A report emerged this week indicating that exports of cement from China to North Korea have risen markedly in the last few months. We will use this as an opportunity to examine the state of the local cement sector in the so-called ‘Hermit Kingdom.’

Daily NK has reported cement shipments “moving through border crossings along the Yalu River have risen noticeably since early April 2026.” This is the main border crossing between China and North Korea. It includes the Sino - Korean Friendship Bridge, with road and railway lines, which links Dandong with Sinuiju. In 2023 an estimated 98% of official trade imports to North Korea came from China. The increase in imports has been linked to North Korea’s ‘20×10 Regional Development Policy,’ which has proposed building 20 infrastructure and residential projects in 20 counties for 10 years from 2024. It is also proving cheaper to use imports in border regions rather than shipping cement from the country’s own plants. Finally, the source Daily NK used has suggested that local builders prefer using Chinese cement in some cases, despite it being moreexpensive, due to its higher strength and workability.

Some of the news sources that Global Cement uses to cover North Korea are state-owned media such as the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Daily NK by contrast is based in South Korea. The use of state news sources generally means that some of the coverage is overwhelmingly positive. So it was distinctive in March 2026 when state media announced that ‘supreme leader’ Kim Jong-un had called for ‘all-out’ efforts to boost cement production during a visit to the Sangwon cement plant. This implied that the country wasn’t making enough cement! Luckily for the plant workers, Kim was described as having a 'relaxed demeanour and expression' on this tour. Perhaps the cigarette he smoked in the plant’s central control room helped his mood.

Other than this, the general trend in the sector in North Korea since 2021 has been that of capacity enlargement projects at the large Sangwon and Sunchon plants. Daily NK reported in late 2021 that there had been an explosion at the Komusan cement plant that killed two workers. It attributed the incident to the plant being forced to work at maximum output with minimal maintenance. This was allegedly done in order to reach national economic targets in time for former leader Kim Jong Il’s birthday in mid-December. Another explosion was reported at the Mount Purae plant in late 2024. This one was thankfully non-fatal but it was blamed on the factory management pushing output in response to pressure from local government officials.

Graph 1: Cement production in North Korea, 2015 - 2023. Source: Bank of Korea.

Bank of Korea estimates on cement production in North Korea placed the level at 6.7Mt in 2023. Output appears to have been rising again since a dip in 2019. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) concluded in 2024 that United Nations sanctions on the country’s fuel imports in 2017 had restricted heavy fuel oil imports and that this had negatively affected the cement industry. The closure of the border in early 2020 further reduced fuel imports.

One of the best pieces of research available in English on the cement sector in North Korea is a report by 38 North in 2021. An abridged version was also published in the July - August 2021 issue of Global Cement Magazine. The magazine from the Stimson Center, a US-based thinktank, used satellite images to check on the state of the industry. It identified 21 cement plants at this time that may have been active. It also assessed whether various upgrade projects had been realised or not. It concluded that it was impossible to tell by imagery whether many of the proposed production upgrade projects had been realised over the preceding decade. Since 2021, as mentioned above, there has been a steady stream of reported production increases at cement plants reported by state media.

In summary, the North Korean government has large infrastructure plans, it has been attempting to increase production at key plants but it appears to be importing cement from China to compensate. The country remains under a complex group of UN economic sanctions. Those on fuel and equipment imports pose particular challenges to the local cement sector. This may be reflected in the reports of explosions at plants in the last few years. Recent economic deals with Russia and the 20×10 plan suggest that there is scope for development of the local cement market, despite the continued hardships the general population reportedly face.

Aria Cybersecurity signed a deal this week just in time for the IEEE-IAS/ACA Cement Conference taking place in Florida, US. This opens up the topic of cybersecurity for the cement sector for us to discuss this week.

The software security company announced that it will be supplying its AZT Protect product to an unnamed but major US-based cement company. It reportedly demonstrated its offering to the customer in a laboratory before piloting it at a cement plant. One of the key points the supplier highlights in its press release is that its product can protect legacy systems that no longer have regularly updated software patches. For example, it suggests that it could save the customer money in this case by letting it continue to run critical machines using Windows 10, thereby saving knock-on software upgrade costs. Aria went on to say that once the current deployment is complete it is considering “expansion opportunities in up to 100s of other sites in the operator’s sister organisation.” Finally, it noted Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warnings from April 2026 that Iran-based hackers have been targeting certain Rockwell Automation/Allen-Bradley programmable logic controllers (PLC) in US critical infrastructure sectors.

