South Africa: PPC reports that its strategy to expand into the rest of Africa has started to bear fruit, despite continuing challenges in many markets. Johan Claassen, the chief executive of PPC said that the group's diversified portfolio had enabled the company to offset the weaker South African performance with robust growth in its rest of Africa segment.

"We are very pleased with our rest of Africa operations, which grew volumes by more than 34%, increased revenues by 36% to US$120m and improved earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 18% to US$36.7m. "This performance was supported by robust volume growth in Zimbabwe and a positive contribution from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),” said Claasen.

Claassen added that the first phase of PPC's Cimerwa plant upgrade in Rwanda, which involved de-bottlenecking the plant to increase production capacity, was successfully completed in the six months to September 2018 and that PPC began to realise the benefits towards the end of the reporting period when record volumes were achieved.

However, the revenue achieved by the Cimerwa plant declined to US$29.1m from US$31.9m in the prior period because of a 7% reduction in volumes. PPC’s Rwandan EBITDA slumped to US$6.7m from US$12.2m, because of unexpected maintenance associated with clinker imports costs. Claassen added that its operations in the DRC continued to encounter challenging market conditions, which were characterised by overcapacity and muted cement demand due to political uncertainty.

Ireland: Ecocem Materials’ turnover rose by 9.4% in 2017 to Euro79.4m from Euro72.6m in 2016. Pre-tax profit fell by 37.5% to Euro2.5m from Euro4m in 2016, as its costs rose by 12% to Euro76.5m from Euro68.6m.

Ecocem makes cement using waste from steel slag. The company has its head offices and a factory in Dublin, as well as businesses in the UK, France and the Netherlands. It is looking to expand into the US, although its subsidiary Orcem Americas has come up against stiff resistance from environmental groups in San Francisco.

Ukraine: Ukrainian cement production in October 2018 increased by 13.8% year-on-year to 0.96Mt in October 2018, according to the State Statistics Service. The figure was 7.4% higher than in September 2018. Over the first 10 months of 2018, the production of cement increased by 0.1% year-on-year to 7.86Mt.

India: Dalmia Bharat is reported to be planning a 4Mt/yr greenfield cement plant in Rajasthan to cover the north Indian market. It was earlier reported to have secured limestone mining rights in the area surrounding Chittogarh and it has recently missed out on the purchase of northern cement maker Binani Cement to its rival Ultratech Cement.

Speaking to Business Standard, a Dalmia Bharat spokesperson said, “If we aren’t able to foray into North India via acquisition, we’ll do it via a greenfield project.” He added that the plant will start with a single 2Mt/yr line, with a second to be added later.

This new proposal gives Dalmia Bharat exposure to Rajasthan and neighbouring Gujarat, opening the wider nothern region up to the company. “The region is expected to register good growth in the next 10 years, which makes this market lucrative for us. It has always been our endeavour to be present across the country,” concluded the spokesperson.

Vietnam: The Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has asked the Ministry of Construction and VICEM to report on the country’s excess cement capacity, which is set to reach 25-36Mt/yr by 2020.

The latest statistics from the Ministry of Construction’s Building Material Department show that cement consumption was approximately 45Mt in the first half of 2018, a rise of 30% year-on-year compared to the same period of 2017, and more than 50% of the year’s plan.

The sector’s capacity is 110Mt/yr, including the volume from plants expected to be built in 2018. Aside from that, existing plants have kept improving technology so their production capacity might reach 120-130Mt/yr by 2020.

Three large projects with the total capacity of 10Mt/yr were put into operation in the past 12 months. In 2019 many more projects are expected to come into operation, with a total new capacity of 12Mt/yr coming online.

Saudi Arabia: Cement despatches dropped by 5.4% year-on-year to 37.3Mt in the first 10 months of 2018 from 39.4Mt in the same period in 2017. The local industry’s utilisation rate has declined in consecutive months since October 2017 to just 54.8% in October 2018, according to Aljazira Capital. At the same time clinker inventories increased by 1.6% month-on-month to 41.6Mt in October 2018.

India: The employees union of state-owned Meghalaya Cherra Cement has given the government two weeks to pay back salary from 2015 to 2016 and overtime payments since 2013. Union president S Diengdoh criticised the state-owned plant for poor management and low production, according to the Sentinel newspaper. The union alleges that the plant has an utilisation rate of only 30% and poor levels of safety.

Honduras: Cementos Argos and Cementos del Norte have agreed to cut the price of cement for government-backed reisdential and infrastructure projects following a request by President Juan Orlando Hernández, according to the El Heraldo newspaper. The price will fall by around 15% when the agreements between the cement producers and the government is finalised.

France: Ciments Calcia has launched Hop’ pour les Pros, a dissolvable cement bag product. Cement sold in the bags can be placed directly into a mixer to make ready-mix concrete. Its puported beneifts include reduce spillage, time savings and no packaging. CEM II 32.5 R cement will be used in the product manufactured at he company’s Bussac-Forêt cement plant in Charente-Maritime.

Colombia/US: Edgar Ramírez, the former vice president of planning for Cemex in Colombia, has been summoned by the US judiciary in relation to the Maceo cement plant corruption case. Ramírez reportedly fled to the US following calls for his arrest in Colombia earlier in 2018, according to W Radio. Another suspect in the case - Eugenio Correa Díaz, the former representative of CI Calizas y Minerales, which sold the property to the cement producer, is also being questioned by the US authorities. Ramírez and accomplices allegedly paid over US$13m to Correa, despite being aware of the fact that the property was in the process of being expropriated over unpaid taxes.