Displaying items by tag: Ambuja

Singapore: Banking and financial services company DBS Group says it has controlled its exposure to India-based Adani Group. Chief executive officer Piyush Gupta said "They're solid, cash-generating companies, so we're not concerned about the exposure," according to Reuters. He added that the cement industry has ‘”huge potential” in India. The company was part of a group of banks that lent Adani Group US$10.5bn to fund its acquisition of Ambuja Cement and ACC from Holcim in 2022. DBS Group contributed around US$751m. Adani Group has seen its share price fall since US-based short-seller Hindenburg Research accused it of stock manipulation and accounting fraud in late January 2023.

India: Shree Cement has appointed Neeraj Akhoury as its designated managing director. Hari Mohan Bangur has also been appointed as chair and Prashant Bangur as Vice Chair. All these personnel changes are subject to approval by the members of the company. In addition, Gopal Bangur has resigned as chair and will become Chairman Emeritus.

Akhoury holds nearly 30 years of professional experience in the cement and steel sectors. He began his career in 1993 at Tata Steel, working for both the cement and steel divisions. He joined Lafarge India in 1999 and worked as member of the Executive Committee responsible for corporate affairs followed by sales. In 2011, he moved to Nigeria as the head of Lafarge AshakaCem. Later, he was appointed as Strategy & Business Development Director for the Middle East & Africa at Lafarge’s headquarters in Paris. He became the head of LafargeHolcim Bangladesh in 2015 and then was appointed as the head of ACC in 2017 and Ambuja Cement in 2020.

Akhoury is a graduate in economics from Allahabad University and holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Liverpool. He has also studied one-year General Management Program at XLRI Jamshedpur and is an alumunus of Harvard Business School.

Fuels procurement and costs have been weighing on the minds of Indian cement producers since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Two news stories this week show some of this. The first concerns recent imports of petcoke from Venezuela. The second covers the closure of captive power plants due to domestic shortages of coal.

At the same time, as the financial results for cement companies for the first quarter of the Indian 2023 financial year have been released, one constant has been hefty hikes in power and fuel costs. Graph 1 below gives a rough idea of the jump in costs major producers have been contending with. One point to note is that, possibly, the larger cement companies may have been better at slowing down the cost inflation from fuel. However, the prevalence of waste heat recovery installations and alternative fuels usage may also be a factor here. Finally, the company approved to buy Ambuja Cement and ACC, Adani Group, also runs India’s biggest coal trader. It will be interesting to see in the medium term how this might affect the fuel costs for its new cement division.

Graph 1: Comparison of Power & Fuel costs for selected Indian cement producers in first quarter of 2022 and 2023 financial years. Source: Company financial reports.

The Venezuelan story demonstrates the greater lengths that Indian cement producers are now going to secure fuel supplies. Reuters reports that cement companies imported at least 160,000t of petcoke from the South American country between April and June 2022 and that more was on the way. JSW Cement, Ramco Cements and Orient Cement are among them. The Venezuelan oil industry has been under US economic sanctions since 2019 but byproducts such as petcoke are not covered by this. Its petcoke has apparently been discounted by 5 - 10% below the price of US alternatives.

Indian cement producers have been prepared to risk US sanctions further by importing coal from Russia. The Business Standard newspaper, using data from Coalmint, reported that Russia became India’s third largest source of coal imports, at 2.06Mt, in July 2022. Before the war it was the sixth-largest source of coal to the country. Again, Reuters covered how cement companies were doing this in July 2022, when it revealed that UltraTech Cement had used India-based HDFC Bank to purchase coal using Chinese Renminbi, not the US Dollar as is more common for international purchases of commodities. In a conference call for the release of its first quarter results, UltraTech Cement’s chief financial officer Atul Daga confirmed the purchase and described it as “opportunistic.” He added that, “If something more surfaces, we will pick it up.” As the data for July 2022 shows, it may or may not be UltraTech Cement that is buying Russian coal right now but other parties in India certainly are.

Some of the wider economic implications about India buying Russian coal in the face of US and European sanctions include whether any retaliation might be forthcoming and a general sign that the dominance of the US Dollar as the world’s reserve currency is not guaranteed. The former seems doubtful given the size of India’s markets. Yet if the sanctions against Russia drag on then a shift in the global economic status quo becomes more likely, especially if opportunistic purchases become regular ones.

The situation facing captive power plants illustrates one more turn of the screw on energy costs for industrial manufacturers. 30% of captive power plants in India are reportedly closed due to the high cost of coal or an inability to even import it. Although it is worth noting that it is unclear whether, proportionally, more or less of these are serving cement plants. As N Srinivasan, the vice-chairman and managing director of India Cements told the Business Standard newspaper, “Most of our plants have coal based captive power generation. The cost of captive generation is now more than the grid cost. Hence, we shut down all captive power units and resorted to grid power.”

The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast in July 2022 that Indian coal demand would grow by 3% year-on-year to 1.16Bnt in 2023 due to expanded electrification and economic growth. In its view, global coal demand will be driven principally by China but also by India to a lesser extent. However, unhelpfully, it added that uncertainty was also rising with ongoing developments in the war in Ukraine having a prominent effect. This is unlikely to assist Indian cement producers and their fuel buyers who will be asking themselves: how long will the current situation last and can the prices be passed on to consumers? There is one small silver lining in the current group of economic storm clouds hanging over cement producers at least. The second quarter of the Indian financial year is monsoon season, when economic activity slows down. It won’t slow the trend down but it may reduce the fuel bill a little.

