12 June 2015
China: Germany's AViTEQ Vibrationstechnik GmbH has celebrated the opening of a joint venture in Shanghai with China's Shanghai Finde M&E Tech Co Ltd (Finde). Finde is mainly engaged in drive and control technology business in China and has been supplied with AViTEQ magnetic vibrators for about 10 years.
Increasing domestic demand resulted in the establishment of AViTEQ Industrial Technology, which will manufacture innovative vibrating and processing systems exclusively for the Asian market. The joint venture will combine Chinese steel construction skills and German state-of-the-art drive technology. The technology will be used for screening and conveying in various sectors, including the cement industry, steel production and foundries, building and non-metallic mineral industry, chemical, pharmaceutical as well as plastic applications up to food production. Sales and services will be handled by AViTEQ Industrial Technology. The company will provide a 24 hour spare part delivery service for drives and controls from a local warehouse.
"Thanks to the cooperation with our local partners, we are able to offer our systems in China and neighbouring countries at marketable prices while maintaining the highest quality standards. In the medium-term, we are expecting the new company to gain a comparable successful market position with similar size as the German parent company," said Wolfgang Finger, CEO of AViTEQ Germany.
Vietnam: Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (Vicem) said that its cement and clinker sales in May 2015 grew by 10% year-on-year to 2.01Mt. Of the volume, 1.84Mt of cement and clinker were sold to the domestic market while 162,000t were exported.
In the first five months of 2015, Vicem's cement and clinker sales fell by 1.4% year-on-year to 9.08Mt. Of this, 8.0Mt was sold to the domestic market, up by 6.2% year-on-year, while 1.06Mt was exported, down by 34% year-on-year. Vicem produced 6.97Mt of clinker and 7.61Mt of cement in the first five months of 2015, rising by 5.1% and 4.1% year-on-year respectively. Of this, 1.47Mt of clinker and 1.82Mt of cement was produced in May 2015.
Vicem plans to produce 1.52Mt of clinker and 1.58Mt of cement and aims to sell 1.73Mt of cement and clinker in June 2015.
Dako delivers 185t cement mill to Russia 12 June 2015
Russia: According to Heavy Lift, Germany-based Dako Worldwide Transport has transported a 185t cement mill over 5700km from the manufacturer's location in Austria to a cement plant in Sterlitamak, Russia.
The mill, which measured 18.5m x 5.7m x 6m, was first loaded onto a barge in Linz, Austria for transport along the Danube River to the Romanian port of Constanta, where the cargo was loaded onto a vessel and shipped across the Black Sea to Rostov, Russia. From Rostov, the vessel travelled down the Volga-Don River system to eventually arrive at Nizhnekamsk, where the cement mill was lifted by a heavy lift port crane onto a ro-ro barge for onward transport down the Kama and Belaya rivers to Ufa, Bashkortostan.
On arrival at Ufa, the mill was unloaded using a bespoke roll-off jetty that had been designed and constructed by Dako in Russia. The company explained that this was extremely challenging due to the very low water level in the river at the time. Special steel plates were placed on the jetty and two heavy-duty prime movers were used to pull the 24-axle hydraulic trailer and its load off the barge and onto land. The same trailer was then used to transport the cement mill to its final destination in Sterlitamak, Bashkortostan by road. En route, the vehicle had to pass over several bridges, many of which had been reinforced for this transport.
Loma Negra cement assets expected to change hands 12 June 2015
Argentina: Loma Negra, the cement assets purchased in 2005 by Brazil's Camargo Corrêa Cimentos from the Fortabat family in a US$1bn deal and later incorporated into Intercement is likely to be sold, according to El Cronista. Loma Negra began 2011 with a US$400m four-year investment that includes US$250m to set up a plant at San Juan, Puerto Rico. It would be Loma Negra's 10th cement plant.
Ireland/South Korea: CRH's investment spend for 2015 looks set to surpass Euro7bn, with the company heavily linked with a Euro800m move for the number two player in South Korea's cement market, Tongyang Cement & Energy. Tongyang Cement & Energy has a market value of nearly Euro600m. Its owner is reportedly putting a 74% stake on the market, with a Euro800m price tag being touted.
CRH's Euro6.5bn purchase of assets being offloaded as part of the merger between Holcim and Lafarge is due to conclude in August 2015. CRH is set to become the third-largest building materials business in the world on the back of that deal, but management has already suggested that it won't be the limit of its 2015 spending. CRH chief executive Albert Manifold said that the group had a 'very strong' acquisition pipeline.
CRH spent Euro45m in the first four months of 2015. Manifold said that CRH currently has a separate Euro1bn US deal under consideration and a Euro700m deal, but noted that CRH typically concludes around 10% of the deals that come onto its radar. However, if all of those deals came to pass, CRH's 2015 investments would exceed Euro8bn.
While the Euro700m deal is thought to be a European target, if the Korean deal goes ahead, it would further boost CRH's Asian presence, which is already being improved via new assets in the Philippines coming on stream via the LafargeHolcim deal. CRH said that it would repackage its Asian operations into a separate grouped entity in 2015 to cater for its growing size. The South Korean market consumes about 45Mt/yr of cement from a total production capacity of around 65Mt/yr.