August 2025

Germany: Dr Michael Mutz has been appointed as the new head of division, Minerals & Mining, at Aumund Fördertechnik GmbH in Rheinberg.

"We are thus strengthening the team and we are advancing the business segment expansion in this prospering market," commented Aumund managing director Jörg Hoffmann on the appointment.

The 41 year-old from Westphalia, Germany comes from a mining family and has continued the family tradition, studying geology specialised in the exploration of solid mineral raw materials, oil and gas. Mutz started out with various mining prospecting projects, including Roland Berger and CPRM, the Brazilian state geological service.

After many years' activity in iron ore mining in Brazil (ThyssenKrupp) Mutz graduated from the Technical University of Clausthal in geology. His experience in the machinery and equipment business started in 2006 at Hazemag & EPR where he headed-up international sales and coordination of key accounts from 2008.

"The good reputation of the Aumund Group and the decades of successes in the cement, power and metallurgy sectors are a solid foundation to also gain a foothold as a supplier in the very service-oriented mining business," said Mutz.

Mutz has been in post at Aumund since April 2012.

The news this week that GSO Capital Partners has patched together a group of investors to recapitalise Giant Cement and its owner Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV) has been a long time coming.

Giant may be based in the US but CPV is Spanish. Here cement production fell by 28% year-on-year for the first half of 2012. For its 2012 forecast Oficemen, the country's domestic producers association, forecast in July that consumption will fall by 25% compared to 2011, to 15Mt/yr, representing a drop of 73% from a high of 56Mt/yr in 2007. Potentially the Spanish cement industry could regress to a per capita consumption of only 325kg/capita, figures not seen in the country for nearly 50 years! It has already hit a 48-year low.

In other words it is the perfect time for cash-rich foreign firms to pick up a bargain. Yet the question that should be asked, especially by anybody else thinking of investing in highly indebted European cement assets, is how do investors expect to make any return?

Simply waiting for the market to improve is one strategy for those who can afford it. According to the Global Cement Directory 2012, Spain has 38 cement plants with a capacity of 48Mt/yr. Of this the big players – Cemex, Holcim, Lafarge and CPV – comprise 28Mt/yr. Even if the smaller producers stopped producing cement overnight the big producers would still have the capacity to produce twice as much cement as is currently required.

However, the focus on the CPV subsidiary Giant Cement is telling. The owner of CPV, Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas SA (FCC), was originally reported as trying to sell Giant by March 2012. With the US market starting to pick up, Giant would make an attractive acquisition. FCC's last attempt to sell Giant was, however, delayed by CPV's debt.

With a Giant sale delivering some return to the GSO Capital Partners investors, followed up by further on-going debt repayment from CPV, the only loser would be the future development of the Spanish cement industry outside of that done by the multinationals. Heavily indebted European cement producers with profitable overseas assets must be looking very attractive indeed to international investment firms. The bargain hunt has begun.

Russia: Nikolay Skornyakov has been appointed chief executive officer of Zhigulevskie Stroymaterialy plant, part of the Eurocement Group. Previously, Skornyakov was the technical director of the cement plant located in Zhigulewsk in Samara.

Skornyakov was born in 1950 in Ulyanovsk. In 1980 he graduated from the Belgorod State Technological Institute of Construction Materials focusing on chemical technology binders. He has since worked in the cement industry for about 40 years, starting at a plant in Ulyanovsk in 1969 as an electrician. In 2001 he was appointed technical director of the Ulyanovsk plant subsequently becoming first deputy chief executive officer.

In 2005 Skornyakov became chief executive officer of the Pikalevskiy plant. In 2006 he became the deputy chief executive office – technical director of the Mikhailovcement plant in the Ryazan region. Since 2009 Skornyakov has been the deputy chief executive officer - technical director of the Zhigulevskie Stroymaterialy plant.

Pakistan's Lucky Cement received the 'all clear' for its cement imports from the South African regulators last week. The situation exposes the increasingly competitive market in the country after the South African Competition Commission cartel investigations in 2011.

Sales of Lucky Cement were originally shut down in 2011 due to accusations made by its competitors, including Pretoria Portland Cement (PPP) and Natal Portland Cement (NPC). They complained that Lucky was not complying with South African standards. South Africa's National Regulator for Compulsory Specifications (NRCS) then ran its independent investigation and released its results last week.

