12 October 2020

India: JK Cement has started grey cement production at its 0.7Mt/yr-capacity Balasinor grinding plant in Gujarat. Accord Fintech News has reported that the plant, which dispatched its first batch of cement on 10 October 2020, brings JK Cement’s total grey cement production capacity to 4.2Mt/yr.

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement’s sales in the first nine months of 2020 were US$26.0m, up by 5% year-on-year from US$24.7m over the corresponding period of 2019. Dow Jones Institutional News has reported that cement sales volumes fell by 4% to 556,000t from 535,000t. Steppe Cement forecast full-year cement market growth of 2% to 9.0Mt in 2020 from 8.9Mt in 2019.

Cuba/US: A court in Florida has accepted a request for damages worth US$270m from LafargeHolcim to over 20 parties from Cuba whose land was nationalised and subsequently had a cement plant built on it. The claim alleges that Switzerland-based Holderbank has held a stake in the partly-state owned Carlos Marx cement plant near Cienfuegos since 2001 via a deliberately “complex network of letterbox companies and transactions” in the Netherlands and Spain, according to the Tages Anzeiger newspaper. Holderbank later became Holcim and then LafargeHolcim.

The building materials producer’s alleged involvement may constitute a violation of the US embargo on trade with Cuba for companies active in the US. The claim has been aided by a clause in the US’s Cuban blockade law, activated by President Donald Trump, enabling Cubans to claim damages in US courts for expropriated property from private companies which profited from them.

Austria: RHI Magnesita has launched Ankral Low Carbon, a 14% reduced carbon dioxide (CO₂) refractory brick. Instead of raw magnesite, Ankral Low Carbon bricks contain used refractory bricks as a dead burned magnesia (DBM) source.

The company says, “Adaption of production cycles is one of four ways in which RHI Magnesita is contributing to environmental sustainability, alongside shortening transportation routes, increasing of energy efficiency and reducing the carbon footprint of raw material.”

Malaysia: Belgium-based Etex has merged its cement boards subsidiary Kalsi Malaysia with fireproofing specialist Promat Malaysia under the new brand Etex Malaysia. The company says that the name change “reflects Etex's broader commitment to inspire ways of living through innovation.” PR Newswire Asia has reported that by combining its Malaysian subsidiaries under the Etex Malaysia brand the group aims to strengthen its offerings to local and export Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) markets.