Displaying items by tag: Ambuja
India: According to the latest data from the Gujarat Pollution Control Board (GPCB), the utilisation of hazardous waste as an alternative fuel and raw material (AFR) in cement kilns has increased by a factor of 35 since 2009 – 2010 from 15,693t/yr to 543,569t/yr in 2013 - 2014.
This follows the GPCB's measures to strike a balance between the disposal of toxic hazardous wastes, environmental protection and economic interests. Safe disposal of toxic hazardous waste posed a major challenge before the state pollution regulator took up disposal through cement kilns under controlled conditions.
In 2011 Gujarat State generated 109Bnt/yr of incinerable waste, 1107Bnt/yr of land-fillable waste and 577Bnt/yr of recyclable hazardous waste. These included plastic waste, spent carbon, tar, mixed waste liquid, pharmaceutical waste, tyre chips, agricultural waste, solid waste, chemical gypsum, iron sludge, copper slag and fly ash.
The GPCB encouraged major industrial clusters and cement plants to provide waste collection centres and pre-processing facilities for hazardous waste for co-processing. "It is a recovery of energy and material from waste," said Hardik Shah, member secretary of the GPCB. "The challenging task was to convince the top management of cement plants." The GPCB facilitated cement makers with access to its data on the waste generated in the State via Extended Green Node (XGN) software, which ensured the supply of suitable wastes.
"This involves some additional investment, but in the long run it repays as there are savings on fuel costs," said an Ambuja Cement spokesperson. Ambuja has invested US$16.7m to set up a pre-processing facility of solid/semi-solid waste at its Ambujanagar plant in Junagadh District, Gujarat State.
Similarly, Sanghi Industries is in the trial phase for using hazardous waste. "From a legal standpoint, we need to get clearance from the GPCB for co-processing any new waste material in our plant," said Alok Sanghi, director of Sanghi. "We have submitted the results of the trials conducted and are awaiting clearance from them." Sanghi has been doing trials for last 18 months.
"The use of alternative fuel in Indian cement industries has been limited," said GPCB's Shah. "The thermal substitution rate (TSR) in the cement industry is less than 1% in India as against 10% in Japan and 40% in European nations. The GPCB has set a target of three years to achieve a TSR of 10% by using AFR."
Ambuja Cements to set up three new plants
15 April 2014India: Ambuja Cements will invest US$133m in 2014 from internal funds in order to partially finance its on-going capacity expansion projects.
"2014 will see capital expenditure worth US$133m, over and above the US$120m investment made in 2013. The entire proposed expenditure will be financed by internal funds," Ambuja Cements said in its annual report.
At present, Ambuja Cements has a cement production capacity of 27.25Mt/yr. It is setting up three 1.5Mt/yr capacity greenfield cement plants in Rajsthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Ambuja Cements is investing US$581m for setting up the three new plants. The company is also adding 0.8Mt/yr of clinker capacity in West Bengal and Rajasthan.
India: Switzerland-based Holcim, the parent company of ACC and Ambuja Cements, will continue to retain its separate brands in India after its merger with Lafarge.
The management of ACC announced that there would be no impact to the existing brands post-merger. "The merger will be beneficial for the Indian cement industry and is expected to bring positive changes for the company," said the chairman of ACC, N S Sekhsaria. "ACC brand will remain intact after the merger of Holcim and Lafarge."
The merger is expected to take up to 18 months and Holcim's future plans in India will be known only after the merger is completed. Sekhsaria added that while the brands will be retained, there may be some rationalisation of operations.
Ambuja Cements and ACC to see top-level rejig
10 February 2014India: Ambuja Cements and ACC, the Indian arms of Holcim, are likely to see top-level management changes in the coming months. Managing director (MD) of Ambuja Cements, Onne van der Weijde and MD of ACC, Kuldip Kaura, have offered to resign, according to industry sources. Additionally, the sources revealed that Sumit Banerjee, the former MD of ACC who had quit to join Reliance Cement, is likely to re-join ACC as the MD.
The management changes at ACC and Ambuja Cements have resulted from restructuring of the parent company, Holcim, which has been underway since July 2013. Holcim has appointed Bernard Terver as the head of Asia, replacing Paul Hugentobler, who retired in February 2014. Terver, a member of the Holcim Executive Committee, has been appointed to head of a region that encompasses Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.
While van der Weijde is said to be unhappy with these management changes, Kaura is said to have been uncomfortable with the new structure, in which ACC will become a subsidiary of Ambuja Cements. Under the restructuring programme, an India management committee that is headed by van der Weijde, was to oversee the integration between the operations of Ambuja and ACC. The two MDs of Ambuja and ACC had to report to van der Weijde, which did not go down well with Kaura, according to unnamed sources. However, it's unlikely that Holcim will take any decision in haste, especially before the restructuring is approved by the Gujarat High Court, which is expected by April 2014.
Only after the court approval can Holcim receive full approval from the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), as currently it is only a conditional approval that is subject to legal clearances. Any management change at this juncture will lead to a lot of questioning, which will put the spotlight back on the entire process.
Ambuja Cements commissions Mangalore cement terminal
17 January 2014India: Ambuja Cements has commissioned its cement terminal unit at Mangalore in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. The US$57.1m project has a capacity of 1Mt/yr. With the launching of this unit, all of the states along the west coast will be covered by Ambuja Bulk Cement Terminals.
The terminal will provide Ambuja an opportunity to receive imported cement and also help to reduce the negative effects of seasonality at the Gujarat plant. The terminal will also reduce the logistic costs by having common vessels for Mangalore and Cochin Bulk Cement Terminal.
