Displaying items by tag: Export
Cemex to restart CPN cement plant’s Line 2
08 March 2022Mexico: Cemex says that it plans to restart Line 2 at its CPN cement plant in Sonora State. The line has a capacity of 0.8Mt/yr. Cemex will invest US$29m in restarting it, bringing its total recent investments in the CPN plant to US$44m. It previously invested US$15m in a restart of the plant’s 1Mt/yr Line 1 in 2021. When operational in mid-late 2022, Line 2 will join the existing line in supplying cement to Arizona, California and Nevada in the US.
Cemex USA president Jaime Muguiro said “Many cement customers in the western US have been impacted by tight supply constraints for several months, and at Cemex, we are proactively looking for opportunities to further alleviate those conditions and enrich customer experiences by enhancing how we operate while utilising our global reach.” He continued “Customers require more cement to keep pace with the region’s growth, and we want to ensure they have stable and steady access to the high-quality materials that are essential to meet their needs.”
Pakistan: All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) members exported 405,000t of cement in February 2022, down by 34% year-on-year from 616,000t in February 2021. Domestic deliveries also dropped, by under 1% to 3.95Mt from 3.96Mt. Amid the declines, Pakistani cement producers have reported a steep rise in their costs due to increases in international freight rates and coal prices and the country’s on-going ban on trade with neighbouring India. Cheaper Iranian cement has undercut Pakistani cement sales to Bangladesh, while the Afghan market has yet to recover following the withdrawal of peacekeeping forces.
India: Dalmia Bharat Group’s refractories subsidiary Dalmia-OCL has consolidated its businesses as Dalmia Bharat Refractories. The company said that the consolidation aims to strengthen the businesses’ financial standing, increase investment capabilities and positioning the new entity as a trustworthy and long-term partner for its customers in the cement industry.
Dalmia Bharat Refractories managing director and CEO Sameer Nagpal said "Our refractory business was divided into different companies which resulted in division of our financial, managerial and technical resources. This consolidation will lead into a more centralised, efficient and a robust management system with a stronger resource base for the future. The formation of Dalmia Bharat Refractories will allow us to offer a wider portfolio of products and services and deeper client relationships.” Nagpal added that the consolidation ‘Will enable us to become an alternative supply source to China in international markets.’
Nigeria: Dangote Cement’s revenue grew by 33.8% year-on-year to US$3.33bn in 2021 from US$2.49bn in 2020. Its sales volumes rose by 13.8% to 29.3Mt from 25.7Mt driven by a strong domestic market, although international volume growth was strong. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 43.2% to US$1.65bn from US$1.15bn.
“Over the last two years, we have finalised the deployment of 6Mt new capacity in Nigeria. Looking ahead, we are now focused on a less capital-intensive expansion cycle, which includes building grinding plants across West and Central Africa to leverage and strengthen Dangote Cement’s regional integration. We are on track to deploy grinding capacity in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. In addition, our Alternative Fuel Project is at an advanced stage which aims to leverage waste management solutions, reduce CO2 emissions, and source material locally. This year, we co-processed 89,000t of waste representing a 60% increase over 2020,” said chief executive officer Michel Puchercos.
The group noted that Cement demand in Nigeria was sustained by increasing housing infrastructure, commercial construction, and government projects including major highways, roads, and railways. In May 2021 it re-started exporting clinker from its Onne and Apapa terminals and delivered seven clinker shipments with a total volume of 197,000t in 2021. It also exported 706,000t in 2021 by road to Togo and Niger. Internationally, the group said that it performed well but it also faced challenges in Cameroon, Ghana and Sierra Leone, where freight costs had increased substantially, causing volatility in the landing cost of cement and clinker.
Uzbek companies allowed to export cement themselves
02 March 2022Uzbekistan: The President of Uzbekistan signed in a law change on 1 March 2022 permitting legal entities to export cement on the basis of direct contracts. The change also applies to clinker. Under the current law, all exporters can claim up to 50% of transport costs for subsidisation by the Export Promotion Agency of Uzbekistan.
Egyptian cement exports surge by 151% in 2021
02 March 2022Egypt: A report from the Export Council for Building Materials, Refractory and Metallurgy Industries (ECBM) has revealed that Egyptian cement exports rose by 151% year-on-year in 2021. The value of cement exports was US$456m in 2021 compared to US$182m in 2020, according to the Al Mal News newspaper. Local producers have focused exports on African markets.
Lafarge Algeria exports 2.6Mt of cement in 2021
23 February 2022Algeria: Lafarge Algeria says it exported 2.6Mt of cement in 2021, more than double the 1.18Mt it exported in 2020. It aims to export over 3Mt in 2022. The subsidiary of Holcim also announced that it will carry out two new large simultaneous shipments from the port of Oran, one of 35,000t of cement in bulk, and the other of 30,000t of white cement in big bags. Both shipments will be exported to the Americas.
Papua New Guinea: Mayur Resources has signed a collaboration agreement with First Graphene Limited for the production of low-carbon cement using the latter’s PureGraph graphene-based grinding aids and performance improvers. Mayur Resources operates a 0.9Mt/yr cement plant, where it also produces a further 0.75Mt/yr of clinker and 0.2Mt/yr of lime, near Port Moresby in National Capital District. The Australia-based partners hope to export their cement across Melanesia and to Polynesia and Australia.