Cybersecurity isn’t something Global Cement Weekly covers that often, partly due to the lack of publicly available information. Most large companies are reluctant to admit to hacks unless they are forced to disclose them. Some major incidents that we are aware of include Buzzi Unicem’s NotPetya Attack in 2017 that started in Ukraine and then spread to the group’s other European operations. Supplier Schmersal owned up to one in 2020, albeit with the spin that it had successfully managed to fight back. No doubt there are others. Away from cement, gypsum wallboard producer Knauf was targeted by a ransomware attack in 2022. Meanwhile, everyone working in the field is acutely aware of major incidents in industries outside of building materials such as the US-based Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2022 or the one upon UK-based Jaguar Land Rover that halted the car manufacturer’s production lines for over five weeks in mid-2025. That last one reportedly cost the company around US$2.5bn.

Baidyanath Kumar, the Chief Information Security Officer and Data Protection Officer at JK Lakshmi Cement, gave an interview to Express Computer in early 2026 where he outlined the challenges facing heavy industry. In summary: criminals are looking for ransomware targets, supply chains are vulnerable and operational and information technology processes at plants are merging. Kumar goes into detail on strategic security frameworks and the use of security operations centres. Yet one other point to flag is that he says that it is the age of using AI to fight AI-driven attacks. Part of this, startingly, is about protecting AI security models from being corrupted or manipulated by attackers.

Thinking about cybersecurity more widely in organisations brings us to initiatives such as the Helena Protocol from Cementos Argos. This takes its name from Helen of Troy and is intended to prevent the company’s digital systems from ‘trojans’ and other digital threats. It presents cybersecurity as a shared responsibility between both employees and suppliers. In this way it is like a corporate health and safety policy. Other cement companies have similar documents.

Finally, as Baidyanath Kumar points out in his interview, AI is the current frontier of cybersecurity. Readers will likely be aware of the way in which Anthropic released its latest AI model to selected organisations first in April 2026 due to potential security issues. AI companies have a habit of hyping up their products, but AI tools finding vulnerabilities in software seems like a real threat. Hopefully the cybersecurity community will be able to stay ahead of this one.

The 1st Global CementAI Conference 2026 takes place in Brussels on 19 - 20 May 2026

We have a potential acquisition to discuss this week in Sub-Saharan Africa. Heidelberg Materials is reportedly considering buying South Africa-based PPC. This marks a change to the recent trend of consolidation in core markets by western cement multinationals.

The detail, as reported by Bloomberg, is that Heidelberg Materials is in discussion with banks to appoint financial advisers in relation to a potential bid for PPC. No formal bid has been made at this stage and Heidelberg Materials has not commented. However, although PPC has not commented directly either, its CEO Matias Cardarelli previously said that “Against this backdrop, it would not be surprising if international cement players are beginning to view PPC as an increasingly attractive opportunity.” Heidelberg Materials joins other cement companies including AfriSam, CRH, Dangote Cement and Holcim in showing interest in PPC.

A key point to note here is that a Europe-based heavy building materials company is looking at buying assets outside of Europe or North America. Australia has been the focus of similar attention in recent years with acquisitions made by CRH, Heidelberg Materials and Holcim. Unlike Holcim though, Heidelberg Materials has retained operations in Sub-Saharan Africa, in West and East Africa respectively. Recent acquisitions in Africa include the purchase of a majority share of Morocco-based Asment in 2025, the purchase of a majority stake in

Tanzania-based Tanga Cement in 2023 and Morocco-based Cimsud in 2020. It sold its majority stake in Congo-based Cimenterie de Lukala to the WIH Cement Developing Company in 2025. It has also made some notable investments in its Africa-based portfolio, such as a large-scale calcined clay plant, in collaboration with CBI Ghana, which went into operation in mid-2025.

In addition to benefiting from the market in South Africa, buying PPC could also give Heidelberg Materials synergies with its current operations in Mozambique and Tanzania. In the former country it operates a grinding plant in Dondo, Sofala province. In the latter, it runs an integrated cement plant in Dar es Salaam and one in the north of the country. PPC,  meanwhile, runs an integrated plant and a grinding plant in Zimbabwe and a grinding plant in Botswana. All of this put together could potentially give Heidelberg Materials a complimentary network of operations in southern and eastern Africa.

Figure 1: Map showing presence of Heidelberg Materials in ‘emerging markets’ (green). Countries in which PPC operates (red). Recent acquisitions by Heidelberg Materials include: Semen Grobogan, Indonesia (A); Asment Témara, Morocco (B); and Tanga Cement, Tanzania (C). Source: Heidelberg Materials with additions by Global Cement.  

