Medcem said this week that it had commissioned a new terminal in Trieste. The timing sends a message because the European Union’s (EU) Cross Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) started its full effect on 1 January 2026. This means that it now potentially costs more to import cement into the EU. So why would a non-EU cement importer want to start running import terminals?

Türkiye-based Medcem ended 2025 with the announcement that a new terminal in Antwerp, Belgium, had started operation. That was followed this week by the commissioning of the new terminal in Trieste, Italy. The latter site was built with Seadock, a local subsidiary of Samer Group. The unit has a storage capacity of 11,000t and is expected to process up to 120,000t/yr. Notably, the terminal will unload cargo via an underground pipeline connected to the quay and stored in nearby silos before despatch across the EU.

When Global Cement Magazine spoke to Mehmet Ali Ceylan, the CEO of Medcem in 2024, he described his company as an “export-oriented” one. At the time its main markets for cement were the US, the Middle East and the UK. The EU was the principal destination for clinker. In the UK it built a terminal in Sheerness in 2024 and is expected to commission others, in Glasgow and Liverpool, in 2026.

CBAM went live at the start of 2026 following a two-year transition phase. The simple version is that importers of certain goods including cement pay a fee for the emissions intensity of the product and then an EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) cost. However, the actual calculation is much more complicated than this and the European Commission has been continually tweaking the system. In mid-December 2025 it emerged that the commission had lowered its benchmark emissions intensity figures for various commodities, putting up the cost to import. Grey cement clinker's benchmark, for example, dropped to 0.666/t CO₂ from 0.693/t CO₂. The commission also set default emissions values to calculate CBAM costs if producers failed to disclose their actual emissions. All of this generally favours larger importers that understand the system, can verify their emissions and can still compete on price. Nor should industrial suppliers feel left out, since the commission also decided to expand the scope of the CBAM to include industrial machinery from the start of 2028.

Last time Global Cement Weekly looked at the effects of CBAM in Europe, the conclusion was that Türkiye was the most exposed to the new scheme as the biggest source of imports but that the emissions intensity of its cement was considered to be fairly competitive. Countries in North Africa faced differing consequences but there would be some potential losers. Ukraine, in particular, was likely to face issues with exports to the EU under the new scheme. Recent figures from Argus suggest that trading prices for cement from Türkiye and Egypt would suffer against those from Pakistan and Vietnam. However, this does not take into account the new CBAM costs.

Graph 1: Sources of cement and clinker imports to the EU in 2024. Source: Eurostat/Cement Europe

Naturally, a number of countries complained when the full version of the CBAM started. A spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce called it “unfair and discriminatory” and said that the country might consider countermeasures. The India-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), warned the Times of India newspaper that the move would shift the decarbonisation costs on to developing countries, including India. It added that the scheme could generate €1.5bn/yr for the EU by 2028 at the expense of the Global South.

Medcem’s investment in terminals within the EU suggests that it is confident enough to invest in operations in the region even as CBAM goes live. The three sites in the UK will be subject to the UK’s parallel scheme, due for introduction from 2027 onwards. It is also possible that Medcem is using its new terminals to increase its competitiveness under the new scheme. Medcem may also have an advantage, compared to an independent trader, that it can more easily verify the emissions at its plants. Generally, as mentioned above, each country’s share of cement and clinker imports to Europe looks set to shift as the new tax impacts the market. Watch this space.

Finally, spare a thought for those places in the EU but outside of Europe geographically. The French West Indies, for example, is part of the EU and subject to CBAM despite being in the Caribbean. Cement producers in Martinique complained to local press at the start of the year that prices will need to rise due to the necessity of importing clinker from outside of the EU.

We round off 2025 with the news that Holcim is preparing to buy a majority stake in Cementos Pacasmayo. This has implications for both the future of Holcim and the cement market in Peru. We explore this and more below.

This proposed acquisition starts to answer the question of what kind of company Holcim wants to be following the spin-off of Amrize, the North American business, in June 2025. The remainder of Holcim after the split consists of a large European segment and smaller divisions in Latin America and Asia, Middle East & Africa (AMEA). After the divestment of Lafarge Africa in Nigeria, the AMEA business now mainly covers North Africa, the Middle East, Australia, Bangladesh, China, New Zealand and the Philippines. In Latin America the group has subsidiaries in many countries, from Mexico south to Argentina. It also operates the Disensa construction materials retail chain. Holcim’s NextGen Growth 2030 strategy is targeted at sustainability and growth in AMEA and Latin America. The size of the business in Europe dictates the need for sustainability but the growth potential is elsewhere. Hence the attractiveness of deals like the one in Peru.

