sectors.

As a First Movers Coalition member, Cemex committed to making 32% of its heavy-duty transport purchases zero emissions by 2030. This commitment aligns with the company’s ambitious goals of reducing transport carbon emissions by 30% by 2030 and becoming net zero by 2050, part of its Future in Action program to achieve sustainable excellence and become a net zero CO₂ company.

This commitment is particularly challenging, as zero-emission heavy-duty transport is presently unavailable at scale. At the panel, Fernando A Gonzalez talked about how collaboration and innovation are at the core of his company’s efforts. Cemex is already piloting fully electric concrete mixer trucks with partners like Volvo. It is also investing in transition technologies such as natural gas, replacing 200 diesel trucks with this lower-emission alternative in 2022.

Cemex will a host a discussion panel called Working Together to Decarbonise the Construction Value Chain, to be moderated by Thomas Guillot, chief executive of the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA), on 10 November 2022. The panelists will include Diane Hoskins (Gensler Co), Aniruddha Sharma (Carbon Clean), Hubertus Meinecke (BCG) and Adair Turner (Energy Transitions Commission), in addition to Cemex’s Fernando A González.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement’s operating revenue grew by 7.5% year-on-year to US$657m for the half of its 2023 fiscal year, covering the six-month period to 30 September 2022, compared to US$612m in the same period in its 2022 fiscal year. However, rising costs led to the company reporting an operating loss of US$41.9m compared to an operating profit of US$35.6m previously. Its pretax loss was US$37.7m compared to a pretax profit of US$47.9m. Sumitomo Osaka Cement recorded an overall net loss of US$20m, compared to a net profit of US$41.5m in the first half of the 2022 financial year.

The company expects to record net revenues of US$1.42bn across the entire 2023 fiscal year, with a net loss of US$4.1m. This indicates that it has forecast performance to improve significantly over the next six months.

Saudi Arabia: China-based Sinoma has signed a contract with Yamama Cement for the construction of a new 10,000t/day clinker production line at its new plant site. The announcement of the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract at the Arab-International Cement Conference in Amman, Jordan, came shortly after the news that Sinoma had been contracted to dismantle, move and rebuild one of Yamama Cement’s existing cement production lines in a strategic move between the producer’s old and new plant sites.