06 July 2015
Plymouth quay to be turned into cement depot 06 July 2015
UK: According to the Plymouth Herald, a major new six-silo cement depot is being planned in Corporation Wharf in Cattedown, Plymouth, Devon as part of a bid to bring its historic wharf back into use. It is part of a bid to transport the tens of thousands of tonnes of cement brought in and out of Plymouth every year by boat instead of road. The Victoria Group wants to build a new bulk cement storage and terminal at Corporation Wharf in Cattedown.
India: According to the Hindu Business Line, Sanghi Industries has installed a 1.2Mt/yr capacity grinding mill at its plant in Sanghipuram, Kutch. This increases the plants total capacity to 4.1Mt/yr. Sanghi Industries also plans to install a 15MW waste heat recovery system at the plant.
Abandoned cement ship drifts to Umbergaon beach 06 July 2015
India: According to the Times of India, an abandoned cement ship drifted on to the beach of Fansa, a coastal village in Umbergaon, Valsad.
The MV Coastal Pride was reportedly abandoned 15km away from Umbergaon by the ship's 14 crew members on 24 June 2015 after it developed a problem. The overturned ship drifted to Fansa village's beach after a few days because of strong water currents, according to Valsad Marine police.
The ship was en route from Porbandar to Indira Dock in Mumbai. Following a distress call by the ship's captain, the Indian Navy sent its Sea King helicopter for a search and rescue operation from Mumbai and the Indian Coast Guard send a Chetak helicopter from Daman. The 14 crew members aboard the ship were saved. "A marine police team was deputed to Fansa when we received information about the ship. We are trying to get in touch with the ship's owner," said Prem Veer Singh, superintendent of Valsad police.
India: According to the Economic Times, JSW Cement plans to bring down its cement-making cost by as much as 75% by setting up grinding units closer to markets, in contrast to the traditional model of clinker units placed near the source of raw material.
According to the plan, the new units will use clinker imported from countries that have a surplus, thus allowing JSW Cement to add 1Mt/yr of capacity for about US$28.3m, compared to US$132m required to set up a similar capacity under the traditional model.
JSW Cement plans to establish several such grinding units on the country's east coast in West Bengal and Odisha, taking its cement capacity up to 20Mt/yr by 2020. "Our novel model involves setting up inexpensive grinding facilities closer to the markets rather than building cost-intensive clinker units closer to the raw material reserves," said Parth Jindal, son of group chairman Sajjan Jindal.
According to Anil Kumar Pillai, CEO at JSW Cement, typically 67% of cement capacity investment goes into clinkerisation and 33% goes into grinding. "We are investing 33% in grinding units. Hence, our balance sheet will be far leaner, service cost on interest will be far lower and our profitability ratio will be far better," said Pillai.
"Once our balance sheet gets strengthened with strong earnings profile to support large-scale investments, we will look at backward integration to acquire limestone reserves and set up clinkerising units," said Jindal.
Dangote to build US$150m new cement plant in Yaounde 06 July 2015
Cameroon: According to All Africa, US$150m will be invested by Dangote Group to build a new cement plant in Yaounde. The board chair and CEO of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, said that the investment's aim will be to 'totally eliminate' any future cement demand increase in the country."Cameroon will not lack cement. We can assure the government that we are here to stay and will continue to invest," said Dangote.
UAE: According to a Companies and Markets report, after the economic downturn of 2008 - 2009, the cement market in the UAE is showing a positive rebound and is expected to grow by 7.56%/yr in 2014 - 2019.
The UAE is currently producing double its cement demand. Over 50% of the cement produced in the UAE is exported to Oman, Egypt and other African countries. However, analysts believe that in the coming years the cement export share will decline to meet the growing domestic demand.
The growth of the cement market in the UAE is being primarily led by a surge in construction investment because of the revival of economy. The government will invest US$700bn in the next 15 years towards the infrastructure development in the country. Ahead of Dubai EXPO 2020 and UAE National Vision 2021, major investment will be directed toward transport and power infrastructure.
India: According to the Financial Chronicle, Birla Corporation plans to increase its cement capacity to 15Mt in the next four years.
"At present our cement production capacity is 9.3Mt/yr. We want to take it to 15Mt/yr in the next four years," said Birla Corporation chairman Harsh Lodha. He said that there is an oversupply situation in the cement market at present as capacities have been built in the last three to four years on higher demand expectations, but demand has not risen.
Meanwhile, Birla Corporation is awaiting a limestone mining lease from Assam Mineral Development Corporation (AMDC). It had earlier signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with AMDC to set up a 1Mt/yr plant there. Once it gets the mining lease from AMDC, it will form a joint venture company with the state-run corporation and get the project off the ground. AMDC will hold 12.5% of the equity and Birla Corporation will hold the remaining 87.5%. Lodha said that the proposed plant would be set up with a capital outlay of US$94.5m.
UltraTech Cement’s non-executive director resigns 06 July 2015
India: Adesh Gupta, UltraTech Cement's non-executive director, has resigned from the board with effect from 30 June 2015. Gupta cited time constraints for pursuing professional and personal engagements as reasons for his stepping down.
India: According to the United News of India, ACC has suspended limestone mining operations at its Chaibasa plant in Jharkhand because of regulatory issues. ''The limestone mining operations at the Chaibasa plant have been suspended on account of the requirement of further clearances from the government of Jharkhand,'' said ACC in a statement.
The company is in discussion with the concerned authorities and expects that limestone mining operations would resume shortly. Cement grinding continues with the transfer of clinker from sister cement plants and the purchase of clinker. ACC said that the impact of the closure of the mining operations at Chaibasa is not expected to be material.
Nigeria: Following criticisms by foreign media, which has called for a massive devaluation of the Nigerian Naira instead of foreign exchange restrictions on certain items by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Alhaji Aliko Dangote, owner of Dangote Cement, has voiced his strong support of the CBN's decision, calling the ban on 41 items from the foreign exchange market as 'excellent and one of the best decisions taken so far by the CBN governor Godwin Emefiele.' Dangote described the CBN's intervention as appropriate for the Nigerian economy. "We cannot be importing poverty and exporting jobs," he said.
The CBN recently announced the restriction of importers of 41 items from the official foreign exchange market. Some of these items include cement, rice, wheel barrows, head pans, margarine, palm kernel/vegetable oil, meat and processed meat products, vegetable and processed vegetable products, poultry, private airplanes/jets, Indian incense, toothpicks and canned fish in sauce, among others.
Dangote believes that this should be seen as a call for all hands to help with the development of the nation's economy. He said that the measure would encourage Dangote Group, "To look inward and produce locally to create jobs for our growing young population." Dangote said without the ban by the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, he wouldn't have got the opportunity to grow his cement business as it is today, such that he is now exporting cement when only 10 years ago Nigeria was importing cement massively. His cement companies have a combined capacity of 20Mt/yr, providing hundreds of thousands of direct and indirect jobs across Nigeria.