Displaying items by tag: Algeria

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has appointed Caroline Luscombe as the group’s new Head of Organisation and Human Resources and member of the Executive Committee. Her role starts from 1 July 2016 and she will be based in Zurich. She succeeds Jean-Jacques Gauthier.

Luscombe joins LafargeHolcim from Syngenta where she has been Head of Human Resources since January 2010 and a member of the Executive Committee since 2012. Prior to joining Syngenta, Luscombe held senior human resource roles in the financial and healthcare businesses of the GE Group, and in the speciality chemical company, Laporte.

Having led the human resource integration between Lafarge and Holcim, Jean-Jacques Gauthier will be appointed as the Country Chief Executive Officer in Algeria from 1 September 2016. On taking up his new role, Jean-Jacques will relinquish his position on the Executive Committee.

Algeria: Cement production has resumed at the Société des Ciments Sour El-Ghozlane plant following maintenance work and an upgrade to add an electrostatic precipitator filter. The 1Mt/yr plant, a subsidiary of Buzzi Unicem, has been shut for nearly two months causing a shortage of cement in the central region of the country. This has led to some construction projects stalling and the cost of cement rising, according to El Watan.

Algeria: Orascom Construction has signed a contract to build a 6000t/day greenfield cement plant in Algeria for an unnamed private sector client. The deal is part of a wider set of industrial and infrastructure projects worth US$200m the engineering and construction contractor has announced including infrastructure work for an industrial complex in Algeria and an order to manufacture and supply all structural steel for the West Nile Delta gas development project.

“These new construction contracts build on our substantial track record in Algeria that stretches across a number of sectors including power, water desalination, petrochemicals and cement. We are also pleased to receive a large order to fabricate and supply the steel structure for an important gas development in Egypt, and look forward to further participating in this sector through our construction group and National Steel Fabrication,” said Osama Bishai, CEO of Orascom Construction.

Algeria/Denmark: FLSmidth has signed a Euro200m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with SARL Amouda Engineering for the supply of a greenfield cement plant. The plant will be located in El Beida, Laghouat.

The order includes engineering, equipment supplies, construction, commissioning and training. Once completed, the cement plant will have a capacity of 6000t/day.

"EPC solutions are increasingly requested by the industry and we are very happy that SARL Amouda Engineering chose FLSmidth as the preferred supplier based on a very close collaboration and our extensive knowledge of the region,” said Group Executive Vice President of the Cement Division Per Mejnert Kristensen.

Algeria: A US$277m joint venture cement plant between Lafarge Algeria (51%) and Algeria's Souakri (49%) in Biskra will start operations in 2016.

The Director of Public Affairs and Communications at Lafarge Algeria, Serge Dubois, said that the plant, which will produce 2.7Mt/yr of cement, will raise the group's overall production to more than 11Mt/yr. Lafarge Algeria currently has two cement plants in M'sila and Oggaz with 8.7Mt/yr of capacity. It also holds the 1Mt/yr Meftah cement plant in partnership with Algeria (GICA).

Algeria: According to All Africa, the Algerian minister of Industry and Mines Abdeslam Bouchouareb has said that the country is moving towards, "Self-sufficiency in cement and steel products thanks to the new facilities that will be operational in the short term."

Bouchouareb said that Algeria, which imports about 3Mt/yr of cement, "Will manage to cover its needs and even over produce by 2016." It will be the first time since independence from France in 1962 that the country will cease cement imports.

Two new cement plants in Biskra with a total production capacity of 4Mt/yr will, besides the national network of operating cement plants, meet the demand of the domestic cement market. Privately-owned La Biskrie des Ciments will be operational in December 2015 with an 1Mt/yr of cement production capacity.

Algeria: Qalaa Holdings, an investment company in the Middle East and Africa, has reported that its revenue in the first quarter of 2015 grew by 42.5% year-on-year to US$256m. Growth was driven mainly by operational improvements at ASEC Cement's Sudan subsidiary Al-Takamol, which recorded 157% year-on-year revenue growth. The energy and cement segments contributed 71% to its consolidated revenues.