The regulator's full 28-day test found no evidence that Lucky Cement imports were non-compliant with regards to their quality. A minor infringement concerning underweight bags was found and fixed. However, about a week beforehand, Lafarge South Africa's CEO said that his company was considering approaching another trade body with concerns about 'low-quality cheap cement' imported from Pakistan.

More serious criticism came from the Cement and Concrete Institute when the NRCS admitted that it didn't know how much cement had been imported into South Africa so far in 2012. The NRCS is supposed to inspect and approve the testing bodies each producer and importer uses for every 500t of cement.

Lucky Cement has been a regular importer of cement to South Africa since 2009. It exports around 1.65Mt/yr to over 22 countries in South East Asia, the Middle East and Africa. CCI figures reckon that 140,000t of cement was imported to South Africa in the first quarter of 2012, mostly by Lucky Cement. According to the Global Cement Directory 2012 South Africa's capacity is around 11Mt/yr.

Four domestic producers – Lafarge, PPC, AfriSam and NPC – were accused of cartel activity by the South African Competition Commission, in a case that has been running since 2008. PPC confirmed the existence of the cartel, whilst Lafarge and AfriSam were fined US$19.6m and US$16m respectively.

By letting Lucky Cement resume the sale of its cement in South Africa, the NRCS has arguably done more than the Competition Commission to prevent cartel activity. With reports surfacing that other producers in Pakistan and India are considering exports to South Africa, domestic producers are going to have to become more inventive and more competitive.

Switzerland: As part of its 'Holcim Leadership Journey', the Swiss cement multinational has announced a series of personnel changes to save at least Euro1.25bn by 2014.

The group's Europe region (excluding the UK) will be consolidated and led by current member of the Holcim Executive Committee Roland Köhler. The North America and UK region will report to Bernard Terver who has been appointed member of the Holcim Executive Committee.

Corporate functions that directly contribute to the programme to strengthen customer excellence and cost leadership will be led within the newly created project management office for the 'Holcim Leadership Journey' by Urs Bleisch. He has been appointed corporate functional manager and member of the senior management of Holcim. He will be reporting directly to the CEO of Holcim, Bernard Fontana.

Member of the Holcim executive committee Urs Böhlen will leave the executive committee and act as an advisor to the CEO of Holcim until his retirement in 2013. Members of the executive committee Benoît-H. Koch and Patrick Dolberg will leave the group.

Anyone need a spare cement plant? If so then it looks like India is the place to head to this week.

First, Italcementi denied that it was in talks with Jaiprakash Associates to buy one of their Jaypee Cement plants. Then, after much speculation, CRH announced publicly that it had entered negotiations to purchase an equity stake in Jaypee's entire cement business. In addition the Indian government has also revived a plan to sell six Cement Corporation of India (CCI) factories that have been closed for almost 10 years.

All of this raises a question: how much are Indian cement plants actually worth?

According to one source, Italcementi was thought to be offering US$100/t (installed capacity) in the bid it supposedly made but has denied making. Jaypee 'wanted' US$150/t. However analyst commentary with the CRH announcement suggested that Jaypee's asking price was too high! This is hardly surprising. Back in June 2012 when Jaiprakash announced that it was selling its plants it was reported that Holcim was offering up to US$160/t. Alongside the CCI story an analyst was quoted as putting the cost of Indian cement production capacity at US$110/t-US$120/t. Yet these plants have been shut for a decade.

Unlike in Europe, Indian cement industry profits have been rising in double digits in recent years. However, input costs like energy and transport are rising and they are starting to hit margins listed in quarterly reports. Serious additional costs have also arisen from the anti-cartel fines issued by the Competition Commission of India. Throw in questions on infrastructure raised by last week's nationwide power-cuts and Italcementi's (non)decision to stick to US$100/t seems prescient.

Unlike Italcementi however CRH has money to spend. Back in June 2012 it was reported that the company had Euro1.5bn to invest. With Euro250m gone in the first half of 2012 on so-called 'bolt-on' acquisitions that still leaves plenty in the pot to pick up the CCI plants. Now that would be a surprise.

Pakistan: Flying Cement has made changes to its board of directors, effective 6 August 2012. The new board consists of Mr Agha Hamayun Khan (Chief Executive), Mr Kamran Khan (Director and Chairman) and Mr Momin Qamar, Mr Yousaf Kamran Khan, Mr Qasim Khan, Mrs Shaista Imran, Mrs Samina Kamran and Mrs Misbah Momin as directors.

Agha Hamayun Khan replaced Kamran Khan with effect from 23 July 2012.

