August 2025

US: Ash Grove Cement Company has announced that James P Sunderland, former company chairman and president, died on 27 May 2015. Sunderland joined Ash Grove Lime and Portland Cement Company in 1957 as its corporate secretary in Kansas City. In his 43-year career at Ash Grove Cement, Sunderland held several leadership positions, including serving as the company's chairman and president. During Sunderland's tenure, Ash Grove Cement became one of the largest Portland cement producers in the US.

Just one week after Dangote started trial production at its new Mugher cement plant in Ethiopia it announced that it would be doubling capacity at the site. Upgrade work is slated to begin before the end of 2015, according to Nigerian media.

The move shows how much potential Ethiopia is seen to have for the cement industry. With a population of around 90m, it had a cement production capacity of 9.7Mt/yr before the new 2.5Mt/yr Dangote plant comes on line, according to Global Cement Directory 2015 figures. Including the new Dangote plant and even at 100% capacity utilisation this would place cement consumption in the country at 135kg/capita. This is a low figure internationally and hence the continued interest in new capacity. Subsequently, a large number of projects have been rumoured and mooted in Ethiopia over the years. However, many of these publicised projects then fail to make it to construction.

Mebrahtu Meles, the Minister of Industry, said that there were 18 companies engaged in cement production at the 7th Africa Cement Trade Summit that took place in Addis Ababa in April 2015. Meles placed the installed production capacity at 11.2Mt/yr (including the Dangote plant) with the expectation that this will increase to 17.15Mt. However, these cement plants are only producing 5.47Mt/yr, giving the country a capacity utilisation rate of below 50%. This too is low by international standards (60% or more). Cement consumption was placed at just 62kg/capita in 2014.

At the same event, the Ministry of Industry revealed that it was working on a national Cement Industry Development Strategy from 2015 to 2025. The strategy will tackle local industry issues such as unavailability of locally-produced packaging materials, poor transport links, high costs of production and a limited market. Key targets include stimulating cement demand to 12.22Mt/yr by 2020 by moving to concrete road construction and raising capacity utilisation rate to 75% by 2017 and to 80% to 2025.

Despite the publicity Dangote isn't the only player creating new capacity in Ethiopia. Habesha Cement is set to open its 1.4Mt/yr cement plant near to Addis Ababa in 2016. Habesha also has an international angle, given that South African cement producer PPC purchased the majority stake in Habesha Cement in the autumn of 2014 following the project's difficult financial history.

The new Dangote plant predates the country's new cement industry strategy but the upgrade plans demonstrate confidence in both the market and the government's plans. To meet its targets though the country is going to need to increase both its capacity utilisation and build more production capacity. Although muted from previous pronouncements the current target relies on Habesha Cement building its plant and the capacity utilisation rate rising from 50% to at least 75%.

South African weekly newspaper, M&G Africa, has described how Africa faces an infrastructure 'apartheid' whereby 44 of the continent's 58 countries share just 25% of the continent's infrastructure. Building things in Africa costs more because of this infrastructure deficit and it hits cement capacity utilisation rates as well. Ethiopia is one of the region's richer countries in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) but the same issues apply. Hitting its targets for the cement industry may be hard.

Thailand: Siam Cement Group (SCG) has confirmed that it is preparing to appoint Roongrote Rangsiyopash as its next president. The SCG board has agreed to maintain Roongrote's position as executive vice-president and end his top position at SCG Paper as well as announce the promotion of two other SCG executives to replace Roongrote, according to the Bangkok Post. Roongrote will end his tenure as president of SCG Paper on 1 July 2015.

"It is a process that we've been planning for several years, and it's clear the company wants Roongrote to replace me, as he is one of the company's more competent resources," said Kan Trakulhoon, SCG's current chief executive and president, who will retire at the end of 2015. "Roongrote is expected to oversee all SCG businesses from now on."

Roongrote joined SCG after graduating from university in 1985. He ran several of the company's businesses before being officially promoted to the latest position of SCG Paper president. He was also a director of Thai-German Industry and PTT Chemical.

Portugal: João Castello Branco will replace Pedro Queiroz Pereira as the CEO of Semapa. In a company statement, Pedro Queiroz Pereira announced that he would propose João Castello Branco to the board of directors in July 2015 for the post as well as for appointment to the post of chairman of the executive committee. Pedro Queiroz Pereira intends to remain as chairman of the board of directors. João Castello Branco works currently as a senior director at McKinsey Iberia.

