August 2025

US: Lehigh Hanson plans to stop cement production at its integrated Permanente plant near Cupertino in California. The subsidiary of Germany-based Heidelberg Materials plans to use the site as a distribution centre and to continue some quarry work, according to the Mercury News newspaper. The cement plant was originally opened in 1939 but it stopped clinker production in 2020.

US: The National Mining Association has named Titan America's Pennsuco, Florida, quarry as winner of its Sentinels of Safety 2022 large quarry safety award. The quarry operated for 432,000 man hours without a single lost time incident during 2021.

Titan America's senior vice president Walter Reed said "The team at our Pennsuco Quarry demonstrates yet again that a fully embraced and entrenched safety culture will inevitably form the foundation for a long-term successful, sustainable, and extremely productive operation."

The 2022 award is the Pennsuco's second consecutive and eighth overall Sentinels of Safety win.

Peru: UNACEM (Unión Andina de Cementos) has updated its branding, including its logo, for its 10th anniversary following the merger of Cemento Andino and Cementos Lima. The new logo is intended to convey its essence, origin and its commitment to union and sustainable construction, according to the Ojo newspaper. It is based around the letter ‘U’ and is also meant to be reminiscent of a quarry seen from above. The rebranding exercise is also being run at the same time as the company’s 'Co-building Peru' campaign, where it seeks to promote the message that, “...the infrastructure of a country is built with cement, a homeland is built by all of us, working together.”

India: Grasim Industries recorded US$6.86bn in consolidated sales during the first half of the 2023 financial year, which ended on 30 September 2022. The figure corresponds to a 31% increase from US$5.25bn in the first half of the 2022 financial year. Cement and allied products contributed US$3.59bn in sales, up by 22% from US$2.95bn. 36% costs growth caused the producer's net profit to fall by 3.3% in the period, to US$527m from US$545m.

Bolivia: Empresa Publica Productiva Cementos de Bolivia (ECEBOL)'s upcoming 1.3Mt/yr Potosí cement plant is 91% completed and will commence cement production during the first quarter of 2023, according to the Bolivian government. When operational, the plant will produce up to 3000t/day of clinker and employ 2200 people directly and indirectly.

India: Star Cement generated US$156m in total income during the first half of the 2023 financial year, up by 36% year-on-year from US$114m during the first half of the 2022 financial year. The producer's net profit dropped by 16% year-on-year to US$8m from US$9.51m.

Europe: The Carbon Negative Biofuels from Organic Waste (Carbiow) project has received EU funding under the Horizon Europe initiative. Carbiow seeks to develop a dense, dry homogenous marine and aviation biofuel by carbonising gasification ash with oxygen and captured CO₂ from cement plants. 12 consortium members from the Benelux, Germany, Nordic countries, Slovenia and Spain are participating in the project.

India: JK Cement recorded US$536m in standalone income during the first half of its 2023 financial year, up by 26% year-on-year from US$427m. Throughout the period, the producer's profit after tax declined by 19%, to US$37.7m from US$46.4m. Also on a standalone basis, the company reported total expenses of US$482m, up by 31% year-on-year from US$368m. JK Cement's consolidated income rose by 23% to US$558m, while the group's expenses rose by 30% to US$509m, resulting in a 20% consolidated net profit drop to US$33.5m.

Sri Lanka: Tokyo Cement's consolidated sales rose by 34% year-on-year to US$82.8m during the first half of its 2023 financial year. Its cost of sales rose by less than 1% to US$50.8m. As such, the company recorded a profit for the period of US$10.1m, up by more than a factor of eight from first-half 2022 financial year levels.

Saudi Arabia: Yanbu Cement was among successful bidders in Saudi Arabia's largest carbon credit auction to date earlier in November 2022. The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)’s Voluntary Carbon Market Initiative Auction sold 1.4Mt-worth of carbon credits to 15 different entities, of which Yanbu Cement was the only cement sector representative. The PIF said that the sale will support the country's Saudi Vision 2030 development goal, while also advancing its progress towards net zero CO₂ emissions by 2060.