August 2025

Mali: Ibrahima Dibo, a director of Diamond Cement Mali has denied that his company is responsible for recent price rises. At a press conference on the issue he explained that the cement producer has had fixed prices in conjunction with the government at its units at Astro and Dio Gare since 2012, according to the Le Républicain newspaper. Instead he blamed traders for exploiting cement shortages and poor roads. Dibo added that the company produced 0.73Mt of cement in 2016 from its two units in the country but that its sales have fallen since then. As a whole the country has an estimated 3Mt/yr demand for cement.

South Korea/Thailand: Austria’s Unitherm Cemcon has commissioned a MAS kiln burner at a cement plant in South Korea. The order was issued in late 2018 for three MAS burners. The first burner was delivered in February 2019 and the other two in March 2019. In May 2019 Unitherm Cemcon says it supported the commissioning of the first burner.

The scope of supply included two 43MW MAS/4/KO SO type burners for coal and heavy oil and one 87MW MAS/7/KO SO.X type rotary kiln burner for coal, heavy oil and solid secondary fuels. All three burners have been executed with a divisible burner jacket tube. One MAS/7/KO.SO.X is already successfully operating in another line, firing up to 6t/hr of coal and around 10t/hr of solid secondary fuel.

The burner manufacturer has also been awarded a contract to supply a hot gas generator for a plant in Thailand. The scope of supply includes: engineering and manufacturing drawings for the hot gas generator combustion chamber; a combined 45MW oil and coal burner; a primary air fan; a gas electric pilot burner; a flame monitoring device; and an oil valve train with burner management system.

Myanmar: 17 residents have been injured in a protest against the Alpha Cement Plant at Patheingyi in the Kyaukse district or the Mandalay region. Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at the protestors, according to Radio Free Asia. The local residents were complaining about compensation for a road that is being built as part of the project. Concerns have also been raised over the use of Chinese nationals at the site.

The Alpha Cement Plant, previously known as Myanmar Conch Cement, is a joint venture between Myanmar's Myint Investment Group and China's Anhui Conch. The unit is currently being upgraded to a production capacity of 5000t/day. Construction work started in late 2017.

Jan Jenisch and the team at LafargeHolcim only went and bloody did it! Apologies for readers not wanting yet more column inches on LafargeHolcim but when the world’s largest cement producer leaves an entire sub-continental market it deserves mention.

First Indonesia, then Malaysia and now the Philippines. LafargeHolcim will soon no longer produce clinker in Southeast Asia. That’s a region with 651 million inhabitants or around 8% of the world’s total population. All of those people need cement and other building products as their nations build houses, infrastructure and so on. And LafargeHolcim is no longer there.

The reason, of course, is local production overcapacity in many of these countries and rampageous importers pulling in cheaper product from elsewhere. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) includes Thailand and Vietnam, two of the world’s largest cement exporters. The region also borders China, the place which could produce 40% of the world’s cement if it so wanted. So, understandably, LafargeHolcim pulled the plug. Note that the recent divestments in the region didn’t include its seabourne trading wing, LafargeHolcim Trading. Oh no! Clearly, if you can’t beat them, you join them instead.

So, what to say about the Philippines sale? Unlike the divestments in Indonesia, this sale has valued the production base more highly. LafargeHolcim’s integrated production capacity, including the upgrade at its Bulacan plant, is being sold for over US$175/t with the partial share factored in. And that’s not even including the grinding plant at Mabini. The sale in Indonesia was US$120/t or lower. The Duterte administration’s infrastructure drive (Build, Build, Build) and muscular government action on imports have doubtless played their part here. Yet still LafargeHolcim sold. In the words of chief executive officer (CEO) Jan Jenisch the area was ‘hyper competitive.’

Back home at the group’s headquarters in Switzerland, the potential revenue of over US$4bn from the three ASEAN divestment is poised to trickle onto the balance sheets for 2019. If it were all to go towards debt reduction then these proceeds could pile drive the group’s net financial debt to below Euro10bn. This would be good place to be if the on-going Chinese-US trade tiffs became a little hotter, say, or in the case of a fresh banking crisis. Alternatively the group could pick a new region for development and start all over again or focus on diversifying its business along the building materials chain. And let’s not forget the potential legal bill from the on-going investigation into Lafarge Syria’s conduct during the Syrian civil war.

