05 October 2020

Pakistan: Cement producers sold a record 5.21Mt of cement in September 2020, up by 22% year-on-year from 4.27Mt in September 2019. Exports were 1.12Mt, up by 41% from 790,000Mt. The Pakistan Observer has reported that domestic cement dispatches rose by 27% in northern Pakistan to 565,000t from 446,000t and by 16% in southern Pakistan to 3.52Mt from 3.03Mt.

Australia: Boral plans to increase raw limestone production at its Marulan South quarry in New South Wales to 4.0Mt/yr. Additionally, the company will increase aggregate extraction at the site to 1.0Mt/yr. The Goulburn Post reports that the new South Wales state government has agreed to the US$3.23m upgrade on condition that the building materials company upgrades and realigns a local access road to improve safety. Boral originally applied to expand the open cast mine in 2018.

Mexico: Cuautinchán city council granted permission for Cemex to resume cement production at its 7.2Mt/yr integrated Tepeaca plant in Cuautinchán following its suspension on 1 October 2020 for failure to pay city rates.

The Municipios Puebla newspaper has reported that Cuautinchán mayor José Pérez opposes the reopening, accusing Cemex of quarrying over 4.44km² in a remote area where its licence extends over a site of just 12.0km². He stated that Cemex has caused environmental deterioration and failed to comply with road upkeep requirements, adding, “It is not a company that has established co-responsibility against municipalities.”

UK: Quinn Industrial Holdings has announced an upcoming rebranding, to take place in October 2020, to Mannok. The new branding will extend to its subsidiaries Quinn Building Products and Quinn Packaging, as well as to its Quinn brand cement. Chief executive officer (CEO) Liam McCaffrey said that the group’s 2019 results, the strongest since its acquisition from Seán Quinn in 2014, signalled the time for the change. The new name derives from the Gaelic name for Fermanagh, the UK county in which Quinn Industrial Holdings is based.

McCaffrey said, “We are extremely pleased to unveil Mannok as our new brand identity, which we believe better reflects the ownership, evolution and future focus of our business. It marks a major milestone for us following a five-year transformation programme that has empowered our staff and repositioned our businesses for continuing growth and innovation.” He added, “2019 marked our fifth successive year of earnings growth and a robust performance given Brexit uncertainty. Our targeted investment of recent years has established strong foundations for continuing growth across Ireland and the UK.”

France: Hoffman Green Cement Technologies recorded a net loss of Euro 4.41m in the first half of 2020, up by 320% year on-year from a loss of Euro1.04m in the first half of 2019. Its revenues nearly tripled to Euro96,000 from Euro33,000.

Co-founders Julien Blanchard and David Hoffman said, “The first half of 2020 was very active, notably on the industrial and commercial fronts. We continued our actions in all of our strategic areas under sometimes delicate conditions as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The rollout of our industrial plan is progressing in line with our objectives. We have used this period to integrate additional resources that will enable us to accelerate our development in the coming months and years.” They added, “Thanks to the recent resumption of building sites activity and more generally of the construction sector, we have been able to reactivate our commercial negotiations and have signed a number of new contracts since July 2020.”