Displaying items by tag: FLSmidth

Algeria: ETHRB Group has ordered an integrated cement plant from FLSmidth for a site at Relizane. The order has a cost of over Euro100m and it includes engineering, equipment supply, construction supervision, commissioning, and training. The deal comes from a partnership between FLSmidth and Beijing Triumph International Engineering Company, a subsidiary of China National Building Material Group Corporation, which will be responsible for the construction of the cement plant. The plant will mainly supply cement to the North African market. Once completed, the cement plant will have a capacity of 12,000t/day. Commissioning is scheduled for late 2020.

“This order underlines FLSmidth's strength as the leading supplier of the most productivity-enhancing solutions and energy-efficient equipment and technology available in the market today. It marks the culmination of a close collaboration between the customer and FLSmidth and demonstrates our ability to work with contractors from anywhere in the world based on our experience and competencies from the cement industry, our global presence, and the know-how of our 12,000 employees," said Per Mejnert Kristensen, Group Executive Vice President, Cement Division.

The scope of supply includes: two EV 200x300 Hammer Impact Crushers; one additive crusher; two circular storages; one longitudinal storage; two ATOX raw mills; two CF-silos (Ø18m x 52m); two preheaters (two string ILC, five stages); two kilns (5.25m x 62m); two Cross-Bar coolers (16m x 50m); a clinker silo (Ø 60m x 46 m); three OK61-4 cement mills; four cement silos (ø22x52 m); and six packing lines.

Denmark: Cement plant manufacturer FLSmidth has announced its financial results for 2017, which show, overall, its strongest order intake for four years. Total orders grew by 6% year-on-year in 2017, bolstered primarily by the company’s Minerals division.

Cement sector orders for the year were Euro611.0m, 1% lower than the Euro615.0m seen in 2016. Revenue from cement sector orders came to Euro547.9m, 5% lower than the US$576.0m orders received in 2016.

“2017 probably marked the trough of the business cycle and, based on our good positioning and strong life-cycle solutions, we expect our business to start growing again in the coming years. Our order intake increased and the momentum in the mining sector continues in 2018, while cement market conditions are expected to remain unchanged,” said CEO Thomas Schulz.

For 2018, FLSmidth anticipates an overall revenue from all activites of Euro2.42-2.68bn (2017 was Euro2.42bn).

Pakistan: A consortium of investors including Denmark’s FLSmidth have purchased a stake in Power Cement. The investors include the Danish Investment Fund for Under-Developed Countries (IFU) and IFU Investment Partners (IIP). As part of the deal the board of the cement producer has approved the appointment of Anders Paludan as a director.

Denmark: Virve Elisabeth Meesak has resigned from FLSmidth as its Group Executive Vice President for Human Resources. She had been in post since 2013. She will leave the company by the end of January 2018.

Denmark: FLSmidth has appointed Jan Kjaersgaard as a new Group Executive Vice President, Product Companies Division, and a member of Group Executive Management. Kjaersgaard, aged 51 years and a Danish citizen, will take up the position as head of Product Companies Division on 1 March 2018.

Kjaersgaard holds a Master of Business Administration from Aalborg University and comes from Bladt Industries where he currently serves as chief executive officer (CEO). His previous postings include various senior positions at Siemens Wind Power.

FLSmidth revealed this week that Cooperativa Boliviana de Cemento, Industrias y Servicios (COBOCE) has ordered a cement mill for its Irpa Irpa plant near Cochabamba. The Danish engineering firm was pleased to note that with the sale it has now delivered mills to three of the country’s five producers. Other recent orders include supplying an OK 36-4 mill to Sociedad Boliviana de Cemento’s (SOBOCE) Viacha cement plant, announced in early 2016, and a sale of a complete integrated production line at Sucre to Fábrica Nacional de Cemento (FANCESA) in late 2016.

These order reveal slow but steady growth in the local industry in recent years. However, a slowdown so far in 2017 suggests that the market is changing. National Institute of Statistics of Bolivia (INE) data shows that sales in the local market broke down in 2016 into a 42% sales share for SOBOCE, 25% for FANCESA, 19% for COBOCE, 8% for Yura and 6% for Itacamba. This changed somewhat in the first quarter of 2017 with a reduction in the sales of SOBOCE and Yura. Sales in the country are concentrated in the departments of Chuquisca, La Paz and Cochabamba, which held 70% of cement sales in 2016.

Graph 1: Cement production and sales in Bolivia, 2012 – 2017. Source: National Institute of Statistics of Bolivia.

Annual cement sales in Bolivia have been growing consistently since 2001. Financial services company Pacific Credit Rating placed average annual sales growth at 7.72% from 1998 to 2016. In 2016 sales reached 3.7Mt. Graph 1 shows a continuation of this trend although the first half of 2017 has been weaker than 2016. COBOCE blamed the reverse in 2017 on reduced local government spending on infrastructure projects and poor weather. The producer was expecting sales to grow by 6 – 8% as a whole for 2017. However, on the basis of the figures for July and August 2017 this is not looking likely. Sales for the two months dropped by 2.5% year-on-year to 0.64Mt. A representative of FANCESA later blamed the market change on a reduction in sales supporting the construction of tall buildings in the country’s key markets as customers switched to buying ‘random’ volumes.

