IRan

Iran: Jovein Cement has won an award for most environmentally conscious cement manufacturer in Iran.

Reasons for winning the award included: the cement producer's efforts to extend the lifetime of its kiln refractory bricks by optimising the rate of production and thereby the energy consumption of natural gas; the recycling of refractory materials; investing in installing an online pollution analyser on the plant's main exhaust; using electro-filter technology to reduce the amount of cement dust and other general pollution released to the neighbouring community.

Future plans by Jovein Cement include the installation of a waste heat recovery system to recycle up to 30% of the heat generated by the plant. As an ancillary benefit the plant will also be able to heat water used at the site.

India: Kiran Global Chems has launched Geocement, an environmentally-friendly branded cement. The company claims that the product is stronger than Ordinary Portland Cement and that it does not require water for mixing or curing, according to local media.

Geocement is made from Geopowder and Geobinder, other products also made by Kiran Global Chems. Geopowder uses industrial by-products such as fly ash, rice husk ash, slag, activated clay and alumina. At construction sites it can be mixed with the company's proprietary Geobinder liquid and aggregates to make concrete. The company claims that Geocement does not require water curing and attains maximum strength within seven hours. Kiran Global Chems has also launched Geocrete, a Geocement concrete made with its powder and binder for various industrial applications.

"We have started distributing this to the bulk customers, such as builders and now we are launching the brand for retail. We are planning to sell it through e-commerce," said M S Jain, chairman of Kiran Global Chems. The price of Geocement will be slightly higher than normal cement, but it promises lower finished building cost and less construction time and labour. The company intends to target southern Indian states in 2016.

Kiran Global is also preparing a US$29m expansion programme to set up 12 Geobinder units, 12 Geopowder plants, two precast concrete units and four grinding units across the country. The expansion, is intended to cut logistics cost, will result in 4Mt of capacity with a potential turnover of up to US$300m by the 2018 – 2019 financial year. The company has an in-house research and development centre, accredited by the Union Ministry of Science and Technology, and has been conducting geopolymer research in collaboration with leading research institutes.

Iran: Iran's Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI) has announced that it has broken a US monopoly in the production of deepwell cement plugs.

Previously, only American companies manufactured the plugs used for solving numerous deepwell problems like lost-circulation, sidetracking or directional drilling, according to RIPI. "The technology is of great significance in oil and gas drilling projects," said Talat Khalkhali, Director of a project to develop the technology at RIPI. She said that the plugs are used to inject wellbore fluids and slurries during cementing operations in order to prevent them from mixing together. "Sidetracking incurs serious costs on cementing operations and the new plugs help reduce the cost to a considerable proportion," said Khalkhali, while adding that properly placing the designed cement plug helps reduce non-productive rig time, minimises wasted material and mitigates the need for additional cementing services.

National Iranian South Oil Company tasked RIPI with carrying out studies for developing and formulating the plugs by employing domestic experts in 2010. RIPI reverse-engineered cement plugs produced by top producers in the US and could manufacture them after six years of consecutive work. The high pressure, high temperature (HPHT) plugs can be used for wells up to 4500m deep. According to Khalkhali, their American rivals can only be used for up to 2500m deep wells.

The Iranian plugs have been tested several times at numerous wells across the country at various depths and have proven successful.

Iran: About 35% of Iran's cement kilns, or 30 – 35 of a total of 97 kilns at 71 cement plants, are not working due to the gas shortage and technical problems, reported Abdolreza Sheikhan, Secretary of Iran's Cement Industry Employers Association on 2 January 2016.

Iran's cement sector is suffering a gas shortage, according to Sheikhan. He said that the country's cement output has decreased by 10 – 12% in 21 March 2015 – 21 November 2015. Sheikhan has forecast that Iran's annual cement output will fall by some 12% compared to the preceding fiscal year, which ended on 21 March 2015. During the year, Iran produced over 61Mt of cement.

The National Iranian Gas Company has stopped supplying gas to a number of cement plants due to a wave of cold weather. However, the ongoing problem is not due to output shortage, but because of a delay in inaugurating a projected compressor station, according to Iranian media. It was already planned that the country's gas transmission capacity would increase by 80Mm3/day in 2016 by installing five compressor stations en route to the transmission pipeline, but the stations have not become fully operational yet.

Iran: The National Iranian Gas Company has stopped supplying gas to a number of cement plants due to a wave of cold sweeping the country.

As gas consumption has peaked in the recent cold days, some cement plants, including those in the west of the country, have stopped receiving gas, according to Abdolreza Sheikhan, Secretary of Iran's Cement Association. He complained that with the shortage of gas, the plants cannot use the heavy fuel oil mazut either because a government law to provide the factories with mazut at the same price as gas has not been implemented. Despite the fact that the cement plants store enough mazut to run for 7 - 10 days, they are not using their reserves because they are not sure if they will receive mazut as the law has stipulated. Sheikhan said that, when the plants stopped working for 20 days under similar circumstances in 2014, the Oil Ministry refused to pay them from the income it had made by economising on gas.

Tajikistan: The government of Tajikistan is looking for investors for construction of a 1Mt/yr cement plant near the Tuyun-Tao limestone deposit in the Shakhritus district in the south of the country, according to Avesta news agency.

