05 August 2016
Secil Lobito struggling to import raw materials 05 August 2016
Angola: Augusto Miragaia, the director of Secil Lobito, has said that he expects his company’s sales volumes of cement to drop by 25% year-on-year to 150,000 in 2016. He attributed the fall in sales to difficulties in obtaining foreign currencies to import raw material, according to the O País newspaper.
The company, which operates a cement grinding plant in Lobito, is unable to import sufficient clinker, other raw materials or hire skilled workers. It also faces mounting fuel and electricity costs. During the past three months the plant has used clinker purchased from the Cuanza Sul Cement plant but this source stopped supplying it in late June 2016.
Angola has five cement plants and an installed capacity of about 8Mt/yr. Demand exceeded production capacity by 2.7Mt/yr in 2015. The Lobito cement plant is majority owned by Secil-Angola. The remaining 49% stake is held by Angola’s state-run company Empresa Nacional de Cimentos.
Siam City Cement buys LafargeHolcim Vietnam 05 August 2016
Vietnam: Siam City Cement has signed an agreement to buy LafargeHolcim’s entire 65% stake in LafargeHolcim Vietnam for US$890m. LafargeHolcim Vietnam operates one integrated cement plant and four cement grinding plants with a grinding capacity of 6.3Mt/yr. The company is also a leading ready-mix concrete producer that operates seven plants in southern Vietnam. The sale is subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, as well as to a right of first refusal of LafargeHolcim’s joint venture partner, and is expected to occur in the fourth quarter of 2016.
Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has blamed lower prices and gas shortages in Nigeria for a drop in its adjusted operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the first half of 2016. Its adjusted operating EBITDA fell by 6.7% year-on-year to Euro2.33bn from Euro2.5bn in the same period in 2015. Net sales fell by 6.2% to Euro12.3bn from Euro13.1bn.
“Without the effect of Nigeria, where our plants were affected by gas shortages, adjusted operating EBITDA would have increased by 13% in the quarter. Nigeria is a high growth market and we are adapting our plants to reduce our dependency on gas to restore supply and capture growth. We expect these measures to take effect by the end of the year,” said Eric Olsen, CEO of LafargeHolcim.
LafargeHolcim’s cement sales volumes fell by 3.7% to 119Mt from 124Mt. Its Asia Pacific business region reported that cement sales remained stable during the half year at 60.7Mt as markets in the Philippines, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Sri Lanka increased volumes and markets in Indonesia and Malaysia declined. European cement sales fell by 2.7% to 19.6Mt from 20.1Mt. In Latin American sales fell by 13.2% to 11.8Mt from 13.6Mt mainly due to the poor market in Brazil. The Middle East Africa region remained stable at 21.7Mt, with growth in Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon and Morocco partly compensating for problems in Nigeria. Despite this, sales volumes of cement in this region fell by 2.3% year-on-year to 10.9Mt in the second quarter of 2016. In North America sales volumes of cement fell by 2.7% to 8.8Mt in the half-year from 9Mt due to weaker demand in Canada. However, demand in the US construction industry helped overall sales to rise by 5.1% to Euro2.21bn.