Spain: Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV) has made a loss of Euro225m in 2016. It increased from a loss of Euro62m in 2015. It reported that its sales fell by 7.6% year-on-year to Euro536m in 2016 from Euro580m in 2015. It attributed this to the sale of its US subsidiary, Giant Cement, falling sales in Tunisia, a decrease in the value of the Tunisian dinar and rising fuel prices.

The cement producer’s sales volumes of cement fell slightly to 7.2Mt in 2016. However, once sales from Giant Cement are removed then, its sales volumes rose by 1.6% due to a 49% increase in exports from Spain. This compensated for declining markets in Spain and Tunisia.

The cement producer said that overall cement consumption in Spain fell by 3.1% to 11.1Mt in 2016, although this was partially offset by exports rising by 5.6% to 9.8Mt. Reduced domestic demand and rising exports have led to clinker production rising slightly in 2016 to 17Mt. It added that cement consumption increases were slowing down in the US, although the regions its subsidiary Giant Cement operates in reported above average increases of almost 11% to November 2016 in the South East, Mid Atlantic and New England regions. In Tunisia it reported that the market fell by 3.9% to 7.2Mt and that exports to Algeria and Libya had fallen.