The project has been included in the government's investment portfolio for implementation through direct investments, according to the Tajik State Committee of Investment and State Property Management. The project requires US$350m of investment. Some Russian, Iranian and Chinese companies earlier showed interest in the deposit. Indeed, in 2012, Chinese building materials corporation CNBM prepared a feasibility study for the project, but the project did not reach implementation phase due to its high cost and the absence of infrastructure.

Brazil: Votorantim Industrial, Brazil's largest industrial conglomerate, has posted a net loss for the third quarter of 2015 due to the impact of a deep economic recession and rising US Dollar debt-servicing costs after a currency plunge, according to Reuters.

Votorantim posted a net loss of US$22m, down sharply from a profit of US$155m a year earlier. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation fell by a third to US$429m from a year ago, when Votorantim booked one-time earnings from an energy auction. The Brazilian Real fell to an all-time low in the third quarter of 2015, driving up Votorantim's gross debt by US$1.88bn to US$8.06bn at the end of September 2015.

Chief Executive Officer João Miranda highlighted investments outside of Brazil as the country suffers its sharpest economic contraction in 25 years. "In the face of Brazil's economic recession, our diversified business and international presence become even more important in delivering consistent results," said Miranda. Votorantim's capital spending rose by 55% to US$246m in the quarter, half of which was intended to expand capacity, particularly at cement plants outside of Brazil.

Pakistan: The All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) has said that the growth in the domestic economy has supported overall growth in the cement industry. However it added that the industry has had to approach various decision makers to stop the influx of Iranian cement into Pakistan from Iran via Balochistan. The APCMA said that the industry needs a safeguard mechanism to be put in place to stop the adverse effects of cement smuggling into the country. It stated that the government should impose a 20% Regulatory Duty for import of cement in addition to the current customs duty.

The APCMA spokesperson added that, due to the high cost of doing business in Pakistan, the country's cement industry is losing competitiveness to other countries such as Iran, the UAE and India. The industry has appealed for reduction in energy costs, removal of taxes imposed on gas, a reduction of custom duty on coal to zero and an additional incentive of 5% on export of cement by sea.

Statistics indicate that the cement sector is now almost completely dependent on domestic sales, the share of which has increased to over 80% of total cement sales compared to just 50% in 2008 - 2009, as domestic sales continue to increase, while exports are showing constant decline. Cement dispatches to domestic markets during the month of October 2015 were 2.6Mt compared with 2.1Mt during October 2014, an increase of 24% year-on-year.

Vietnam: The Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) has signed a credit contract with Thanh Thang Cement Corporation to develop a second production line at its cement plant in Thanh Nghi, Ha Nam.

Under the agreement, the BIDV will lend Thanh Thang Cement US$156m. The project requires a total investment of US$250m. The new line will have 2.3Mt/yr of cement production capacity. It was added to the government's plan for the cement industry in Vietnam during the 2011 - 2020 period. Once completed for operation in 2017, the project is expected to create jobs for more than 1000 local labourers.

Vietnam has become the fifth-largest cement producer and consumer in the world after China, India, Iran and the US. The country now has 74 cement production lines with a combined output of 77Mt/yr. The output volume is predicted to continue increasing. The ministry has predicted that Vietnam's sales of cement and clinker will to rise by 1.5 - 4% year-on-year to 72 – 74Mt in 2015, of which domestic sales will rise by 4.5 - 6.5% to 53 – 54Mt and exports will be at 19 – 20Mt.

Pakistan: Cement exports from Pakistan fell by 36% year-on-year to 467,000t in September 2015, as the import duty by South Africa took a heavy toll on its exports.

"Around 45 – 50% of total cement exports were destined for South Africa before the duty was imposed," said Sheikh Adeel, Senior Manager of Sales and Marketing at Maple Leaf Cement. South Africa has imposed duty as high as 77% on Pakistan's cements. Adeel said that the drop in exports has adversely affected exporters in Punjab. The transportation cost from Punjab to Karachi Port also rose by US$20/t.

Another industry official said that the industry is not utilising its production capacity. "There is enough idle capacity. The government should step in to support the industry to export surplus volumes, otherwise cement exports will continue to decline in the coming months," said Shahzad Ahmed, a spokesman of the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA). "We expect the government to announce export incentives for the cement industry."

In September 2014, cement exports stood at 730,000t, according to APCMA data. Total cement dispatches were recorded at 2.95Mt in September 2015 compared to 3.15Mt in September 2014, showing a cut of 6.34%. The industry data showed that cement dispatches to domestic markets were 2.48Mt in September 2015 compared to 2.42Mt in September 2014, up by 2.6%.

The local industry has been demanding that the government curb cement imports from Iran, which they said is eating into local share. "The industry expects the government to take effective steps to stop the penetration of Iranian cement in Pakistani markets through massive under invoicing and/or mis-declaration," said Ahmed. He added that the mills in the south suffered more than those operating in northern part of the country.

In the south, domestic cement dispatches declined to 399,581t in September 2015 from 431,133t in September 2014. Domestic consumption in the north, however, rose to 2.08Mt in September 2015 from 1.99Mt in September 2014. Ahmed said that domestic dispatches in the north were nominally higher than the 2.02Mt of consumption in September 2015. "This shows that the pace of construction in the north has not been hit as badly as in the south," he said. The export decline was almost the same both in north and south. Cement exports from the north declined to 306,564t in September 2015 from 480,025t in September 2014. Exports from the south dipped to 160,698t in September 2015 from 249,906t in September 2014.