Sure enough local producers have started to complain about foreign exporters damaging their trade. A union head in Chuquisaca called for cement and clinker imports by Yura from Peru to be banned and concerns have been raised about concessions offered to Itacamba, a joint venture between Spain’s Cementos Molins, Brazil’s Votorantim Cement and Camba Cement. President Evo Morales inaugurated this company’s new plant in Yacuses, Santa Cruz in early 2017. The niggles about foreign exports to Bolivia seem counter-intuitive given that the country is landlocked and it has the world’s highest capital city above sea level. Usually, markets with nearby ports are most at risk from clinker and cement imports. Yet, Itacamba was planning exports to Argentina in November so the import and export markets via road and river links can’t be discounted.

Cement sales may be down so far in 2017 but overall the wider economy appears to be in rude health. After a strong decade of growth the national Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate has fallen each year since 2014, but it was still 4.3% in 2016, one of the highest in South America. If that kind of growth persists it seems unlikely that the cement industry will have trouble for long.

Germany/Italy: Stephan Oehme has been appointed as the Global Sales Director of both FLSmidth Pfister and FLSmidth Ventomatic. Oehme, aged 50 years, is an industry expert with more than 20 years experience in the respective business fields. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering and has worked previously as a Director Sales and Technology. In order to support the combined sales force of both companies he will increase the cooperation between both sales teams.

FLSmidth Pfister develops high-end gravimetric dosing systems for the cement and minerals plants. FLSmidth Ventomatic specialises in packaging and delivering solutions for the same sector. Both companies are subsidiaries of Denmark’s FLSmidth.

Denmark: Bjarne Moltke Hansen has resigned as the Group Executive Vice President of FLSmidth. The 57-year old Danish national started his career in 1984 working for Unicon, a subsidiary of FLSmidth at the time. He subsequently held the position as chief executive officer (CEO) of Cembrit Holding for five years before taking up the position as CEO of Aalborg Portland Holding in 2000. In 2002, Bjarne took on the position as Group Executive Vice President, Customer Services Division until he was appointed Group Executive Vice President, Product Companies Division in 2015.

Denmark: Marius Jacques Kloppers and Rob Smith have accepted to be nominated as new members of the Board of Directors of FLSmidth. They will be nominated at the company's next Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 5 April 2016.

Marius Jacques Kloppers, aged 53 and a joint Australian-South African citizen, is the former CEO of the mining company, BHP Billiton. Rob Smith, aged 50 and a German-American citizen, is Senior Vice President and General Manager, EAME of AGCO.

Current member of the Board of Directors, Martin Ivert, has decided not to stand for re-election at the next AGM.

Startling news from Hebei, China this week. The northerly province intends to move out its excess capacity in heavy industries, including cement, to other countries by 2023. 5Mt of cement production capacity is planned for transfer by 2017 and 30Mt is planned for transfer by 2023. The larger figure is about the same as the cement production capacity of France or Germany!

Hebei isn't the biggest cement-producing province in China but it has received attention as the authorities have cut down on 'out-dated' production capacity. The region was targeted in a programme to cut emissions from heavy industry due to its proximity to Beijing and that city's smog issues.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) set a target of 60Mt/yr in cement production capacity to be cut by 2017. The region was also the site of massive cement plant demolitions in late 2013 and early 2014. 18 cement plants were demolished in December 2013 followed by 17 cement plants in February 2014 alongside the destruction of connected grinding and storage capacity. Overall an incredible 74 cement plants in the area surrounding Shijiazhuang alone were targeted for demolition by March 2014.

Following this massive spate of capacity elimination, the public announcement to actively move abroad marks a stark change to China's general cement industry strategy so far. The country's equipment suppliers like Sinoma have been taking business from European rivals like FLSmidth or KHD for some time now especially in developing markets.

In 2013, FLSmidth reported a cement market order intake of US$575m and KHD reported an order intake of US$216m. In comparison Sinoma's cement equipment and engineering services reported order intake of US$5.59bn. In its annual report for 2013 FLSmidth estimated that the global market for new kiln capacity was 50Mt. At a capacity construction price of US$150/t this suggests that Sinoma took orders for nearly three quarters of the world's required capacity for new cement kilns in 2013. Order intake covers more than just building cement plants, so this quick calculation presents only a rough impression of what's going on.

More recently Chinese cement producers have started building their own cement plants or funding them outside of China. In October 2014 State Development and Investment Corp and Anhui Conch Cement Company announced plans to fund a plant in Indonesia. In September 2014 ground breaking was held for a Chinese-funded plant in Kyrgyzstan. In June 2014, Huaxin Cement invested in Cambodia Cement. This was its second overseas investment following a project in Tajikistan in 2011.

With China's government still attempting to avoid a hard economic landing as its growth slows, moving industrial overcapacity overseas makes sense. International and national players must be worried about the potential scale of this transition. On the plus side, however, those notorious inscrutable Chinese production figures in the cement industry will be far easier to analyse in plants outside of China facing international competition. Today Hebei, tomorrow the world!