Qalaa Holdings reported that its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) stood at US$36.2m, an eight-fold increase on the same period of 2014. It had a net loss after tax and minority of US$14.7m in the first quarter of 2015, a 51.6% year-on-year improvement. Foreign exchange charges rose to US$6.95m, compared to a gain of US$1.71m in the first quarter of 2014. Qalaa Holdings' cement and construction unit ASEC Holding recorded US$10.2m in foreign exchange losses due to its stake in dollar-denominated ASEC Holding Convertible.

Qalaa Holdings' plans for the future include several cement divestments. Negotiations are progressing for the sale of ASEC Cement's operations in Algeria, with an Algerian Holding Company in the cement industry being the natural buyer for Zahana Cement as it already owns 65% of the company. The greenfield plant in Djelfa, Algeria is being bid for by two Algeria-based industrial groups.

Algeria: The construction works of an Algerian-South African cement plant with a capacity of 2.2Mt/yr will begin shortly, according to Abdelkrim Mansouri, Director General of the Algerian National Development Agency for Investment (NDAI). "All administrative procedures have now been finalised and the initiators of this project will start the work of constructing the plant shortly," he said.

This project is the result of a partnership between Hodna Algerian Cement Company and leading South African cement producer PPC, concluded in accordance with rules that stipulate a maximum 49% ownership by foreign firms in Algerian-based investments. At a total cost of US$287m, the plant will be 80% financed by Algerian banks and 20% financed by the two joint venture partners.

Algeria: Germany's Gebr. Pfeiffer SE has won a contract through the Chinese General Contractor CBMI to supply a MVR 6700 C-6 type cement mill and a MVR 6000 R-6 raw mill, both of which will be installed at the Lafarge cement works situated near the Algerian town of Biskra. The cement mill is the second-largest in the world after a mill supplied by Gebr. Pfeiifer to Holcim's Barosso plant in Brazil.

The cement mill, featuring Gebr. Pfeiffer's MultiDrive® concept with an installed total drive power of 9125kW, will produce 231-342t/hr of OPC ground to a product fineness of 3700-4800cm²/g according to Blaine.

The raw mill, which will come equipped with a conventional drive with an installed power of 6120kW, is designed to grind 680t/hr of cement raw material to a finished product fineness of ≤12% R 90 µm and 460t/hr of limestone to a product fineness of ≤1% R 150µm.

The delivery of the mills is expected in the summer of 2015.

Algeria has been steadily building up cement industry interest over the past few months. In late 2013 Lafarge opened its fourth world research laboratory in Algiers. Then this week South African producer PPC confirmed its intention to enter the local market with a new plant and German construction firm ThyssenKrupp announced an order to build a cement plant for Groupe Industriel des Ciments d'Algérie.

According to United States Geological Survey (USGS) data, Algeria saw its cement production more than double from 9Mt/yr in 2002 to 20Mt/yr in 2011. At present Global Cement Directory 2014 figures places the country's cement production capacity from 21Mt/yr with 30Mt/yr a reasonable estimate for 2017. Throw in similarly rising gross domestic product per capita, US$7500 in 2013, with infrastructure investments of US$286bn planned and Algeria appears to be a promising investment for the cement market.

Lafarge, which holds minority stakes in two cement plants in the country, reported that market demand was high in 2012. Its cement sales rose by 9% year-on-year in 2013. The other major foreign player, ASEC Cement, reported in its 2012 financial report that Algeria consumed 21Mt of cement in 2012 but that it had to import 3Mt that year. ASEC was planning to build a 3.16Mt/yr plant at Djelfa to plug that market gap. Yet news reports in early 2013 reveal that the project was paused due to financial issues at ASEC with the suggestion of a possible downgrade to a 1.5Mt/yr production capacity instead.

The decision by PPC to build in Algeria is the first big project by one of Africa's international sub-Saharan cement producers north of the Sahara. It steps away from PPC's expansion strategy so far of building projects out from South Africa. Hodna in Algeria is a long way from Johannesburg! It will also cause tension between PPC and whoever is supplying imported cement to Algeria, most likely indebted southern European producers. Both PPC and its Nigerian competitor Dangote are used to fighting foreign imports to their core markets. Data from the Algerian customs office show that the value of cement imports to Algeria in 2013 rose by 26% year-on-year to US$395m. That's a market worth fighting for.