India: Adani Group has secured US$5.25bn-worth of bank loans from Barclays, BNP Paribas and Citigroup for its acquisition of Holcim’s Indian cement businesses ACC and Ambuja Cements. The Business Standard newspaper has reported that the group plans to expand its cement capacity by 43% to 100Mt/yr from 70Mt/yr.

India: Ambuja Cements' sales were US$495m in the first quarter of its 2023 financial year, up by 18% year-on-year from first-quarter 2022 financial year levels. Its net profit rose by 45% to US$131m from US$90.4m.The company said that it experienced rising fuel prices and related inflationary impacts during the quarter. It mitigated their impacts through the improved efficiencies delivered under its I Can operating strategy. Meanwhile, its master supply agreement with ACC also helped to restrict growth in transport costs.

Holcim India chief executive officer (CEO) and Ambuja Cements managing director and CEO Neeraj Akhoury said "Ambuja has recorded robust volume growth of 15% and top line growth of 18%. Ambuja Kawach, our green cement, demonstrated a sales growth of 22% year on year."

India: UltraTech Cement has taken legal advice for its planned bid for Holcim's Indian business and says that it will volunteer to divest 15Mt/yr-worth of cement assets in order to accelerate the Competition Commission of India (CCI) approval process which would follow on from the acceptance of any offer. The Economic Times newspaper has reported that UltraTech Cement has filed five long form merger notifications for acquisitions of this type since 2013. These included its purchases of Binani Cement and Century Cement, and of Jaypee Group's Gujarati cement assets.

The Financial Express newspaper has reported that fellow contender Adani Group has offered 'more than' US$10bn for the assets, while JSW Group plans to offer US$7bn. BusinessLine Online News has reported that a fourth company, steel producer ArcelorMittal, has also held initial talks with Holcim over the assets.

In considering possible competition issues arising under any future deal, the CCI will factor in planned and upcoming cement capacity. In Gujarat, where Holcim India subsidiaries ACC and Ambuja Cements operate 6.8Mt/yr-worth of capacity, Adani Group plans to build a new 10Mt/yr cement plant at Lakhpat.

India: Ambuja Cement plans to invest US$469m in a 7Mt/yr expansion to its total grinding capacity. BusinessLine Online News has reported that the new capacity will consist of a new grinding plant at Barh, Bihar, and expansions to the company’s Farakka and Sankrail grinding plants in West Bengal. The company says that the new grinding capacity will become crucial after it completes its planned 3.2Mt/yr clinker capacity expansion to its Bhatapara cement plant in Chhattisgarh.

India: Ambuja Cements has celebrated the recognition of its water management practices through its listing on CDP's Water A List 2021. The company is the first cement producer to acheive the rating. It said that it succeeded through 'prudent' use of water- for instance through modular curing and concrete mix proportion adjustments - and harvesting. In addition, it continues to evolve its cement portfolio to minimise its consumption of natural resources, with a focus on water. Ambuja Cements' Sustainable Development Ambition 2030 strategy commits it to a freshwater withdrawal reduction of 15% by 2030. Its initiatives have so far saved 70Ml of water, according to the company. It called this a 'robust step' on the global path to sustainable construction and said that it will continue to advocate for environmentally friendly solutions.

Managing director and chief executive officer Neeraj Akhoury said "Water has always been the key focus area for Ambuja Cements. This achievement reaffirms our will to remain committed to address water scarcity issues in future and contribute to the establishment of sustainable tomorrow."

Belgium: Environmental disclosure organisation CDP has listed Cemex, HeidelbergCement and Holcim among 200 companies on its 2021 Climate Change A List for actions to mitigate their CO2 emissions. Holcim’s Indian subsidiaries ACC and Ambuja Cements also received A ratings. Both ACC and Ambuja appeared on CDP’s 2021 Water Security A List, while Holcim scored an A-.

Chief executive officer Jan Jenisch said “Building on the launch of our nature-positive strategy this year, we set new and ambitious goals to achieve water security across our operations worldwide, with our colleagues from Ambuja in India leading the way. CDP’s rankings this year are a testimony to the tremendous work carried out by our 70,000 people around the world and a great encouragement for all of us to keep raising the bar.”

India: ACC and Ambuja Cements have partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IITD) to develop a range of calcined clay cements with 50% lower CO₂ emissions than Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). The collaboration will vary clinker, calcined clay and limestone levels in calcined clay cements in order to ascertain their effects on its performance. France-based Holcim Innovation Centre will fund the research.

Holcim India chief executive officer and managing director Neeraj Akhoury said "Through our extensive research and development setup, we consistently strive to develop new low-CO₂ materials for the construction industry. Calcined clay cement is one such avenue to make a significant quantitative difference in the industry and further accelerate our sustainability drive. Our academic partnership with IITD is a big step towards building a greener future and we are excited to collaborate with the best minds in the country."

The producers have previously partnered with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) to study low-CO₂ binders with alternative reinforcements and with the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad (IITH) to develop smart sensing technology for continuous on-site strength evaluation of a concrete structure.