The acquisition of Cementos Pacasmayo follows a string of deals for Holcim in the country. Holcim purchased ready-mix concrete producer Mixercon and industrial minerals producer Comacsa for US$100m in mid-2024. Then in April 2025 it bought specialty buildings products manufacturer Compañía Minera Luren. The proposed Cementos Pacasmayo deal builds on all of this. Holcim has agreed to spend US$1.5bn to buy a 50.01% share. Completion of the transaction is expected in the first half of 2026 once regulatory approval is obtained. It will give Holcim control of Cementos Pacasmayo’s three integrated cement plants with a combined production capacity of 4.9Mt/yr, 28 ready-mix and precast concrete plants and 300 of the company’s DINO retail stores. Notably, Holcim appears to be paying around US$610/t for the new capacity. This is comparable to recent deals in North America.

The Holcim deal marks a change to the dominance of the cement market in Peru by local players. Previously, all the integrated clinker producers - UNACEM, Cementos Pacasmayo, Grupo Gloria and Cementos Inka - were owned by Peruvian companies. This started to change in 2024 when Holcim bought Comacsa and its white cement plant in Lima. Coincidentally, a US$17.5m fine imposed upon Grupo Gloria by National Institute for the Defence of Free Competition and the Protection of Intellectual Property (Indecopi) for anticompetitive behaviour was confirmed this week. The penalty was originally announced in 2023 in response to the alleged enforcement of exclusive supply contracts and restricted access to Cemento Yura plants. The subsidiary of Grupo Gloria continues to oppose the ruling.

Graph 1: Cement despatches in Peru, 2016 - 2015. Source: Asociación de Productores de Cemento (ASOCEM). Note: Figure estimated for 2025.

Data for November 2025 from Asociación de Productores de Cemento (ASOCEM) shows that despatches grew by 5.9% year-on-year from December 2024 to November 2025. Both imports and exports of cement and clinker are also up. Similarly, Cementos Pacasmayo has reported a good year so far in 2025. Its sales grew by 7% year-on-year to US$462m and its consolidated earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) by 4.6% to US$121m in the first nine months of 2025. This was attributed to higher sales for infrastructure-related projects and an increase in bagged cement demand.

The cement market in Peru has bounced back strongly following the Covid-19 epidemic. There was a dip in 2023 and 2024 but the market stayed at higher levels than the late 2010s despite this. Further growth has now returned and more is expected in the future. This may explain why Holcim has agreed to pay serious money to buy a cement company in Peru. As the business in Europe adapts to sustainability it is looking to expand elsewhere. Latin America is the obvious candidate to build on the existing business. Locally in Peru, this deal will change the status quo and it will be fascinating to observe how the market evolves in coming years.

Global Cement Weekly will return on Wednesday 7 January 2026

The new year came to a lively start with the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, by the US military on 3 January 2026. This is a column on the cement industry not geopolitics. Yet, the latter influences the former. There are implications here for the building materials sector that are worth discussing. Particularly regarding how states take over cement plants and what happens afterwards.

On Venezuela the first issue is what happens to the cement plants that were nationalised by the government in the late 2000s. The Chávez regime confiscated the Cemento Andino cement plant in 2006 from its owners, Colombia-based Cementos Argos. The government then formally expropriated the cement industry in 2008, taking control of plants run by Cemex, Holcim and Lafarge. Compensation was promised but this entered arbitration. Cemex, the owner of the largest number of plants, eventually reached an agreement in late 2011. The Venezuelan government paid US$600m in compensation and cancelled US$154m-worth of accounts payable from Cemex group subsidiaries to Cemex Venezuela. Subsequently, Cemex and Venezuela agreed to withdraw from the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) arbitration process. Lafarge and Holcim reached deals in 2010. However, Holcim didn’t receive the final part of its compensation until 2014.

These agreements seem fairly clear-cut. Cement plants were taken, but the previous owners were eventually paid. However, this process started under duress. Two of the multinationals concerned, Cemex and Holcim, run major cement companies in the US. Nevertheless, these companies may benefit, should the US Trump administration decide it wants to change other parts of Venezuelan government policy in addition to the oil business. They may also want to lobby the current US government to take action in this direction. And, of course, the cement plants may re-enter the market if they are re-privatised. Subsequently, they may become available for merger and acquisition activity.

Cemex has form in this area as it also had similar problems in Cuba. It originally owned a cement plant in the country before it too was nationalised by the Castro regime. The Mexico-based company eventually let go of its formal interest in the business in the mid-1990s when the US introduced the so-called Helms-Burton Act, which targeted property confiscated by the Cuban government that had formally been owned by US citizens. The company told the US State Department at the time that it would "end its involvement with a confiscated American property in Cuba." Prior to this Cemex had formed a joint-venture with Unión de Empresas de Cemento in the early 1990s to create a company called Empresa Mixta Cementos Curazao (EMCC), which took control of the Mariel cement plant near to Havana. A decade later when relations between the US and Cuba thawed somewhat, Cemex’s CEO at the time, Fernando Gonzalez said that his company was still interested in returning to the country. Understandably though he expressed caution about this.

