Displaying items by tag: Angola

Angola: The government has announced that it expects to receive around US$240m from the privatisation of three companies owned by China International Found (CIF) Angola, following the auction of their factories. As well as CIF Automobile Assembly Unit and CIF Lowenda Beer Factory, the government is privatising CIF Cement Cement Factory, for which it anticipates receiving US$197m for the asset. The Griner/Ciment/Mercons consortium was the preferred bidder, with the H&S/Yupeng consortium second, Moçambique Dugongo Cimentos third and Huaxin Cement fourth.

The three companies were previously nationalised by the Angolan state as part of an anti-corruption process.

Angola: Portugal-based IPIAC has won a contract to upgrade the Cimangola plant in Luanda region to use Limestone Calcined Clay (LC3). The project will be the first in the world to convert an existing clinker production line into a clay calciner. Switzerland-based Ecosolutions conducted a study of raw materials and sustainability issues prior to the signing of the contract. The project will be coordinated and supervised by Portugal-based Techbelt. Once completed the plant will produce 0.3Mt/yr of calcined clay, which can be used to manufacture up to 1Mt/yr of LC3 cement.

Mexico/Denmark: Cemex and 3D printing construction company Cobod International have launched D.fab, a range of admixtures which enable builders to use ordinary concrete in 3D printing. The partners say that the products eliminate the need for expensive specialised mortars. Power2Build implemented the admixtures in concrete to print a whole house in Luanda, Angola, in early December 2021.

Cemex’s executive vice president sustainability, commercial and operations development Juan Romero said “The introduction of this revolutionary 3D printing system is a testament to our customer-centric mindset and relentless focus on continuous innovation and improvement. Working together with Cobod, we have developed an experience for customers that is superior to anything that has been provided in the past,” said “Our innovation efforts position us at the forefront of new technologies that contribute to building a better future.”

Angola: Chinese-based Sinotrans has exported 800t of cement on the 1344km railway journey from Cimenfort’s 0.4Mt/yr Lobito grinding plant to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Angola Press Agency has reported that the cement was ground from clinker produced in China. Cimenfort sales coordinator Francisco Idelfrides suggested that the cement company may look to expand its production capacity in 2020. He said it sold 0.3Mt of cement in eastern Angola and the DRC in 2019.

Angola: Nova Cimangola says that it is not being nationalised by the government. It has made the statement in response to local media reports that a state-led takeover is being considered as part of decree by President João Lourenço, according to the Jornal de Negócios newspaper. The cement company asserted that it is a private company with no public funding and that its financial, contractual and legal states are all in order. The company operates a 2.4Mt/yr integrated plant in Luanda.

Angola: Cimenfort plans to build a new cement plant at Cabinda. The site will have an area of 51 hectares and create 150 news jobs, according to the Mercado newspaper. The country has a total cement production capacity of 8Mt/yr.

Angola: Manuel Pacavira Júnior, the chairman of the Angolan Cement Industry Association (AICA) does not believe that the cement production utilisation rate in the country will reach 30% in 2018. Pacavira Júnior described the situation as one of ‘significant losses’ given that local producers are suffering from high operating costs, according to the Angola Press Agency. The country has a cement production capacity of 8.6Mt/yr but it only consumed 2.6Mt in 2017. This follows cement production of 3.87Mt in 2016, 5.2Mt in 2015 and 4.92Mt in 2.14. The five local producers are continuning to operate but at reduced levels due to the poor market. They are looking to build their export markets.

Angola: Fabrica de Cimento do Kwanza Sul (FCKS) has started selling its Yetu cement product in Luau, Moxico province. 400t of the product has been transported via the Benguela railway as part of a sales expansion drive, according to the Angola Press Agency. Huambo and Bié will be targeted next.

FCKS plant shut down in November 2017 and reopened in April 2018. The unit is planning to increase its production capacity to 10,000t/day from 5000t/day in the next stage of its improvement scheme.

The old joke about buses only coming along in pairs might just apply to Angolan cement plants this week with the inauguration of Nova Cimangola’s new 2.4Mt/yr cement plant in Luanda. It follows the announcement of the start of an upgrade project to build a clinker kiln at Cimenfort’s grinding plant in Benguela. In cement industry terms for a country with a production capacity below 10Mt/yr these projects are right on top of each other!

Nova Cimangola’s new plant has been a well-publicised project internationally. Sinoma International Engineering coordinated the line for US$400m in 21 months using components from well-known suppliers. Loesche provided a number of raw material, cement and coal mills for the project, including the country’s first vertical roller mill, as well as other components and parts. Loesche’s Austrian subsidiary A Tec also got involved as an EPCM (Engineering, Procurement & Construction Management) partner.