PPC appears to be spinning the reported attention by Heidelberg Materials as validation that its latest business strategy is working. Under the ‘Awaken the Giant’ plan, it is aiming to become the “leading cement leader in Southern Africa.” It has been able to reflect upon a strong set of financial results for the first 10 months of its financial year to the end of January 2026. Group revenue rose by 4% year-on-year, due to volume increases in Zimbabwe, compared to a slight fall in the 2025 financial year. Further financial gains are expected from the 2028 financial year onwards when the company’s new 1.5Mt/yr plant at its existing Western Cape site starts to enter commercial operation.

As ever with these kinds of market stories, it is uncertain to those on the outside of the offer process to work out when a particular deal becomes serious and how many other potential deals are also quietly being prepared for that we don’t hear about. As mentioned, PPC has been linked to a number of potential companies for merger and acquisition activity. Of these, the potential merger with AfriSam in the 2010s was probably the most prominent. In Africa the big names one might expect to be linked to a potential deal like this would be Dangote Cement and China-based Huaxin Cement. As for this potential deal, time will tell.

It’s been a busy week for slag and cement with the Global Slag Conference taking place in Istanbul and the announcement that SSAB and Heidelberg Materials are working to develop electric arc furnace slag (EAF slag) into an alternative binder in cement.

The Global Slag Conference had many highlights and one can read all about it in the review. Ikram Ahmed Khan’s presentation about doing business in the Middle East with an ongoing war was a standout. There was also plenty of discussion on the valorisation of steel and newer slags. The announcement from SSAB and Heidelberg Materials ties into this. Traditional sources of ground granulated blast furnace slag are expected to decrease as the iron and steel industries decarbonise. The hunt for alternatives is on.

One key question that the conference posed was who exactly should pay the carbon tax related to using slag as a byproduct. During a panel discussion a cement and concrete producer on a panel noted that there is an ongoing debate on the issue. At present in the European Union (EU), iron and steel producers do not pass on any of the emission costs on to slag users. Users of slag, including cement producers, are able to use the byproduct without having to use their own allowances or buy carbon credits. Hence, the EU emissions trading scheme is intended to incentivise the use of low carbon products such as cement or concrete made with less clinker.

Iron and steel producers are primarily interested in making their primary products. Slag can be a lucrative byproduct but is not their main concern. Yet, since the carbon footprint of iron and steel is higher than cement, it is in their interests to attempt to lobby governments to pass on as many of the CO₂ emissions (or ‘allocate’ them to the slag byproduct) as they can. They are, of course, free to put up the price of their slag if they are paying more for carbon credits to make their primary products. How practical this may be in a competitive marketplace remains to be seen though.

One example of an attempt to pass on the emissions allocation by steel producers has been the Germany-based Low Emission Steel Standard (LESS). This is a methodology to define low-carbon steel. It permits that a credit of 0.1t CO₂e/t be given for granulated slag or comparable by-products, when sold as clinker substitutes for cement production. This figure was derived following consultation with the BMWK Scientific Advisory Board as part of the BMWK stakeholder process ‘Lead markets for climate-friendly basic materials.’

This potential battle between iron/steel and cement/concrete is partly down to how these different commodity markets work and how they pass on their carbon costs. Broadly speaking: steel is at higher risk of carbon leakage but it finds it harder to pass on carbon costs; cement is at lower risk of leakage but finds it easier to pass on costs. The phasing out of the free allocation of carbon credits and the commencement of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in the EU adds to the pressure on both sectors and is potentially driving debates such as whether allocations should be passed on to byproducts. It is worth noting that political pressure against the EU ETS is mounting, making it uncertain to tell how far it will go.

Cement producers are used to similar issues from the alternative fuels sector. Here, for example, biogenic feedstocks are prioritised in the EU and the emission allocations are not passed on but other ‘fossil’ feedstocks are liable. This, in turn, affects which feedstocks are prioritised and where the investment goes. For slag, the phase out of free allocations, the introduction of the CBAM and the threat of mounting ETS carbon cost is increasing the pressure to find ways to decarbonise heavy industry through any means available. This presents a situation of competing narratives between the iron/steel and cement sectors. If slag is a ‘waste’ then the steel producers might be deemed responsible for the emissions. Yet, if it is a valuable by-product, then they might argue that the emissions should be passed on down the chain. If so, then this starts to alter the economics of using slag as a secondary cementitious materials (SCM) either for cement or concrete.

The 19^th Global Slag Conference will take place in April 2027 in Aachen, Germany