26 July 2019

Mexico: Cemex’s sales have fallen in all regions except for Europe. Its net sales fell by 4% year-on-year to US$6.72bn in the first half of 2019 from US$7bn in the same period in 2018. Its operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 11% to US$1.21bn from US$1.36bn. Cement sales volumes decreased by 9% to 31.3Mt and ready-mixed concrete volumes by 3% to 24.9Mm³.

“The second quarter was impacted by the challenging global economic environment. Weaker-than-expected industrial activity and continued trade conflicts have resulted in lower investment in several of our markets. Mexico in particular has been affected by these factors, which led to lower-than-expected volumes. Adverse weather in the US also translated into muted activity during the quarter. In contrast, we are very pleased with the favourable performance of our Europe region,” said chief executive officer (CEO) Fernando A Gonzalez. He added that earnings were expected to pick up in the second half of the year due to improved government spending in Mexico, higher prices and sales volumes of cement in the US and Europe, stabilising energy prices and the group’s ‘Stronger Cemex plan’.

Thailand: SCG’s sales from its cement business rose by 3% year-on-year to US$3.04bn in the first half of 2019 from US$2.94bn in the same period in 2018. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 7% to US$410m from US$382m. Cement sales in the second quarter of 2019 were driven by the non-government sector. Overall the group’s sales and earnings fell due to poor performance from its chemicals division, which it blamed on the on-going US-China trade war.

India: Ambuja Cement’s net sales increased by 5% year-on-year to US$834m in the first half of 2019 from US$824m in the same period in 2018. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 3% to US$168m from US$164m. However, its sales volumes of cement dropped by 3% to 12.2Mt from 12.6Mt. Bimlendra Jha, the managing Director and chief executive officer (CEO) of the subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, said that the company managed to optimise its logistics, raw material and fixed costs.

Vietnam: Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation’s (VICEM) cement production grew by 11% year-on-year to 12.8Mt in the first half of 2019. Its clinker production rose by 2% to 10.2Mt. It cement and clinker sales volumes increased by 3% to 14.7Mt, according to the Viet Nam News newspaper. The state-owned cement producer intends to produce and sell 27Mt of cement in 2019, up from 25Mt in 2018.

Greece: Heracles Cement has agreed an electricity energy deal with the Public Power Corporation. The three-year deal with the state-owned energy company will start at the end of 2020. It includes a 10% increase in the rate. The agreement is also part of the country’s Greenpass scheme. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim operates two integrated plants in the country.

Spain: Cement consumption has fallen in June 2019 following slowing rates in April and May 2019. Data from the Spanish cement association Oficemen indicates that consumption in June 2019 fell by 2.9% year-on-year to 1.21Mt. Oficemen President Jesus Ortiz attributed the slowdown to slow update of government infrastructure projects.

Canada: Lafarge Canada has launched the first phase of its CO₂MENT project. The objective is to build a full-cycle solution to capture and reuse CO₂ from a cement plant. The project is a partnership between Lafarge Canada, Inventys and Total.

“LafargeHolcim is committed to reducing CO₂ emissions and we are excited to join forces with Inventys and Total through Project CO₂MENT. We hope to discover ways to capture emissions from our production processes and reuse them in our products, advancing a circular economy even further than today. The recent launch of the new lower carbon fuel (LCF) system at our Richmond plant aims to make the facility the most carbon efficient cement plant in Canada,” said René Thibault, Region Head North America for LafargeHolcim.

Over the next four years, Project CO₂MENT will demonstrate and evaluate Inventys’ CO₂ Capture System and a selection of LafargeHolcim’s carbon utilization technologies at its Richmond cement plant in British Columbia. The project has three phases and is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2020. Subject to the pilot’s success, the vision is to scale up the project and explore how the facility can be replicated across other LafargeHolcim plants.

During the first phase the partners will work on purifying the cement flue gas in preparation for CO₂ capture. The second phase will focus on the separation of CO₂ from flue gas using a customised for cement version of Inventys’ carbon capture technology at pilot scale. As part of the final phase, the captured CO₂ will be prepared for reuse and support the economical assessment and demonstration of CO₂ conversion technologies onsite, such as CO₂ injected concrete and fly ash.

Sri Lanka: INSEE Cement has launched its first Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) based and externally assured sustainability report. The report was officially made public at an event in Colombo featuring a panel discussion on sustainability.