Cimenfort’s clinker kiln project is the third phase of a process to turn its grinding plant at Catumbela in Benguela into a fully integrated unit since it opened in 2012. Earlier phases saw the grinding plant’s capacity increase to 1.4Mt/yr from 0.7Mt/yr by using a new roller press. Work on the kiln is now scheduled to start in January 2018 with completion scheduled for 2020.

If Cimenfort makes it to clinker production they will join the country’s three main producers: Nova Cimangola, Fabrica de Cimento do Kwanza Sul (FCKS) and the China International Fund. Getting that far is by no means certain as the Palanca Cement plant project demonstrates. That scheme was backed by Brazil’s Camargo Corrêa, the owners of InterCement, and local business group Gema. However, the regulators bailed out Portugal’s Banco Espírito Santo, the financial backer of the project, in 2014 effectively killing it. Another project that has gone on the back burner is Portugal’s Secil’s plan to build a second plant next to its grinding plant in Lobito. Originally approved by the Angolan government in 2007 the project has been kicked around since then through various revisions to the local investment body. It was last reported as being under consideration by the president’s office of Angola in 2016.

Ministry of Industry figures place cement production capacity at 8.3Mt/yr compared to a consumption of 6Mt/yr. In contrast to this Secil’s parent company Semapa reported that the Angolan cement market contracted in 2016 by 25% to 3.9Mt in line with the poor state of the general economy, pushed down by poor oil prices. It blamed the decrease in cement consumption on a halt in public infrastructure spending and the negative effect that local currency devaluations had on clinker imports and other incoming raw materials. With the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasting economic growth to pick up for Angola in 2017, improvements in the construction and cement sector are expected by Semapa but they hadn’t been seen so far during the first quarter of the year.

The government’s keenness to describe its cement industry as ‘self-sufficient in cement’ mimics calls from other African countries like Nigeria. The Angolan government banned cement imports in 2015, with the exception of certain border provinces, and this has continued into 2017. However, the ban hasn’t stopped the country exporting cement to its neighbours. Earlier this year the head of Cimenterie de Lukala in the Democratic Republic of Congo blamed the closure of his company’s integrated plant on imports from Angola.

All of this leaves an enlarged local cement industry waiting for the good times to come again. In the meantime, exporting cement and clinker no doubt seems like a promising proposition. In the middle of this are projects like those from Cimenfort and Secil that are looking decidedly dicey in the current economic environment. These companies may have just missed the bus to make their upgrades happen. Still, if they wait around long enough, their chance may come again when the market revives.

Angola made similar noises to Nigeria this week when one of its government ministers declared that the country was self-sufficient in terms of cement production. The comments came from Industry minister Bernarda Martins at a visit by the Angolan president to the China International Fund Luanda Cement plant. Martins' words echoed those made by Joseph Makoju, Chairman of the Cement Manufacturing Association of Nigeria, who declared that his country was making more cement than it consumed back in 2012.

Claims of self-sufficiency are all about context. A major or fast growing economy such as Nigeria declaring self-sufficiency in cement could suggest a potential paradigm shift. A smaller economy might simply have risen from a low production base to a slightly higher one with little consequence. So what does this mean for Angola?

The southern African country has a population far smaller than Nigeria at 19 million. Yet, its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, in purchasing power parity terms, was estimated to be US$6484 in 2014 by the International Monetary Fund, a figure slightly higher than Nigeria's. In nominal terms its GDP was the fifth biggest in Africa in 2013.

Global Cement Directory 2015 research (to be published in late 2014) gives Angola's four integrated cement plants with a total cement production capacity of just under 6Mt/yr. The plant the politicians have just visited has reportedly just increased its clinker capacity to 3.6Mt/yr and another 0.6Mt/yr capacity is planned to join the market when an InterCement plant expands in 2017. Together this places the country's production at around 8Mt/yr. Domestic cement demand was placed at 6.5Mt/yr in early 2014 giving the country a cement consumption of just under 350kg/capita.

Transnational African bank Ecobank declared than Angola was becoming Central Africa's cement production hub in a commodities report in July 2014. Out of the sub-Saharan countries it has become the fourth largest producer after Nigeria, South Africa and Ethiopia and the third largest consumer after Nigeria and South Africa. Angola too has restricted cement imports, like Nigeria. In 2014 the Ministry of the Economy, Industry, Commerce and Construction implemented a stoppage on imports in a phased manner under the auspices of its local cement association, the Association of Industrial Cement of Angola.

Where Angola is different to Nigeria is in the composition of the companies that produce its cement. There is no large local presence to rival Nigeria's Dangote. The former colonial links are there with a plant operated by Brazil's InterCement, who inheritied it from Portuguese company Cimpor. Of the rest, Chinese and South Korean investors figure prominently.

Finally, it is also worth noting that Angola has none of the main sub-Saharan players present including Dangote, PPC or Lafarge Africa. Roughly half-way between the African cement powerhouses of Nigeria and South Africa and with a handy coastline, Angola deserves further attention.