Encouraging news from Egypt with the announcement that Lafarge Ecocem has taken on two refuse-derived fuels (RDF) contracts in Suez and Qalyubeya. The RDF plants will have production capacities of 42,000t/yr and 280,000t/yr respectively, after upgrades are built.

The move follows a deal Lafarge struck with Orascom in March 2015 to develop a waste management framework of municipal and agricultural waste. The plan is to achieve an average fuel substitution rate of 25% by the end of 2015. Around the same time Ecocem also signed a cooperation agreement with the German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the Qalyubeya Governorate to upgrade a recycling plant in Qalyubeya to produce RDF. Part of the deal was intended to reinvest some of the revenue from RDF sales back into the region's waste collection infrastructure.

These production levels compare to SITA UK's new RDF plants in the UK, which has a more mature RDF market. There, the newly opened Malpass Farm plant is planned to produce 200,000t/yr and the Tilbury plant will have an output capacity of 500,000t/yr when it opens. However, the Malpass Farm plant mainly feeds one cement plant, the 1.3Mt/yr Cemex Rugby plant with a mean substitution rate of 61% in 2013. By contrast, Lafarge Cement Egypt runs the massive 10.6Mt/yr El Sokhna plant.

Co-processing at El Sokhna by Lafarge is of particular interest given the links with Egypt's unofficial household waste collectors, the Zabbaleen. Lafarge Egypt recruited and trained 140 Zabbaleen to gather waste material for RDF production. The strategy enabled Lafarge to gather continuous supplies of RDF and strengthen local stakeholder relations, as Lafarge's 2013 sustainability report puts it. Lafarge Egypt's substitution rate was 2.2% in 2012 with significant improvements made since then. The current target of 25% for the end of 2015 shows how much progress Lafarge has made.

Hisham Sherif of the Egyptian Company for Solid Waste Recycling (Ecaru) placed Egypt's municipal solid waste level at 20Mt/yr at a presentation given at the Global CemFuels Conference earlier in 2015. From this 4Mt/yr of RDF could be produced. Together with biomass derived fuel (BDF) Sherif reckoned that the country's cement plants could reach substitution rates of 30 – 40%. Problems though with increasing RDF rates in Egypt include legal complexities, institutional issues, poor services and monitoring and centralised planning with little regard for the country's unofficial waste pickers, such as the Zabaleen.

Lafarge Ecocem appears to be tackling each of these problems in turn as the deals with Orascom and the Qalyubeya Governorate show. However, spare a thought for Egypt's unofficial waste sector workers who are likely to lose their livelihoods as waste management becomes more formalised and personnel rates per tonne of waste collected tumble.

For more information on the Zabaleen, check out the documentary made about them in 2009, called 'Garbage Dreams'.

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement's Malcolm Brown will retire as the non-executive chairman on 28 May 2015 due to health reasons. He does not intend to stand for re-election in the forthcoming AGM. He has served on the board for more than six years, since December 2008 and is a member of the audit and remuneration committees. Brown remains as a shareholder of Steppe Cement. The company is currently searching for an appropriate candidate to replace Brown.

Europe: Lafarge and Holcim have completed the appointments for the future executive committee of LafargeHolcim following a recommendation by Eric Olsen, future CEO of the combined group. The future executive committee, under the leadership of Eric Olsen, is composed of:

• Finance - Thomas Aebischer, currently in charge of finance at Holcim;
• Integration, organisation and human resources - Jean-Jacques Gauthier, currently in charge of finance at Lafarge;
• Europe - Roland Köhler, currently in charge of Europe at Holcim;
• Asia Pacific - Ian Thackwray, currently in charge of East Asia Pacific and trading at Holcim;
• Middle-East Africa - Saâd Sebbar, currently in charge of Morocco at Lafarge;
• North America - Alain Bourguignon, previously in charge of North America and the UK at Holcim;
• Latin America - Pascal Casanova, currently in charge of France at Lafarge;
• Performance and cost - Urs Bleisch, currently in charge of corporate functions at Holcim;
• Growth and innovation - Gérard Kuperfarb, currently in charge of innovation at Lafarge.

