Displaying items by tag: Russia
CRH in talks to buy BaselCement
06 September 2011Russia/Kazakhstan/Ireland: Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska is holding talks to discuss selling up to 75% of his cement production company BaselCement to Ireland's Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH). BaselCement CEO Vyacheslav Shmatov and CRH's press office declined to comment.
At present, BaselCement only has two operating facilities, one in Russia and the other in Kazakhstan. The company's plant in the Krasnoyarsk city of Achinsk produced 436,500t of cement in January to July 2011, up from 150,400t that it produced in the same period of 2010. BaselCement's plant in Kazakhstan produced 400,000t of cement in the whole of 2010.
The proposed deal could also include two cement plants with a combined annual production capacity of 3.5Mt/yr that are currently being built in the Ryazan and Novgorod regions. CRH has preliminarily estimated BaselCement's value at Euro550-600m (excluding its subsidiary BaselCement-Pikalyovo). BaselCement is forecast to have a net profit of Euro45.8m in 2011.
HeidelbergCement opens new plant in Greater Moscow
19 July 2011Russia: HeidelbergCement has officially opened its new plant TulaCement in the presence of numerous prestigious guests. The plant, which is located approximately 150km south of Moscow in the city of Novogurovsky, Tula region, has a cement production capacity of 2Mt/yr. Construction of the plant began in April 2009. The investment costs for the new plant, which employs around 400 people amounted to approximately Euro300m.
"We are very pleased that we are today able to inaugurate our state-of-the-art cement plant, TulaCement, which is one of the largest in Russia," explained Dr Bernd Scheifele, Chairman of the Managing Board. "In the future, the new plant will primarily supply the rapidly growing market in Greater Moscow with high-quality cement. We have thus reached another milestone in the expansion of our cement capacities in attractive growth regions and have increased our capacity in Russia to around 5Mt/yr."
The cement will be produced in a dry process in the highly-automated plant, which is equipped with environmentally-friendly technology. The entire production site including the quarry spans over 100 hectares. To ensure optimum logistics for delivery and cement shipments, HeidelbergCement has constructed several kilometres of road and railway lines. Four modern apartment buildings have been erected so that the employees can live on site.
"Russia is an attractive market for HeidelbergCement," added Dr Scheifele. "The demand for cement is rapidly increasing. It is anticipated that cement consumption will rise from 50Mt/yr in 2010 to around 70-90Mt/yr in the next 10 years."
HeidelbergCement has been active in Russia since 2001. Amongst other activities, the Group operates a cement plant near St. Petersburg and is the majority shareholder of a building materials company in Bashkortostan, one of the richest republics in Russia. The cement is imported to important growth regions via import terminals in Murmansk, Archangelsk and Kaliningrad.
Lafarge and Rusnano to make new materials
24 June 2011Russia: Dmitry Lisenkov, Managing Director of Rusnano and Alex de Valukhoff, General Director of Lafarge in Russia have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum 2011. The MoU signifies the intention of the two parties to begin working together towards the development of innovative and sustainable construction materials designed to provide more value for customers across Russia.
"We are delighted to sign a strategic agreement with Rusnano," said de Valukhoff. "It illustrates our mutual will to collaborate with the aim to introduce joint plants producing high performance mineral additives and fillers. Fostering innovation in sustainable development projects and industry modernisation are amongst our company's key priorities."
"The modern construction industry faces a significant number of challenges, the first of which are energy efficiency, materials durability and environment safety," said Lisenkov. "Therefore innovation in technology for the construction materials production has transformed traditional materials such as cement, concrete and gypsum into more technological and functional ones. In this field, nanotechnology development enables to reach new levels of qualities. Taking into consideration Lafarge's global scientific and research expertise, we see a great prospects in the collaboration with Lafarge in the area of high technology materials production in Russia."