The point here is that Cuba, like Venezuela, is another left-leaning country in Latin America with a poor relationship with the US. Should the US government decide to take stronger foreign policy action here than it has previously there might well be implications for companies that historically used to own companies in Cuba.

Another relatively recent sector nationalisation in the region took place in 2010 in Bolivia. Here, the government took over a stake in Sociedad Boliviana de Cemento (SOBOCE) subsidiary Fábrica Nacional de Cementos (FANCESA) by supreme decree in 2010. SOBOCE and its shareholders subsequently fought for compensation. This one has been further confused by allegations of impropriety regarding how one of the private owners of SOBOCE originally obtained its share in the first place. Further controversy and disagreement followed when another shareholder, Mexico’s GCC, sold its share to Peru’s Grupo Gloria. Grupo Gloria filed an arbitration claim for US$260m against the Bolivian government in 2022.

Cement is an important commodity. Both it and the industry that manufactures it will always be of interest to governments in one way or another. Some of them may be tempted to take control of cement plants for strategic, economic, political, ideological or other reasons from time to time. And some of them may even do it! Disagreement, legal action and arbitration generally follow. In theory once an arbitration process finishes that should be the end of it. Yet interested parties may decide otherwise as the facts on the ground change. Corporate lawyers are likely to be watching the situation in Venezuela closely.

Asia Cement unveiled a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) unit at its Jecheon plant this week. The Korea Cement Association (KCA), government representatives and staff from other cement companies were present at a demonstration. The US$25m project has been supported by the Ministry of Industry and Trade. It was originally announced in late 2023, has been running on a pilot basis for two months, and is expected to start full operation shortly. The cement sector in South Korea will be subject to tighter emissions controls in mid-2027 and further SCR installations are expected.

Earlier in 2025 the KCA estimated that installing SCR units on all 35 active clinker production lines in the country would cost around US$675m with an additional annual running costs. One point to note here is that one of the local sector’s commonly used alternative fuels (AF), waste synthetic resin, impedes the SCR process. Subsequently, it has to be run at higher temperature, which increases running costs.

The local cement industry has faced a mixed response to its uptake of AF in recent years. One strand of this has been a movement against so-called ‘trash cement.’ This culminated in the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment amending the Waste Management Act in November 2025 to make it mandatory for cement products to disclose on the packaging the means to check which ‘waste’ materials were used in their manufacture. This appears to include both supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) and AF. The government is now intending to make it possible for citizens to check the type of cement used in newly-constructed buildings. The KCA reported that the share of blended cements (i.e. those made with SCMs) was 15% in 2024. The rate had gradually decreased over the last decade from 19% in 2015. South Korean cement producers had a AF co-processing rate of 35% in 2021. The main fuels being used in this way were waste synthetic resin, waste tires and waste rubber, with the first being used the most.

Graph 1: Cement sales in South Korea, 2019 - 2025. Source: Korea Cement Association.

Meanwhile, cement producers in South Korea have turned to exports in 2025 in response to poor construction levels and growing input costs. The KCA revealed this week to local press that exports are expected to grow by 52% year-on-year to 4.5Mt in 2025 from 3Mt in 2024. Local shipments, however, are anticipated to fall by 16.5% to 36.5Mt from 42.9Mt. Producers have focused their export strategies towards South America and Africa in response to competition in the export market in South-East Asia from China and Vietnam, producers. For example, Halla Cement started targeting Cameroon and Guinea in 2025 following previous favourite destinations such as Peru and Chile. Exports are still lower than they were in the mid-2010s. In 2015, for example, the country exported 7.3Mt of cement and clinker. However, the share of the share of exports to total sales is at its highest level for at least a decade.

The necessity of running kilns at certain levels rather than simply idling them has also emerged in recent reporting. The reason given was to “...maintain a minimum allocation of carbon emission allowances.” The detail is lacking but this may sound familiar to readers familiar with the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). Following the financial crash in 2008, for example, an over-allocation of carbon credits enabled some producers to make money despite falling demand for cement. This is not to say that the same thing is happening in South Korea. Merely, that any ETS can potentially face structural issues in a declining market.

The South Korean cement market is facing tough times, with the KCA further anticipating a decline of 1.3% in 2026. Environmental regulations such as the new emissions controls are further putting up costs. One peculiarity of the local market is the scrutiny that the easiest routes to decarbonisation, SCAs and AFs, are facing. Giving the public the tools to check this kind of information is admirable. Yet it creates extra hurdles for a sector trying to decarbonise at the same time as a construction market construction. Good luck!

The Global CemFuels Asia Conference will take place on 2 - 3 February 2026 in Bangkok