Displaying items by tag: Cemex
Cemex informs of proposed South Ferriby logistics job losses
25 August 2020UK: Mexico-based Cemex has published plans for the redundancy of its entire South Ferriby, Lincolnshire logistics team. A total of 26 jobs are at stake. The Lincolnshire Today newspaper has reported that “it is no longer financially viable for Cemex to continue to operate the fleet at South Ferriby” following the mothballing of its 0.8Mt/yr integrated South Ferriby cement plant, according to the company. Its Rugby, Warwickshire fleet, Tilbury, Essex fleet and Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire fleet will pick up the remaining footprint.
Cemex said, “We understand that this news will be a further disappointment to the local community following the previous announcements about mothballing the South Ferriby plant. Thank you for your on-going support – we remain proud to have been such a valued part of the community. We would like to reiterate that all commitments to the local community will be maintained, including the work agreed as part of the Environment Agency flood protection project.” The South Ferriby plant was devastated by a tidal surge and resulting flooding in December 2013.
Cemex supplies major car park project with concrete
18 August 2020Mexico: Cemex says that 70,000t of its concrete has been used in the construction of Park Garage, a 10,000 vehicle-capacity multi-storey car park in Heroica Veracruz, Veracruz State. The company used a 500m3/day Vince Hagan batching plant and 12 mixing trucks to distribute concrete throughout the complex. Mexico regional president Ricardo Naya said, “We supplied specialised high-resistance concrete to counteract the severe salinity conditions that prevail due to the edifice’s proximity to the sea. Park Garage is yet another example of our ability to offer the highest quality products and services designed to meet our customers’ most demanding requirements."
US: Mexico-based Cemex supplied 15,000t of cement to the Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, for the construction of a 3770m runway and taxiway by McCarthy Improvement Company. Replacing an existing runway, the new runway is the longest at Hartsfield-Jackson, the world’s busiest airport.
Cemex USA president Jaime Muguiro said, “Infrastructure in the US needs improvements and updates so that Americans can remain connected and get where they need to go quickly, safely and efficiently. At Cemex, we are proud to securely support essential infrastructure projects that help achieve those goals and provide products that will enhance the experiences of travellers for years to come.”
Half-year cement producers update
05 August 2020Building materials manufacturer Saint-Gobain summed up the situation large companies face due to coronavirus in its second quarter results when it said that it faced, “very different situations from one country and market to the next.” Financial results are in from many of the largest multinational cement producers outside of China and the basic picture is as Saint-Gobain describes.
Sales revenue for LafargeHolcim, HeidelbergCement and Cemex are all down by around 10% year-on-year for the first half of the year. The variation between different geographical regions is large with some reporting sales declines of up to 20% and others noting rising sales, with one above 5%. Generally, recoveries were reported in June 2020 or when governments relaxed their lockdowns. There’s more variation with earnings figures although this may be down partly to the different figures each company likes to use. Around this is plenty of talk about liquidity and cost cutting programmes to sooth investors.
Figure 1: Sales of selected major multinational cement producers in first half of 2020. Source: Company financial reports.
Figure 2: Cement sales volumes of selected major multinational cement producers in first half of 2020. Source: Company financial reports.
Where it starts to become more interesting is when the companies talk about what they think will happen next. As Robert McCaffrey picked up upon in last week’s Global Cement Live there was a divergence between LafargeHolcim’s optimism for the second half of the year and HeidelbergCement’s caution. LafargeHolcim said it expected a, “Fast demand recovery with an encouraging outlook for the second half of 2020.” Instead, HeidelbergCement said, “A further wave of infections may occur at any time, which would have an impact on construction projects already started or announced in the individual countries. Against this backdrop, it is still not possible to estimate the full effect of the corona crisis on the company results for 2020.” Cemex sat on the fence with, “We expect that Covid-19 will continue to challenge our operations in new ways over the next few quarters.” Contrast this with Buzzi Unicem’s prediction, “Visibility for the second half of the year continues to be very limited and our forecasts are based on a scenario of gradual mitigation of the infections and related restrictions on economic activity.”
This difference in outlook may be subjective. Both LafargeHolcim and HeidelbergCement only had one geographical region each that reported growing sales in the first half of 2020 but LafargeHolcim’s ‘positive’ region represented a larger share of the group’s revenue. Alternatively, it may just be that the companies have different characters and this is reflected in their forecasts. Humans can be either be pessimistic or optimistic and so too can companies.
