13 September 2019

Kenya: PricewaterhouseCoopers has rejected Rai Group’s bank guarantee of US$12.5m as part of its US$62.6m bid for ownership of ARM Cement. The bid constituted an attempt to forestall the latter’s sale to Devki Group subsidiary National Cement, which remains under the scrutiny of the courts. Business Daily has reported that Rai Group’s offer failed due to an insufficient expiry period of nine months on the guarantee, exposing the seller to untenable risk.

US: Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua’s 0.9Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Odessa, Texas, will run entirely on wind and solar power. Adpren has reported that the company engaged an unnamed energy provider on a 10-year power purchase agreement for the entirety of its electricity consumption, beginning in July 2022. This will cut 45,000t/yr of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and represents a saving of US$4.6m in energy costs over its period of effect, a saving of 22% annually compared to Grupo Cemento’s current bill.

Paraguay: Bolivia-based Itacamba Cemento has increased its cement exports to Paraguay in the eight months to 31 August 2019 to 38,000t, 10% of the latter’s market demand. This represents an increase of 322% compared to 9000t in the same period of 2018. Pagina Siete has reported that the company additionally imported 36,000t of clinker, a 32% decrease of from 53,000t in the eight months to August 2018. Itacamba Cemento general manager Alexander Capela has expressed the company’s desire to use the Paraguay-Paraná Waterway to export surplus finished product, mainly to wholesale distributors in Asunción. The company aims to consolidate its 1.2Mt/yr capacity to meet Bolivia’s increasing domestic demand, currently 4.5Mt/yr.

Itacamba Cemento began exporting cement to Paraguay in 2017 due to the favourable exchange rate and hence a high profit margin for Bolivian produce exchanged for Paraguayan guaraní.

Egypt: Alexandria Portland Cement has sold a 15.9km² parcel of disused land in Ad Dakhila. Mubasher reports that the company, the losses of which increased by 29.5% year-on-year to US$10.3m in 2019, received US$1.93m from the sale.