September 2025

Philippines: The Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) says it will consider a new tariff on imported cement as part of its investigation into alleged anti-competitive behaviour. In early January 2019 The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said it would impose a provisional safeguard duty of US$0.16/bag on imported cement, according to the Philippine Star newspaper. The PCC started its latest investigation into the cement industry in 2017. Previously it said it planned to complete the study in 2019.

Lithuania: Akmenes Cementas’ revenue rose by 18.9% year-on-year to Euro67.3m in 2018 from Euro56.6m in 2017. Its cement sales increased by 12% to 1.17Mt from 1.04Mt, according to the Baltic News Service. However, it made a continued to make a loss. The cement producer blamed this on mounting energy and staff costs.

India: The South Central Railway (SCR) hopes to increase its cement loading capacity to 27.5Mt/yr in the current financial year. It has handled 20.5Mt in the nine months to the end of Dcember 2018, according to the Hindu newspaper. The cement industry represents the second largest freight segment for the Indian railway sector with a share of 23% of a capacity of 500Mt/yr for the 2017 – 2018 year.

UK: Northern Ireland’s Telestack plans to invest Euro5.8m towards upgrading its Omagh plant. The mobile bulk material handling system producer will build a new 4180m³ plant next to its existing site. The new unit will include production lines, a research and development centre and new office premises.

“Telestack has grown rapidly over the last number of years and we have firm plans to double our revenue again in the next three and a half years. We have out-grown our current facility and we need to extend our manufacturing footprint to meet the international demand for our products. We have made a conscious decision, even in the face of Brexit uncertainty, to invest locally” said Telestack’s managing director Martin Dummigan.

Tanzania: The Tanzania Investment Centre (TIC) says construction of a new 7Mt/yr cement plant by China’s Sinoma and Hengya Cement is due to start soon. TIC executive director Geoffrey Mwambe said that the government body had provided all the necessary incentives for the US$1bn project, according to the Citizen newspaper. The TIC licence gives investors a three-year window in which to start construction, otherwise the licence revoked.

The Chinese company plans to build a cement plant with a 1200MW captive power plant. At least 70% of the cement produced at the plant will be exported and the remainder will be sold domestically. The unit is expected to create 4000 - 8000 direct and indirect jobs.

Spain: Cementos Tudela Veguín has purchased a full stake in Caleras de San Cucao, a lime producer based in Asturias, according to the La Nueva España newspaper. No value for the acquisition has been disclosed. The company operates a lime plant at Llanera and it runs two lime quarries at Agüera and Las Regueras. Cementos Tudela Veguín has a lime production capacity of 0.6Mt/yr from its Tudela Veguín plant in Oviedo.

Russia: Eurocement is planning a second phase of upgrades for its Kavkazcement plant in 2019. These include starting to generate its own electricity, modernising its cement grinding mills, completing a maintenance campaign and moving to solely operating rotary kilns. The first phase of the upgrade project saw the plant build a slurry pipeline, construct the building for a captive power plant and purchasing monitoring equipment.

Ukraine: Data from the State Statistics Service shows that Ukrainian cement production fell slightly, by 1% year-on-year, to 8.93Mt in 2018 from 9.3Mt in 2017. In December 2018 production fell by 19.9% year-on-year to 0.35Mt, according to the Ukrainian News Agency. The country has 15 companies producing cement with a combined production capacity of over 20Mt/yr.

Turkmenistan: A cement plant in Balkan province has started producing sulphate-resistant cement. A first batch of 7000t of the product has been manufactured, according to the Trend News Agency and local media. The Institute of Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan worked on the project with specialists from the Ministry of Industry and Turkmengeologiya State Corporation.

India: Braj Binani, the owner of Binani Industries and the former owner of Binani Cement, has been prevented from travelling to the UK by Indian immigration officials. Punjab National Bank (PNB) issued a so-called lookout notice to prevent debt defaulters leaving the country, according to DNA Money. The notice was issued following Binani’s failure to attend a Kolkata Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on 20 January 2019.

Binani Industries had stood guarantor for a US$42m loan taken out by a subsidiary but then left unpaid. Binani Cement was acquired by UltraTech Cement in late 2018 following a legal battle with Dalmia Bharat.