Carmeuse announced this week that it has acquired a controlling stake in Chile-based Cbb. It said that the transaction strengthened its presence in South America, building on its existing operations in Colombia and Brazil. The move marks a diversification for the Belgium-based lime company. Cbb, formerly Cementos Bío Bío, is a vertically integrated heavy building materials producer with cement and concrete plants, in addition to limestone mines and plants.

The transaction sees Carmeuse take over a 97% share of Cbb for around US$490m. The deal was made public in early August 2025. A public tender offer, as part of the acquisition process, then completed on 11 September 2025. The settlement date, when the share ownership changes and the payment is made, will take place on 23 September 2025. The takeover was able to proceed once the main family-based shareholders of Cbb, who owned around 65%, agreed to the deal. Peru-based cement company Yura, which owned around another 20%, also consented. It sold its share for around US$100m.

The takeover of Cbb has been a while in the making and has involved different parties. It first became apparent to the public in late 2024 that Peru-based Grupo Gloria, the owner of Yura, had launched a bid to buy an additional 20% share. The board of Cbb rejected the offer, which appraised the full company at just under US$400m, as undervalued. Around the same time, Cbb revealed that US-based Mississippi Lime Company (MLC) had made its own takeover bid in May 2024 for around US$500m. However, MLC then withdrew its offer. Both Yura and MLC reportedly made their approaches in conjunction with some of the local family-based major shareholders. Also, note the interest by another lime company in Cbb.

Jump forward nine months and the deal appears done. Yet, as mentioned above, Carmeuse is buying more than just a lime producer. Cbb operates three integrated cement plants and one grinding plant in Chile. It also runs a grinding plant at Matarani, in the south of Peru. Global Cement Directory data suggests that the plants in Chile have a cement production capacity of over 3Mt/yr. This places the clinker capacity cost at around US$160/t. However, the capacity utilisation rate is likely to be low at present given that the company reported cement despatches of 1.2Mt in 2024. In addition, Cbb runs 27 ready-mixed concrete plants, two lime plants and three limestone mines in Chile. In Argentina it operates a lime plant and a lime mine. The company reported lime despatches of 0.83Mt in 2024.

Cbb recorded sales revenue of US$204m for cement and US$174m for lime. Pertinently, it noted a profit of US$2.26m for the cement division but one of US$35m for the lime one. Although, to be fair, sales revenue and profit grew year-on-year for both divisions. For the cement sector, the company said that the industry had experienced one of the “most severe crises in 2024 in the last 30 years.” It reported a decline in new construction projects due to rising material costs, higher credit requirements, low business confidence and a poor general economy. Ratings agency Humphreys noted, in a report on the cement sector in Chile in December 2024, that Cbb had improved its earnings margin in recent years due to the performance of its lime division.

Carmeuse’s acquisition of Cbb is a major change for the cement sector in Chile following declining cement despatches since 2021. From here one question is whether Carmeuse wants to run a cement and concrete business in Chile. The current state of the cement market in Chile, Carmeuse’s expertise in lime and the profitability of Cbb’s lime division, are three reasons why it might decide to divest this part of the business at a later date. On the other hand, Carmeuse’s expertise running rotary lime kilns could certainly feed into a new cement division if it chose to. MLC’s earlier interest in Cbb and a lack of many other cement companies being linked to the divestment also suggest that the focus has firmly been on the lime side of Cbb’s business. The one cement company that was interested, Yura, has links to lime too. Sister company Cal & Cemento Sur runs a lime plant in Puno Region in Peru, with US$100m plans for a new lime plant in Lima also in the works. The future of the cement division of Cbb is likely to be watched closely.

The FICEM Technical Congress 2025 has been taking place this week in Lima, Peru

Here we go! China-based Huaxin Cement delivered a one-two combo this week by first announcing that it had completed its acquisition of Lafarge Africa from Holcim and then revealing plans to amalgamate all of its overseas businesses into a single subsidiary. The first action feeds into the second but it’s a big move for the international ambitions of the company.

Global Cement Weekly has previously covered Huaxin Cement’s deal to buy Holcim’s majority stake in Lafarge Africa for US$1bn. After being announced in December 2024 the transaction was expected to close in 2025 subject to the usual regulatory approvals. However, various impediments emerged. In March 2025 local press reported that the Senate of Nigeria asked the Bureau of Public Procurement to scrutinise the sale on the grounds of national security and economic sovereignty. A Senate Committee on Capital Market then said in May 2025 that it was going to invite Lafarge Africa for questioning to ‘ensure shareholder rights and transparency of foreign dominance in Nigeria's cement industry.’ Local company and Lafarge Africa shareholder Strategic Consultancy then initiated a legal action to try and block the sale on the grounds that it was conducted secretly and without giving local shareholders the option to buy the shares themselves. These are just the issues that have made the local press. There may be more. The transaction officially closed on 29 August 2025 with Huaxin Cement paying around US$774m. Huaxin Cement is now the majority owner of Lafarge Africa with a 83% share.

