August 2025

Thailand: Siam Cement Group’s concrete and aggregates division SCC Concrete Products and Aggregates (CPAC) has entered into a joint venture agreement with Swedish digitisation specialist BIMobject for the formation of BIMobject Thailand Co., Ltd. (BIMobject TH) on a 51:49 basis in favour of CPAC. This will provide building information modelling (BIM) - a service platform for use in conceptual design, material selection, and construction simulation of customers’ projects. Siam Cement Group president and CEO Roongrote Rangsiyopash said, “This is in line with SCC’s strategic plan to extend its breadth of innovative construction solutions.” The joint venture will have US$170,000 registered capital.

India: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has lobbied the government in its Pre-Budget Memorandum 2020-21 over customs duties. The body is suggesting a reduction on the customs duty on packaging for use in bagging cement to 5% from 10%. There is currently no import tax on cement and duties of 5% and below on various clinker constituents.

Austria: w&p Zement has announced that it has donated an ABB robotic arm from a laboratory at its 0.8Mt/yr Weitersdorf plant to the mechatronics department of Klagenfurt Higher Technical College (HTL). The company replaced the 10kg-capacity, 1.55m armature with a fully automated POLAB cement laboratory as part of an upgrade for Industry 4.0. w&p Zement Weitersdorf operations manager Florian Salzer said, “We are pleased that the robot will continue to be of use, increasing the quality of technical training and thus laying the foundation for training tomorrow's top specialists.” He said that the equipment is in perfect condition because of the low weight of samples for which it was used.

Georgia: Germany-based engineering, management and consultancy firm Sustained Visions has announced its appointment by German Cement Georgia for provision of concept development and project management services at its upcoming Kaspi plant. German Cement Georgia plans to commission the plant in early 2020.

US: Eagle Materials has received clearance from the Federal Trade Commission for its November 2019 acquisition of Kosmos Cement, which operates the 1.7Mt/yr integrated Louisville plant in Kentucky, as well as raw materials reserves and seven cement terminals, from Mexico-based Cemex and Italian Buzzi Unicem for US$665m. Eagle Materials board chair Mike Nicolais said the acquisition was ‘timely in light of our plans to separate our Heavy Materials and Light Materials businesses into two independent, publicly traded corporations.’ It will pay using existing funds and a loan withdrawn for the purpose.

India: The state government of Maharashtra has granted Aditya Birla Group subsidiary UltraTech Cement environmental clearance for a planned 16MW waste heat recovery (WHR) generator at its 3.6Mt/yr integrated Awarpur plant in Chandrapur district. Projects Today has reported that the state’s Environmental Impact Assessment Authority has also cleared the company’s plan to expand its Korpana coal-fired power plant in Chandrapur to 15MW from 10MW. The producer will place orders for construction contracts in February 2020.

Algeria: Algeria sold cement and clinker worth US$59.3m in the first 11 months of 2019 – up by from US$17.5m in the corresponding period ending 30 November 2018. The country’s 40Mt/yr-capacity cement industry serves a domestic demand of 22Mt/yr. Algeria Press Service has reported that Algeria’s key trade partners for exported cement were sub-Saharan African nations, according to former Minister for Trade Saïd Djellab.

Togo: HeidelbergCement has announced plans to bring the capacity of its subsidiary Cimtogo’s grinding plant in Lomé up to 1.6Mt/yr from 0.6Mt/yr at an investment of Euro27.0m. Agencé Ecofin has reported that this will bring the German group’s total investment in Cimtogo to Euro225m since its acquisition in 2012.

China: Preliminary calculations from Huaxin Cement’s financial division have projected a net profit attributable to shareholders for 2019 of between US$0.88bn and US$0.95bn – an increase of 18% - 28% year-on-year from US$0.74bn. The company attributed the forecasted rise to an increase in the production and sales scale of its leading products.

China Cement Association Information Centre deputy director and Digital Cement Network CEO Chen Bailin estimated that demand will remain steady across China in 2020, according to Yicai News.

Gabon: Gabon produced 0.42Mt in 2019, exceeding production figures for 2018 of 0.33Mt by 21%. Sales were US$50.6m – up by 16% from US$42.5m. Direct newspaper attributed the growth to both domestic producers, reporting that CimGabon has improved the efficient use of production equipment, while CIMAF also ramped up production.