August 2025

Bahrain: Fives Services Gulf has held the inauguration ceremony for its Bahrain workshop. The facility includes offices, warehouses and machining, parts production and repair facilities. The site first entered operation amid Covid-19 restrictions in early 2021.

Fives Services Gulf chief executive Frederic Gicquel said "We are proud to be part of the industrial development of Bahrain and support the government's efforts to improve the foreign investor experience. This workshop will enable us to provide better quality services to our clients in the region and contribute to the sustainable growth of the industrial sector."

The subsidiary of France-based Fives employs 134 people.

Uruguay: The government has tendered for offers to acquire state-owned Administración Nacional de Combustibles, Alcohol y Portland (ANCAP). The Caras y Caretas newspaper has reported that the board of directors approved the tender on 18 May 2023. The tendering process will run until 11 July 2023, and any resulting privatisation will require ratification by parliament.

ANCAP operates two 300,000t/yr integrated cement plants.

The tender can be viewed here.

Türkiye: Italy-based Bedeschi says that it received an order for four pipe conveyers and an SHL 26/1000 ship loader from Medcem Cement. Medcem Cement will install the equipment as part of an expansion to its Yeşilovacık cement and clinker terminal in Mersin Province. The conveyors will form a 1km-long system with a conveying capacity of 1000t/hr of cement or 1350t/hr of clinker.

Bedeschi said that it previously supplied a ship loader of the same specifications for the Yeşilovacık terminal.

France: Ireland-based Ecocem has partnered with CB Green to launch a joint venture to scale up production of 70% reduced-CO₂ cement based on Ecocem's ACT technology. The technology combines widely available alternative raw materials into a product with enhanced strength and durability compared with ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The new joint venture will build a grinding plant in Dunkirk, Nord Department. The plant will produce 600,000t/yr of limestone filler for use in alternative cement production with ACT technology. The partners expect to invest Euro60m in the plant's construction, with commissioning scheduled for mid-2025.

Ecocem managing director Donal O’Riain said “This long-term cooperation agreement with CB Green marks a major milestone in our work to scale ACT, our low carbon cement technology, and deliver on our commitment to help the cement industry cost-effectively decarbonise by 50% by 2030. It secures production of fillers and access to high quality limestone, and is an important next step to ensuring that our ACT technology can be distributed at scale and start delivering on its potential to reduce CO₂ emissions by up to 70%. Technology is no longer the issue, scale and speed are what matters now."

UK: Mineral Products Association Lime (MPA Lime), the body representing the UK lime sector, has launched the Net Negative 2040 Roadmap. The association said that the roadmap sets out the strategy for its to 'go beyond net zero' by 2040. The industry will rely on the deployment of fuel switching, carbon capture, renewable energy sources and green transport technologies, among other approaches. It called on the government to support its aims through the implementation of carbon accounting, subsidisation of renewables and decarbonisation technologies, the development of green hydrogen infrastructure, ensuring that UK lime can remain competitive in the UK and overseas markets.

MPA Lime director Mike Haynes said “Each lever will contribute to decarbonisation – many initiatives are happening already or will come on stream this decade." He added "The combination of using biomass fuels with carbon capture and lime product carbonation will result in removal of 250,000t/yr of atmospheric CO₂, making the sector net negative overall. Other levers, especially indirect emissions and transportation, require broader collaboration and enabling action by government and other industries.”

Through their actions to date, MPA Lime members reduced their absolute CO₂ emissions by 25% between 2005 and 2022.

India: The government's income tax department has carried out raids at five locations belonging to Shree Cement. Reuters has reported that the authorities said they conducted 'survey action' on 21 June 2023.

World: Market Research Future has forecast a composite annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.3% between 2022 and 2030. This would result in a market value of US$505bn in 2030, compared with US$335bn in 2022. The report added that the rate of new construction projects is increasing across all regions.