Huaxin Cement’s decision to create a specific overseas subsidiary makes sense given the growing size of the business. Its stated aim is to fulfil the group’s “long-term strategic goal of building a world-leading multinational building materials company." The acquisition of Lafarge Africa is one big milestone along this path. In the group’s half-year report, also out this week, it said it had an overseas cement grinding capacity of 24.7Mt/yr with operations in 12 countries including Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Oman, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The new company will make and sell cement, technical services, ready-mixed concrete and aggregates. Notably, it will also specialise in the co-processing of alternative fuels. That last one is mostly implicit in any modern cement enterprise these days but as thermal substitution rates rise in developing markets there are likely to be many battles for commodities and market share ahead. It says it wants to create a new overseas subsidiary in order to “further broaden financing channels, open up and integrate resources, and enhance the operational capabilities of Huaxin Cement.” The plans are reportedly at an early stage, but the new subsidiary will remain under the control of Huaxin Cement in China. The focus on finance also seems particularly important, as the company wants to use its new subsidiary to improve its competitiveness and flexibility in overseas capital markets to help it with financing and mergers and acquisitions. To this end, the new company will be listed on an overseas stock exchange. Hong Kong might be the first contender for that ‘overseas’ bourse with its differing economic and legal systems, whilst remaining firmly Chinese.

To finish, let’s compare the contrasting business strategies of Holcim and Huaxin Cement over the last decade. Lafarge and Holcim merged in 2015, later becoming Holcim as it is today. The company divested many of its assets around the world - including Lafarge Africa, diversified into building systems and spun-off its North American division into Amrize. Huaxin Cement became one of the biggest cement companies in the world as the Chinese sector peaked in the 2010s but has also developed into the leading Chinese cement company overseas. That business outside of China has helped Huaxin Cement to make profits in recent years despite the domestic industry declining in the 2020s. Today, many large-scale cement company divestments all over the world are often linked to Huaxin Cement. Its new overseas company, whatever it is called, is likely to become well known across the world.

There have been a few burner and related stories to note in the cement industry news this week. Firstly, Canada-based PyroGenesis announced that it had signed a deal with an unnamed-European cement company to supply a plasma torch system for a ‘calcination furnace.’ Around the same time UBE Mitsubishi Cement (MUCC) revealed that it had successfully tested natural gas co-firing at MUCC’s Kyushu Plant using a newly developed burner.

The PyroGenesis project is a potential game-changer for the sector because it alters the way cement production lines are heated. Roughly one third of CO₂ emissions associated with cement manufacture arise from the fossil fuels used to heat the kiln and the pre-calcination system. Cut out some of that and the specific CO₂ emissions of cement production drop. PyroGenesis’ approach uses electricity to generate high-temperature plasma. This then gives the cement plant the option of obtaining its electricity from renewable sources. PyroGenesis signed a memorandum of understanding with the power conversion division of GE Vernova in March 2025. This had the aim of targeting high temperature processes, such as cement production, with electric plasma torches. The current deal with a cement producer has been valued at US$871,000 with delivery to the client scheduled for the first quarter of 2026.

We don’t know who the mystery client might be. However, Heidelberg Materials reportedly operated a 300kW plasma-heated cement kiln at its Slite cement plant in February 2025 as part of the ELECTRA project. The producer said it had achieved 54 hours of continuous operation, with 60% CO₂ concentration in the flue gas. The aim was to reach 99%. It then said that it was planning to build a larger 1MWel furnace at its Skövde cement plant in 2026 with tests to continue in 2027. In an interview with Global Cement Magazine in May 2025, Heidelberg Materials said that it was using commercially supplied CO₂ as the ionising gas in the plasma generator but that it was considering using captured CO₂ from the production process in the future. It also mentioned issues from its trials such as the effective ‘flame’ being hotter than the conventional process but not as long. This increased the reactivity of the resulting clinker. Finally, Heidelberg Materials noted from a feasibility study that a 1Mt/yr cement plant would need around 170MW of plasma generation, but that typical plasma generators topped out at around 8MW. Hence, any full set-up would likely require multiple plasma generators. For more on non-combustion style kilns see GCW561.

UBE Mitsubishi Cement’s burner installation is more conventional but again it is concerned about sustainability. In this case the line has tested burning natural gas. The cement producer says it is the first such installation at a cement plant in Japan to do so commercially. The burner was jointly developed by UBE Mitsubishi Cement, Osaka Gas and Daigas Energy. Firstly, the plant will consider switching to natural gas. This will reduce the unit’s CO₂ emissions from fuel combustion. However, a later step being considered is to move on to e-methane. This is a synthetic methane made from CO₂ and hydrogen using renewable energy.