Of the large regional players, most of the Chinese cement producers are yet to release results for the second quarter of 2020 so there is little to say. Data out this week from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that cement output fell by 4.8% year-on-year to 1Bnt in the first half of 2020. UltraTech Cement, India’s largest producer, saw its revenue fall by 22.5% year-on-year to US$2.34bn for the first half of 2020. The worst of this was in the first quarter of the Indian financial year to 30 June 2020 with revenue falling by 33% with consolidated sales volumes down by 22% year-on-year to 14.7Mt. This coincided with the country’s ‘total’ lockdown period from late-March 2020 to 1 May 2020. Dangote Cement, a large African producer, reported growth in both sales and earnings with full or partial lockdown implemented in South Africa, Congo and Ghana in April 2020 before reopening in May 2020.
This is just a snapshot of what’s been happening with mid-year results awaited from the likes of CRH, Votorantim and, as mentioned above, the Chinese producers. Blanket lockdowns clearly damage construction markets, so future government strategies in tackling the ongoing wave of the pandemic or future waves will have consequences for the financial performance of construction material companies. In the meantime, in Europe at least at the moment, targeted regional lockdowns seem to be the public health measure of choice when outbreaks get out of control. How this translates to balance sheets will be revealed later in the year. In the meantime, while the world works out how to cope with coronavirus, expect more uncertainty.
Breedon Group completes acquisition of assets from Cemex
03 August 2020UK: Breedon Group says it has completed the acquisition of selected assets from Cemex. Following instructions from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) the assets will be operated as Pinnacle Construction Materials, a newly-created separate business led by its own management team and operating from its own offices. Pinnacle will offer a range of heavy building materials, including aggregates, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, concrete products and cement, together with contracting services, from approximately 100 locations in England, Wales and Scotland.
The CMA is still investigating the acquisition and plans to announce its initial conclusions in late August 2020. Breedon Group expects to integrate Pinnacle into its UK business at a later date once this process is fully completed. Cemex agreed to sell Breedon Group some of its UK assets in January 2020. This included 49 ready-mix plants, 28 aggregate quarries and a cement terminal for Euro211m.
Mexico: Cemex recorded a net income of US$5.61m in the first half of 2020, down by 97% year-on-year from US$218m in the first half of 2019. Net sales fell by 8% to US$6.00bn from US$6.49bn and consolidated cement volumes fell by 5% to 29.2Mt from 30.7Mt. The company increased its US sales by 7% to 1.97Mt from 1.85Mt and cement volumes by 6%, while prices increased by 1%.
Chief executive officer (CEO) Fernando González said, “Despite the unprecedented conditions in which we are operating due to the pandemic, I am pleased with our second quarter performance and our quick reaction to implement cost containment measures across all geographies. In the second quarter of 2020 we saw a rapid V-shaped volume recovery in our core products from trough levels in April, reaching slightly below pre-Covid-19 outbreak volumes in June. Importantly, our health initiatives have helped protect our employees, customers, suppliers and communities, and allowed us and our customers to continue operating in most markets.
Cemex launches Vertua carbon neutral concretes
23 July 2020Mexico: Cement has announced the launch of a range of carbon neutral concretes called Vertua. By offsetting, Cemex has eliminated Vertua’s remaining carbon footprint following a 70% reduction in embodied emissions compared to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) through use of a geopolymer cement mixture. The concretes will become available on different markets globally in 2020 and 2021.
Mexico: Cemex says that it is involved in a working group “focussed on the application of FastCarb aggregates to concrete production” as part of its efforts towards net-zero CO2 concrete production. FastCarb, administrated by the US-based International Research and Exchanges Board, is a project aimed at the production of aggregates from recycled concrete containing trapped carbon dioxide (CO2) requisitioned from industrial exhaust streams.
Cemex said, “After completing the first phase of the experimental approach at the laboratory level with promising preliminary results, the project is now entering the second phase seeking to tackle the industrial approach. In this industrial approach phase, Cemex was recently assigned to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of the carbonated recycled concrete aggregates when used in ready-mix concrete in the laboratory facilities at the Cemex France National Technical Centre.”
UK: Mexico-based Cemex has confirmed its decision to mothball the 0.8Mt/yr integrated South Ferriby, Lincolnshire cement plant following a consultation period with employee and union representatives. The company estimates that the majority of redundancies of the plant’s 110 staff will happen in July 2020.
It said, “Cemex customers will be supplied from the company’s existing cement network. Cemex’s supply chain plan and commercial management will ensure that customer service will be maintained at all times. Cemex remains committed to the UK and will continue to have a strong national presence.”
Cemex invests in Arqlite
08 July 2020US: Mexico-based Cemex has announced its investment in Arqlite, a producer of aggregates from waste plastic. Arqlite won the Cemex Ventures Global Construction Startup Competition in 2019. Other investors in the company, which began its research and development process in Argentina in 2016, include Kamay Ventures and Chris Graff.
The Cemex Ventures Global Construction Startup Competition 2020 remains open to applicants until 26 July 2020.