Displaying items by tag: Plant
Pakistan: Gharibwal Cement has blamed reduced exports due to tensions on the Pakistan-Indian border and rising input costs for a reduction in its sales. Its net sales fell by 3% year-on-year to US$72.3m in the year to 30 June 2019 from US$74.5m in the same period in 2018. Its cement dispatches fell by 11.4% to 1.68Mt from 1.89Mt. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 6.5% to US$18.7m from US$20m.
The cement producer said that work on a new 0.15Mt clinker silo is in progress and this is expected to be completed by June 2020. It is also building a rainwater reservoir to capture precipitation for use in the production process. The company operates a 2.1Mt/yr integrated plant at Ismailwal in Punjab Province.
Democratic Republic of the Congo: The government has decided to resume the construction of the Maiko cement plant in Kisangani. Work on the project had been stalled, according to Radio Okapi. Industry Minister Julien Paluku said that contacts are already underway with a new partner to continue the work on the unit. Work on the 1Mt/yr plant started in 2007 with an investment of US$250m. China’s Satarem Hong Kong was previously linked to the project as an investor.
Death from quarry blast at cement plant in Laos
07 October 2019Laos: An explosion at a quarry related to a cement plant near Phonemany village, Nam Bak district in Luang Prabang province has killed one person and injured over 20. The nearby village was affected by the blast causing damage to houses and vehicles, according to Radio Free Asia. A villager alleged that the Chinese-owned plant never warned locals of the blasting schedule and that the explosion was larger than usual. Khammany Inthirath, Minister of Energy and Mines, said that the government had sent a team to investigate what happened.
Cemex Philippines orders cement mill from Gebr. Pfeiffer
07 October 2019Philippines: Cemex Philippines has ordered a MVR type mill for cement raw material grinding from Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer for a plant in Antipolo. The order also includes a MPS mill to grind coal. Gebr. Pfeiffer said that the order was received through a Chinese general contractor. No value for the order or timescale was disclosed.
Phinma Corporation makes progress on cement plant in Philippines
07 October 2019Philippines: Phinma Corporation is spending around US$50m on a new cement plant at Bataan with a production capacity of 2Mt/yr. Philcement, a subsidiary of Phinma Corp. and Seasia Nectar Port Services (SNPS), have signed a deal to take over certain construction-in-progress assets, including the usage rights to pier facilities and land currently under lease by Philcement, for a terminal for US$15.5m, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper. Eduardo Sahagun, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) said that the company would need up to US$35m to complete the project. Once competed it will be possible to expand the unit to 4Mt/yr depending on market demand.
HeidelbergCement buys American and more
02 October 2019No overarching theme this week but rather four changes of note in different markets. The first is Lehigh Hanson’s agreement to buy the integrated Bath plant in Pennsylvania, US, from Giant Cement, a subsidiary of Mexico’s Elementia. Lehigh Hanson, a subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement, plans to pay US$151m for the 1.1Mt/yr unit giving it a cost of US$137/t of cement capacity. That’s a similar price that Elementia paid when it acquired Giant Cement in 2016. The Mexican conglomerate paid US$220m for a 55% stake in 2016 for three cement plants with a combined production capacity of 2.8Mt/yr or US$143/t.
The purchase by HeidelbergCement draws a line following problems selling its business activities in Ukraine. The group blamed a drop in profit in the first half of 2019 on this. Since then though it has been linked to a takeover of UltraTech’s stake in Emirates Cement, the owner of the 0.5Mt/yr Emirates grinding plant in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Buying a cement plant in North America, its second most lucrative region after Western and Southern Europe, looks set to be a wise investment.
The timing here is interesting given that Elementia, the building materials company partly-owned by ‘Mexico’s richest man,’ Carlos Slim, has been steadily expanding in recent years. As stated above it only acquired Giant Cement in 2016. However, its net sales and earnings fell in the second quarter of 2019 caused by a market contraction in Mexico affecting all of its businesses. Sales from its cement businesses in the US and Central America grew but they fell by 6% at home in Mexico. Elementia said that proceeds from the sale of the Bath plant will be used for debt repayment and ‘general’ corporate purposes. Notably, Ricardo Naya Barba, the president of Cemex Mexico, has also described the local market as ‘difficult’ this week, in comments reported upon by local media.
Meanwhile in Africa, China’s Huaxin Cement purchased Maweni Limestone from Athi River Mining (ARM) Cement in Tanzania as part of the latter’s on-going administration process. Local press reported the transaction as costing US$116m and subject to regulatory approval. This one’s interesting because it shows a major Chinese cement producer buying related assets outside of China. This is likely part of the country’s Belt and Road Initiative to develop industry and infrastructure around the world and to give its overproducing industries new markets. Perhaps the surprise here is that Huaxin Cement hasn’t gone after the rest of Kenya’s ARM Cement… yet.
The other African news story of note this week was the confirmation that Singapore’s International Cement Group (ICG)’s intended purchase of Schwenk Namibia had failed. This deal was announced in March 2019 but it later ran into trouble when the Singapore Exchange blocked the proposed acquisition in June 2019 on the grounds that ICG didn’t appear to have the money to pay for it.
Lastly, Yamama Cement announced that it wants to sell its Production Lines 1-5, which have a daily clinker production capacity of 5600t/day. The producer previously temporarily shut down the lines in 2017 and it has been planning to build a new cement plant. Since then though it has faced shrinking sales and profits in the tough Saudi Arabian market.
The takeaway from all of this is that, despite the doom and gloom of a world producing too much clinker, some cement companies are targeting growth in specific territories. Sometimes these schemes succeed, as in the case of HeidelbergCement and Huaxin Cement, and sometimes they don’t, as ICG has found out. Heavy building materials like cement are costly to move around so a plant or assets in the right place at the right time can make a fortune.
Yamama Cement to sell old production lines
02 October 2019Saudi Arabia: Yamama Cement plans to sell its production lines 1 – 5 as part of a move to a new site. The old lines have a combined clinker production capacity of 5600t/day. The lines were ‘temporarily’ shut down in early 2017 due to poor market conditions.
Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement has signed a six-month technical contract with China’s Riga Company to convert its second production line to produce white cement. The contract was signed to coincide with the arrival of the project team that will handle the conversion. No value for the upgrade has been disclosed.
France: Hoffman Green Cement Technologies has launched an initial public offering (IPO) to raise Euro50m on the Euronext Growth market. The company wants to use the funds to build two new plants with a capacity of 0.25Mt/yr in Vendée and in the Paris region, according to the Le Figaro newspaper. Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies inaugurated its pilot plant at Bournezeau, Vendée in 2018. The unit is developing cement products using flash-calcined metakaolin and blast-furnace slag.
Eurocement receives nine new dump trucks from Volvo
02 October 2019Russia: Eurocement has received nine new Volvo FM 8x4 heavy-duty dump trucks for its Kavkazcement and Maltsovsky Portland Cement plants. The vehicles have a capacity of 32t and include Volvo’s CareTrack telematics system. The cement producer hopes to increase the volumes of limestone it transports from each plant’s quarries by 15%. It has spent Euro1.3m on the new trucks.