Throughout this whole exercise, from the outside looking in at LafargeHolcim’s actions, the thought has persistently been: what do they know that everyone else doesn’t? The answer, it may turn out to be, nothing. Yet, rightly or wrongly, we’re marvelling at the bravado of it all.

Japan: Toshihiko Onishi has been appointed as Representative Director, Executive Vice President of Sumitomo Osaka. He succeeds Yushi Suga. The final decision on the promotion will be made in late June 2019 at the company’s annual general meeting. Onishi, aged 61 years, is currently a Senior Managing Executive Office for Sumitomo Osaka. He joined the group in 1981 and became a director in 2016.

Europe/Singapore: ZAG International has appointed Daniel Ulestig as Managing Director, Head of Global Shipping and European Business operation. He will have responsibility for all of ZAG’s shipping activities around the world as well as leading the company’s business interests in Europe.

Ulestig started his career as a trainee at Holcim Trading in Madrid, Spain in 1998. In 2003, he joined Belden Shipping as a market analysts and moved to Singapore in early 2004 later becoming its Commercial Director. Belden Shipping was subsequently acquired by Kristian Gerhard Jebsen Skipsrederi of Bergen, Norway in late 2006. In 2008, Ulestig was named Assistant Vice President of KGJC Cement (Singapore), with responsibility for all chartering activities east of the Suez. In 2010, he assumed oversight of the Singapore office and was named to the entity’s board of directors in 2011. In 2014, Ulestig was made Vice President of KGJ Cement in Singapore. He moved back to Sweden in late 2017 where he continued to serve as KGJ Cement’s Vice President Chartering.

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim’s net sales grew by 2.2% year-on-year to Euro5.28bn in the first quarter of 2019 from Euro5.17bn in the same period in 2018. Its recurring earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 15.55 to Euro717m from Euro620m. Its cement sales volumes remained stable at 50Mt and sales volumes of ready-mix concrete increased by 2.1% to 11.1Mm³.

“We had a very strong start of the year and I am especially pleased to see our strong sales growth and an over-proportional increase in profitability. Our momentum is very positive and the Q1 2019 is the third consecutive quarter with recurring EBITDA growing faster than net sales,” said chief executive officer (CEO) Jan Jenisch. He added that the group’s decision to sell its Southeast Asian operations was, “executed with very attractive valuations, allowing us to achieve a new level of financial strength.”

By region the group performed poorly in Asia Pacific, Middle East Africa and Latin America, with falling net sales. Earnings also fell in Middle East Africa. However, significant sales increases in Europe and North America more than compensated for this.

Colombia: Cementos Argos’ revenue grew by 14% year-on-year to US$657m in the first quarter of 2019 from US$576m in the same period in 2018. Its operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 3.7% to US$94m from US$90.7m. Its cement sales volumes increased by 4.7% to 3.86Mt from 3.69Mt. Ready-mixed concrete sales volumes increased by 2.3% to 2.5Mm³. Revenue grew fastest in the US followed by Colombia but it decreased in the Caribbean and Central America.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka has blamed falling income from its cement business on rising coal prices. Its overall net sales rose by 2.5% year-on-year US$2.92bn the year to 31 March 2019 from US$2.24bn in the same period in 2018. It net income nearly halved to US$71.2m from US$134m. Despite national exports falling in the cement sector the company said that it was focusing on an overseas cement strategy.

India: Dalmia Seven, a joint venture between Dalmia Bharat Group and Austria’s Seven Refractories, has launched a new monolithic refractory production line at its Katni plant in Madhya Pradesh. Following the upgrade the unit has a production capacity of 45,000t/yr, according to the Press Trust of India. The new production line is intended to meeting growing demand nationally from the cement, steel and iron industries.