Taiwan: A 57-year-old worker died after falling into slag cement in the production line of CHC Resources Corporation's Kaohsiung slag cement plant at 16:00 on 22 June 2023. CNA English News has reported that the victim was submerged for a prolonged period. A second man, aged 51, also entered the cement, but escaped with 'minor injuries.' The workers had been carrying out cleaning work on the line. Local authorities reportedly said that CHC Resources Corporation had 'No proper safety protocols' in place for the activity.

Mining and materials company Afrimat said it was buying Lafarge South Africa this week. The assets it is acquiring include aggregate quarries, ready mix concrete (RMX) batching plants, one integrated cement plant, two cement grinding plants, cement terminals and fly-ash sources. The means of purchase is somewhat unusual, as Afrimat is paying around US$6m but it also appears to be taking responsibility for around US$50m of outstanding debt that Lafarge South Africa owes its parent company, Holcim. In a statement Afrimat’s chief executive officer (CEO) Andries van Heerden talked up the benefits for his company in terms of the boost to its aggregates and concrete businesses.

This is quite the change from 2012 when India-based Aditya Birla Group was reportedly looking into buying Lafarge South Africa. At this time the value for the business for a similar mix of assets, including 55 RMX plants and 20 quarries, was said to be to US$900m. Prior to this, Lafarge South Africa spent around US$170m in the late 2000s on increasing the production capacity at its integrated Lichtenburg plant and building its Randfontein grinding plant. Then in 2014, when the merger between Lafarge and Holcim was announced, Lafarge consolidated its Nigeria-based and South Africa-based operations as Lafarge Africa. It later decided to move the South African business to another Holcim subsidiary, Caricement, in 2019 to keep the business in Nigeria more profitable by reducing its debts. This transaction was valued at US$317m. At the time chair Mobolaji Balogun said that Lafarge South Africa’s operations had faced a challenging market in South Africa, with shrinking demand in an aggressively competitive sector. Afrimat is now buying Lafarge South Africa and its subsidiaries from Caricement.

Holcim isn’t alone in making an effort to sell up in South Africa. In April 2023 the Valor Econômico newspaper reported that Brazil-based InterCement was receiving offers for its remaining African-based assets in Mozambique and South Africa with a potential deal valued at around US$300m. InterCement runs Natal Portland Cement in South Africa, which operates one integrated plant and two grinding units. This follows the sale of its Egypt-based assets in January 2023 to an unnamed buyer.

PPC, the country’s largest cement producer, is staying put. However, it issued a mixed trading update this week ahead of the formal release of its annual results to 31 March 2023. Trading conditions in the interior of South Africa and Botswana were described as being ‘difficult,’ with cement sales volumes down by nearly 6% year-on-year and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) down by 26%. Yet the group says it was able to grow its revenue. PPC’s CEO Roland van Wijnen added, “We therefore remain hopeful that the South African government will roll out its infrastructure development plans and protect the local cement market through the introduction of import tariffs to create a level playing field for domestic producers.” Dangote Cement subsidiary Sephaku Cement was more circumspect in its recent trading update but it too warned that, “deteriorating economic conditions and persistent challenges in the cement industry impacted Sephaku Cement’s financial performance to break-even levels.”

Much of the above makes for gloomy reading. As the local trade association Cement and Concrete South Africa (CCSA) has laid out to local media, the market faces the problem of having 20Mt/yr of production capacity, 12Mt/yr of demand and over 1Mt/yr of imports compounding the problem. Lobbying by local producers against imports has been a feature of the market since the early 2010s and this work continues through the efforts of the CCSA and others. However, the plea by PPC for government infrastructure spending suggests that the market faces more systemic problems. As a consequence some cement producers are trying to leave the market, while others are attempting to tough it out.

Belgium: Cembureau, the European Cement Association, has elected Ken McKnight as its president and Jon Morrish as vice-president. McKnight, a member of the CRH executive committee, succeeds Isidoro Miranda in the role. Morrish is the chief executive officer for Western & Southern Europe of Heidelberg Materials.