Finally, another recent story on this theme is the installation of a new satellite burner by Northern Ireland-based Mannok at its Derrylin cement plant in August 2025. This is Phase One of a two-part project to upgrade the pyro kiln system at the site. The cement company worked with FLSmidth on the €2.5m upgrade. The new burner has now allowed the plant to burn solid recovered fuel (SRF) by up to a 30% substitution rate in the kiln. This followed a project, also with FLSmidth, to install a FuelFlex Pyrolyzer in 2022. This is used to replace coal with SRF in the pre-calcination stage of cement production. Phase two will be an upgrade of the main burner to a new Jetflex burner. Once this part is completed, Mannok is aiming for an overall substitution rate of 65 - 70% on the whole pyro-processing system.

Burners at cement plants are replaced fairly commonly. However, the supplier companies don’t advertise every installation due to the commercial relationships with their clients and other factors. Hence the more interesting upgrades tend to get the publicity. Typically this means if a burner uses new technology, meets sustainability goals and so on, we find out about it. It’s a similar situation when a new heating technology such as plasma is trialled. Changing trends in fuel types for cement plants suggest different types of conventional burners. Some of this can be seen in the burner stories above with the trend moving towards ever higher rates of alternative fuels usage. Combustion in cement kilns is here to stay for the time being but plasma trials will be watched carefully.

The 18th Global CemFuels Conference & Exhibition on alternative fuels for cement and lime 2025 will take place in Milan on 17 - 18 September 2025

We return to Brazil this week where Cimento Itambé has inaugurated a new kiln at its plant in Balsa Nova, Parana. The US$92m investment has added 0.6Mt/yr of cement production capacity to the unit, bringing its total to 3Mt/yr. Notably, the new kiln is intended to support the use of alternative fuels (AF) such as biomass and industrial waste. Local press reports that the new kiln can operate with a 50% AF thermal substitution rate (TSR) and in tests it has reached as high as 67%.

Local market leader Votorantim Cimentos has also embarked on an upgrade programme linked to increasing co-processing rates. In May 2025 it said that it had received and begun installing a new cement mill, supplied from China, at its Salto de Pirapora plant near São Paulo. Earlier in August 2025 it revealed that it was spending US$60m on upgrades at its Nobres and Cuiabá plants in Mato Grosso. A new cement grinding mill is to be installed at the Nobres plant. This should increase the site’s cement production capacity to 1.2Mt/yr from 0.6Mt/yr. At Cuiabá the company is installing a tyre shredding unit via its Verdura subsidiary to support increased rates of co-processing of AF. Work on these projects is set to start in 2025 with completion scheduled by the end of 2026.

These schemes are part of the group’s larger US$920m upgrade investment plans across the country. Announced in early 2024, this is intended to increase competitiveness and co-processing capacity and reduce CO₂ emissions. It will also add 3Mt/yr to the company’s production capacity. An investment of US$150m from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) in 2023 to Votorantim to support the uptake of AF is likely to have helped the decision to upgrade. The company currently has a target of a 50% TSR by 2030.

Of the other major producers, CSN is also aiming for a 50% TSR by 2030. It said in its 2024 sustainability report that all of its kilns were capable of processing AF. It also highlighted upgrade work at its Alhandra, Paraíba, plant in 2024 to handle, store and transport fuels, including biomass. InterCement reported some relatively high TSRs at individual plants in Brazil in 2023. For example, its Ijaci plant in Minas Gerais reportedly had a rate of 42%.

National Cement Industry Union (SNIC) data shows that the co-processing rate of AF reached 32% in 2023. The union says that this puts the sector ahead of its next target of 30% in the mid-2020s. The next one is to reach 35% by 2030. For reference, back in 2019 the country’s Cement Technology Roadmap reported that around 60% of cement kilns in the country were licensed by environmental agencies to co-process waste.

Graph 1: Sales of cement in Brazil, 2017 - 2025. Source: SNIC.

Looking at the domestic industry in general, SNIC reported growth in 2024 and the first seven months of 2025. Sales for the first seven months of the year grew by 4% year-on-year to 38.2Mt. This has been attributed to the real estate sector, boosted by the Minha Casa Minha Vida housing programme, and an expanding job market. Yet jitters remain, with fears of an economic slowdown in the second half of 2025 and uncertainty on how new US tariffs might affect the cement industry indirectly. Despite only exporting around 65,000t of cement in 2024 though, the association is wary of any indirect effects of tariffs.

It’s no surprise that cement plants in Brazil are prioritising AF usage. The market is buoyant and co-processing offers one of the cheapest routes to decarbonising cement production in the short-to-medium term. Increasing the use of AF can also potentially hedge against the cost of imported conventional fuels, such as coke, that are priced in US dollars. This is one example of SNIC’s concern over indirect effects on the cement industry from US tariffs via currency volatility. Expect AF rates to carry on rising.

The 18th Global CemFuels Conference & Exhibition on alternative fuels for cement and lime will take place on 17 - 18 September 2025 in Milan, Italy