India: Mangalam Cement Limited has said that Mr R C Gupta, Company Secretary, Compliance Officer and Chief Financial Officer of the company resigned with effect from 8 August 2012.

The power cuts in northern and eastern India this week will have presented citizens with a situation very familiar to Indian cement producers. With over half the country reported to be without electrical power after three power grids collapsed, industrial users are likely to have been shut down as the authorities try to bring back domestic supplies.

According to figures from the National Council for Cement and Building Materials, Indian cement producers used 79kWh/t of electrical energy in 2009 as production hit 181Mt. The Cement Manufacturers' Association placed these figures at 68-93kWh/t for a modern plant and 100-120kWh/t for older ones. In June 2012 the Central Electrical Authority reported the country's entire installed electrical capacity was 205GW.

It's difficult to estimate how much damage problems in power supply may have caused the Indian cement industry over the last few decades in either reduced volumes or increased running costs. The Cement Sustainability Initiative and European Cement Research Academy broke down the share of electrical power in a dry process plant as follows: 38% for cement grinding, 24% for raw material grinding, 22% for clinker production including grinding of solid fuels, 6% for raw material homogenisation, 5% for raw material extraction and blending and 5% for conveying, packing and loading. Generally speaking, interruption of power causes production losses and low capacity utilisation, idle running of equipment during stops and restarts of the plant, thermal losses during reheating, damage to refractory and other problems such as slowing down the train network.

Subsequently there has been a drive in India towards captive power generation and waste heat recovery (WHR) mechanisms, especially as input energy costs have risen. For example it has been reported that ACC's average cost of electricity per kWh from its captive plants is US$0.067 versus US$0.087 for grid power. Companies like Shree Cement have since gone into the electricity export market with their surpluses and, as shown by SP Ganeshan at the Global CemPower Conference in June 2012, interest in WHR is booming. Currently, the Indian cement industry has about 4000MW of installed captive generation capacity, including coal-based plants, diesel generating sets and wind turbines. Through various greenfield and brownfield expansion projects it is anticipated that another 2000MW of captive capacity will be added by 2016.

One sign of how well the Indian cement industry is coping with its energy requirements is the 74% rise in fourth quarter profit reported by Shree Cement in May 2012, in part due to savings made from captive power generation. Perhaps they could advise the Indian electricity board.

India: Birla Corporation has promoted BR Nahar to the managing director of the company. The decision was made at the board of directors meeting held on 28 July 2012. Nahar, a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, holds more than 33 years professional experience. He became Birla's executive director and chief executive officer in 2006. He has served in diverse fields at senior positions in various large corporate houses.

The news this week that Vietnam's state-owned cement producer, Vicem, has made a first half profit 75% larger than that of the first half of 2011 is a surprising statistic from a country with so much spare cement.

The country has spent most of the past decade building cement plant after cement plant. According to research conducted for the April 2012 issue of Global Cement Magazine, Vietnam now has a cement capacity of over 70Mt/yr! Vicem says that it sold 9.7Mt of cement in the first six months of 2012 and reports that this level represents 44% of its intended production for the year. This makes its 2012 cement production target somewhere in the region of 22Mt.

How much of the non-Vicem cement capacity is being utilised in Vietnam is unknown, but it is certainly too much for Vietnam's current needs. When the country's own government owned cement producer announces that it expects to have 6Mt of cement stockpiled by the end of 2012 (enough to supply the UK for the whole of 2013), it is clear that there is a serious cement surplus. Oversupply has not been met by demand, cement prices are depressed and attempts to export, to countries both near and far, are on the up.

To help curb the problem, one cement plant project has been halted in the past week. The Kinh Bac City Development Share Holding Corp (KBC) has received permission from its state to not build its planned 5Mt/yr plant.

Halting new projects is one way for the country to reduce its overcapacity, but in the short term the industry is looking at exports. While its lengthly coastline makes getting cement to ports for export fairly straightforward, Vietnam is badly located to exploit its current situation in this way. It's proximity to China, which itself is starting to face an oversupply scenario despite its efficiency gains, leaves Vietnam at a cost disadvantage.

As well as there being China on Vietnam's doorstep, many other countries in the region, (Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, etc), are also self-sufficient in terms of cement and are able to export extra capacity as necessary. Additionally, East Asian countries have often seen Africa as a good export market but the recent rise of Nigeria as a major producer may reduce this opportunity.

Amid all of these numbers the Vietnam News Brief Service commented that the current oversupply in the socialist state was down to the 'unplanned' construction of cement plants over recent years.