169 bags of low quality cement seized in Jammu
17 January 2014India: Jammu police, acting on a tip-off, seized 169 bags of low quality cement from a cement shop. The cement was labelled as Ambuja and ACC Cement.
"The cement dealer was selling low quality cement as Ambuja and ACC Cement to make a profit," police said. The dealer, Subhash Chander and shop worker, Vijay Kumar, were both arrested. Investigations are on-going.
India: Holcim Group, which is under the process of restructuring its holdings in India, has appointed Bernard Terver as additional director on the board of ACC and Ambuja Cements with effect from 4 December 2013.
Terver graduated from Ecole Polytechnique, Paris, in 1976 and has worked in the cement industry for more than 35 years. He has been in the service of Holcim since 1994, holding senior positions including that of CEO of Holcim Colombia and Holcim US.
The board also re-appointed Kuldip Kaura as the CEO and MD for one year with effect from 1 January 2014.
Ambuja Cements and ACC integration to save US$14.4m
03 December 2013India: Following the successful vote to re-structure Holcim's India operations, Ambuja Cements and ACC, the integration of common functions across the two companies has begun.
Holcim wants to eradicate the duplication of roles across the two companies that will aid in savings of US$144m through synergies in supply chain and fixed cost optimisation. The integration will see big changes for some of the two companys' 10,000 employees. Some will be relocated to the group's upcoming facilities as the cement makers have no plans to cut spending.
"The restructuring is about deriving further value from the Indian platform," said Anantharam Gopalkrishnan, vice president for the treasury and tax at Ambuja Cements.
Holcim intends to keep the two brands, Ambuja Cement and ACC, independent. It does not plan to launch the Holcim brand in India or market the two brands with the Holcim tag. When the integration process is completed, which is currently scheduled for 2015, Holcim intends to evaluate the full merger of the operating companies into one unified entity.
Holcim India’s rejig gets Ambuja public shareholders' nod
21 November 2013India: Ambuja Cements announced on 21 November 2013 that shareholders had approved a proposal by Swiss parent firm Holcim to rejig its Indian cement units, winning 377m of the 550m votes placed (68.5%). 173m votes were placed against the merger.
The resolution for the scheme of amalgamation between Holcim India and Ambuja Cements was passed through postal ballots with the majority of public shareholders voting in favour.
Holcim had proposed in July 2013 the restructuring of its Indian operations by merging subsidiary Holcim India with Ambuja Cements and transferring Holcim India's 50.01% stake in ACC to Ambuja, making it a holding company of ACC. Holcim now has a 61.4% stake in Ambuja.
Public institutional holders, which hold 614m shares in the company, cast 534m votes. Of them, 67.9% voted in favour and 32.0% against the merger. Other public holders cast 15.4m votes. Of these, 13.6m were in favour and 1.80m were against.
As per the new regulation of the market regulator SEBI, companies require approval from the majority of the minority shareholders for mergers and acquisitions.
Holcim claims that this transaction will further improve its holding structure in India, strengthen the platform for future growth and generate synergy benefits of US$144m/yr. "These benefits, which will be realised in a phased manner over two years, will be shared by both companies equally through supply chain," said Bernard Fontana, CEO of Holcim.
India bowls Holcim-Ambuja merger a googly
20 November 2013Minority shareholders have bowled a googly at Holcim's attempt to simplify its business structure in India.
Or for readers unacquainted with cricket terminology, domestic institutions which hold about 9% in Ambuja Cements have been widely reported in the Indian media as having voted against a move to merge the cement producer with its parent company, Holcim India. The final results of the shareholders vote will be publicly announced on 21 November 2013. The shareholders actions follow Holcim's recent approval by the Indian Foreign Investment Promotion Board for the merger.
That this is bad news for Holcim is not in doubt given that the multinational cement producer has taken a hit in its Asia-Pacific region, particularly in India. Overall for the region its operating profit fell by 32.5% year-on-year to US$333m for the quarter to 30 September 2013.
Specifically, Ambuja Cements managed to maintain its sales volume of cement and clinker year-on-year at 4.89Mt for the third quarter. However, its net profit after tax fell by 45.4% to US$27m. It blamed the decline on subdued demand due to overall economic slowdown combined with higher input costs. Meanwhile, ACC saw its sales revenue from cement fall slightly to US$388m for the third quarter while its profit for cement before costs and tax fell by 57% year-on-year to US$22m.
As mentioned in August 2013 when this column last looked at India, the parallels to cement industry consolidation in China are telling. In China guidelines have been issued to cut overcapacity in the cement industry, with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology releasing lists of companies that should cut excess production. Alongside this, the country's leading cement producers have reported a return to profit so far in 2013. Who exactly is taking the loss from this production retraction in China, if it is happening, remains unreported and unclear.
In India, much more light has been shone upon an over-producing cement industry. Holcim and its subsidiaries are just some of the companies reporting falling profits at present. Ambuja's minor shareholders look like they have made a decision that is counter to the best interests of the Indian cement industry.
In a recent UK newspaper article, political theorist David Runciman compared the respective merits of democratic and more autocratic modes of government. Unsurprisingly for a British academic Runciman came out in favour of democracies, yet the advantages of more centralised governments were noted, such as the ability to make wide-reaching decisions faster and more comprehensively.
In light of this, comparing the Indian and Chinese cement industries in 2040 will be fascinating. Minor shareholder tussles will likely be forgotten but cement (and hopefully cricket) will be as vital then as they are now.