Following appropriate information-consultation processes with relevant works councils and employee representatives, Lafarge and Holcim have now entered a binding agreement with CRH regarding the sale of several assets. The assets include operations mainly in Europe, Canada, Brazil and the Philippines with an enterprise value of Euro6.5bn. The divestments remain subject to the completion of the merger including the acceptance of Holcim's public exchange offer by the shareholders of Lafarge. The merger is expected to close in July 2015.

There was a lot of news out of Lafarge and Holcim this week regarding preparations towards their merger. Just this morning we heard that the partners have entered into a binding agreement with Ireland's CRH regarding the sale of the assets that must be divested. Meanwhile, Lafarge and Holcim have also completed the appointments for the future LafargeHolcim executive committee. Its nine members will be responsible for such tasks as finance, integration, performance and costs, growth and innovation, as well as regional activities in Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, North America and Latin America.

However, it was other types of personnel that featured in Lafarge and Holcim's earlier press releases. On 19 May 2015 Lafarge came out and announced the first (pre-merger) job losses that will result from the merger. It will cut 380 positions in central and regional corporate roles, with 166 going in its native France. For its part Holcim will make 120 pre-merger job losses, all in Switzerland. Ignoring the clear discrepancy in scale between the different sides, Lafarge and Holcim will have lost at least 500 jobs out of their combined ~130,000. This is just a scratch on the surface, but it does raise an interesting question: How many more jobs will go at LafargeHolcim?

First up are the staff that will go to work for CRH. This probably represents the largest number of staff that will come of LafargeHolcim's books relative to Lafarge and Holcim's current staff levels. According to their 2014 Annual Reports, Lafarge and Holcim employ a combined 81,000 staff in cement roles. Given that they have a combined 425Mt/yr of cement capacity (give or take) this equates to around 190 staff for each 1Mt/yr of capacity.

As the new LafargeHolcim will have control over around 340Mt/yr of cement capacity, we can crudely scale the 190 staff up to 64,600 cement sector staff. This indicates that around 16,400 staff that are currently employed by Lafarge and Holcim will be 'off' to CRH (and others). This leaves 48,100 staff in non-cement roles at LafargeHolcim.

Will more jobs be lost post-merger? Lafarge and Holcim have stated that the new entity will have 115,000 staff. However, with around 42% of future employees employed in non-cement roles - compared to 41% and 34% for Lafarge and Holcim respectively in 2014 - it certainly seems that there could be scope for at least some reduction in overall numbers from LafargeHolcim's non-cement functions. Future job losses could therefore be a possibility, but the exact scale of future consolidations and 'synergies' (if any) will only become apparent post-merger. Maybe LafargeHolcim could end up with around 105,000 to 110,000 staff.

A key time may well be early 2016, when LafargeHolcim will launch a new 'corporate structure.' This term was also used by Lafarge and Holcim in their most recent releases, so further job losses could be on the cards.

One member of LafargeHolcim staff with nothing to worry about now will be Bruno Lafont, current CEO of Lafarge. He received a Euro2.5m bonus this week for his 'key role' in conducting the merger. How LafargeHolcim staff who could be nervous about their jobs will take this remains to be seen.

The Lafarge-Holcim Report from Global Cement is available to order now

India: Vaishno Cement Company Ltd has appointed Nabin Kr Jain, Vineet Agarwal and Kakali Ghosh as non-executive independent directors with effect from 22 April 2015. Further, Vijay Jaideo Poddar, Girdhar S Bansal and Sarita Agarwal, all non-executive independent directors, have resigned from directorship with effect from 22 April 2015.

Switzerland: Kaspar E A Wenger has been appointed as the chairman of the board of Holcim (Schweiz) AG. The role follows more than 20 years at Holcim, including more than ten years of operating responsibility for Holcim (Schweiz) AG and the responsibility for Central Europe.

In the framework of the progressing merger between Holcim and Lafarge, Wenger will become designated chairman of the board of Holcim (Schweiz) AG, effective from 30 June 2015. He will relinquish his responsibilities as area manager for Central Europe (Switzerland, South Germany, Italy). Wenger will play a key role in supporting the activities of LafargeHolcim in Switzerland specifically.

Gerd Aufdenblatten, currently CFO of Holcim Central Europe, will replace Wenger and become cluster-CEO. Gerd Aufdenblatten joined Holcim in 2007 and became CFO of Holcim Central Europe in 2013. A successor for the position of CFO will be communicated in due course.