Algerian cement truckers protest loading law change
21 February 2022Algeria: Some cement truck drivers have launched protests against a change in the law which limits their vehicles’ loads below the previous maximum weight. The L’Expression newspaper reports that protests include refusals to depart and the establishment of roadblocks. The actions have prevented the export of some Algerian clinker. Lafarge Algérie said that it raised drivers’ pay per tonne of goods following the law change. The company stated that the new level of pay ensures that transporters will not lose out as a result.
Algeria is targeting cement and clinker exports of 10Mt in 2022.
Update on Spain, February 2022
09 February 2022The data on cement consumption for 2021 in Spain is out this week and it looks promising. As the national cement association Oficemen explained, last year was the sector’s best for over a decade, nearly reaching 15Mt consumption and exceeding the figure in 2019 before the Covid-19 pandemic started. Oficemen also singled out particular strong performance in December 2021. It now expects this growth trend to continue into 2022 with a forecast of 5% to 15.6Mt predicted based on both domestic and infrastructure segments.
Graph 1: Cement consumption in Spain, 2012 – 2021. Source: Oficemen.
The Spanish cement industry reached a peak consumption of over 50Mt in the late 2000s before hitting a near-50 year low in the 2010s in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The market then started to recover in the second half of the 2010s until Covid-19 came along. A report on the Spanish cement market to the start of 2021 that lays out the situation can be found in the February 2021 issue of Global Cement Magazine. The larger news stories since then have been Votorantim Cimentos’ growth in the market through its acquisitions of FYM and Cementos Balboa, and Çimsa Çimento’s final completion of its deal to buy the Buñol white cement plant from Cemex. Each of these stories involve an integrated cement plant changing ownership.
Looking back at Oficemen’s summary describing 2012 depicts a much different dwindling market. However, one commonality it shares with the association’s roundup for 2021 is that it complains about the country’s disadvantage in electricity costs compared to its neighbours. Back in 2012 this was framed as holding back exports. As Oficemen noted at the time it exported 5.9Mt of cement in 2012, less than half the 13Mt it exported in 1983. Jump forward to 2021 and exports are now 6.8Mt. Energy is still a key issue though. Now Oficemen’s president, José Manuel Cascajero Rodríguez, says that the sector’s production costs have increased by 25% since the latest round of electricity price rises began. He then compares the cost of energy intensive industry in Spain unfavourably against France and Germany and calls for a structural change in the Spanish electricity market to make prices more predictable. Cement producers elsewhere in Europe and beyond may share Oficemen’s concerns regard unpredictable energy prices over the last six months but electricity has been a particular issue for Spain for a long time. To take one recent local example, in November 2021 Cementos Cosmos said it was planning to scale down the production of clinker at its Córdoba cement plant as a result of the high cost of electricity.
The other issue that gets raised in Oficemen’s 2021 summary is competition from cement importers outside the European Union (EU) and the necessity of a border carbon adjustment mechanism (CBAM) to take in account carbon taxation for producers within Europe. To jump back a bit, back in May 2021 the EU Emissions trading Scheme (ETS) reached Euro50/t. Then in December 2021 Cembureau, the European cement association, published a calculation predicting that if the EU ETS CO2 cost made it to Euro90/t then this could represent 12 - 15% of the production costs of cement producers. Well, as readers will have guessed, the EU ETS beat Euro90/t on 2 February 2022 and then rose to Euro96.7/t on 7 February 2022. Answers in an email for when readers think the EU ETS price will top Euro100/t.
All of the above feeds neatly into the week’s other big Spanish news story: Cemex and Synhelion have successfully produced clinker from concentrated solar radiation at a pilot unit at the Very High Concentration Solar Tower of IMDEA Energy near Madrid. It’s early days yet as the process needs to be scaled up but, make no mistake, this is a big story. An interview with the team behind Cemex and Synhelion’s solar concentration project can be found in the December 2020 issue of Global Cement Magazine for more information. The SOLPART (Solar-Heated Reactors for Industrials Production of Reactive Particulates) project in France did similar research a few years ago but it didn’t reach the 1500°C target required to reach the sintering phase where clumps of clinker form. US-based Heliogen has been trying to industrialise concentrated solar energy but not much has been heard about its cement-industry ambitions since it said it reached temperatures of about 1000°C in 2019.
The relevance of an eventual full-scale concentrated solar unit for the entire production line or just the preheater and/or calciner at a cement plant in Spain makes considerable sense. At a stroke energy costs are reduced, diverted to a renewable source and any desired CO2 capture becomes, in theory, easier and cheaper. Cemex said in the interview with Global Cement Magazine that the tentative next step would be a pilot unit at a cement plant, although, candidate plants could be in the US or Mexico, as well as Spain. Another side of the drive to cut energy and carbon costs can also be seen in a couple of photovoltaic solar projects supplying cement plants that were announced in 2021 for Spanish plants run by Cemex and Cementos Cosmos.
We leave the Spanish cement sector in a growth phase but with plenty of challenges ahead, not least from electricity costs and the mounting cost of carbon. Yet in common with other countries in Europe the industry faces a high-wire balancing act between staying economically viable and inching towards net zero. It’s conceivable that an industrial scale concentrated solar unit at a cement plant in Spain by 2030 might steady the wobbles along the way.