Displaying items by tag: Asia

Vietnam: The government will allocate greenhouse gas emission quotas to cement and steel plants and thermal power facilities by 31 December 2025, following a new decree issued on 9 June 2025, which takes effect on 1 August 2025. These facilities will receive quotas during the 2025–2026 period. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, in coordination with the ministries of industry and trade and construction, will lead the pilot proposal process and submit total allowable emissions to the prime minister for approval. Quotas for each plant must be finalised by the end of 2025. From 2027, ministries will propose lists of facilities and quotas for 2027–2028 and 2029–2030, with submissions due by 30 June of the first year of each period. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment will allocate quotas by 31 October annually once approved.

Quotas will be based on emission intensity per unit of product, industry growth targets and each facility’s potential to reduce emissions. Facilities may trade quotas and carbon credits on the national market. The decree also revises rules on trading, borrowing, transferring and surrendering quotas. Facilities must surrender quotas equal to verified emissions, minus carbon credit offsets, by 31 December following each compliance period. Penalties and future deductions will apply to those who fail.

India: Renaatus Group subsidiary Renaatus Procon will invest US$29m in the first phase of a new fibre cement board plant in Andhra Pradesh. The facility is due for commissioning in 2026, and will have a production capacity of 60,000t/yr. The plant will supply the construction sector in southern India and export markets, supporting the group’s expansion into sustainable building materials.

Vietnam: Vietnam produced 73.4Mt of cement in the first five months of 2025, up by 13% year-on-year, according to the National Statistics Office. In May 2025, output reached 17.3Mt, marking a 25% year-on-year rise. In 2024, Vietnam produced 184Mt of cement, up by 3.5% year-on-year.

On 9 June 2025 the Nepalese government announced the shock closure of the state-owned Udayapur Cement Industry, which operates the 0.4Mt/yr Jaljale cement plant in the high-altitude Terhathum District.¹ No express reason for the closure has been forthcoming. A little digging is therefore required…

Nationally, Nepal is home to 13 integrated and 16 grinding plants,² which sounds like a lot. However, with a total capacity of 12.3Mt/yr between them, each plant – many of which are quite aged and in need of modernisation - has an average capacity of 0.4Mt/yr. Amid chronic low demand, the capacity utilisation rate in some regions is as low as 40-50%.³

The planned closure of the Udayapur Cement Industry is all the more surprising considering that it only resumed operations on 24 April 2025 following the suspension of operations at the end of November 2024. The plant resumed production at 400t/day, half of its capacity, despite a US$42m upgrade as recently as February 2022 that had expanded it from 0.3Mt/yr to 0.4Mt/yr!

Upon re-opening in April 2025, the plant said that it had sufficient coal to maintain operations for at least 12 days and that it had a secure supply of electricity from the state-owned Nepal Electricity Authority (although it did also have unpaid electricity bills…). It has since been able to secure more coal, which must be imported through tortuously narrow passes from India. As well as securing coal, the plant’s altitude, some 1800m above sea level, complicates electrical infrastructure supplies. Back in 2019, the pre-expansion Jaljale cement plant was reduced to periods of just 13% capacity utilisation, with power cuts occurring at a rate of more than 60 in a single year, with six once hitting in a single day.

Back to the current year, Nepali cement producers faced an additional challenge on 15 February 2025, when a court issued a ‘show cause’ notice over seasonal price rises that had taken effect in December 2024. Bizpati News reported producers’ explanations that they were not in a cartel, including the admission that they were already operating at a loss.⁴ The situation got worse on 4 June 2025, when the government raised sales taxes from US$0.08/bag to 5% of the sales’ value.⁵ In order to protect their margins, producers raised prices by US$0.15-0.18/bag. According to Ravi Singh, president of the Federation of Contractors’ Associations of Nepal, this has meant that contractors are now struggling to purchase cement. He accused manufacturers of cutting production by up to 40% to create an artificial shortage, calling it ‘a tactic to manufacture scarcity and exploit the situation.’ Producers defended the price rise, claiming it corrects previous underpricing caused by ‘unhealthy competition.’

Regardless of who can shout the loudest, it is clear that there is just too much cement capacity in Nepal. While exports to India, itself not completely lacking in cement, have helped, more plants are likely to close. Back in Jaljale, Udaypur Cement Industry’s workers, their families, other local stakeholders and political parties have united in signing a memorandum of understanding in opposition to the closure. They too are asking: Why call time on a plant that was recently upgraded… and how can we keep the gates open?

References

1. https://www.globalcement.com/news/item/18859-nepali-government-announces-shock-closure-of-udayapur-cement-industry
2. Global Cement Directory 2025, Pro Global Media Ltd., Epsom, UK, 2025.
3. https://www.globalcement.com/news/item/17800-nepal-exports-us-3-81m-worth-of-cement-to-india-via-kakarvitta-crossing-in-2024-financial-year
4. https://bizpati.com/industry/88192
5. New Business Age News, ‘Cement price rises to Rs. 22 per bag,’ 4 June 2025, https://abhiyandaily.com/article/simenttko-muuly-boraamai-22-rupaiyaansmm-bddhyo

Pakistan: Five companies have signalled interest in bidding for Attock Cement. These include Alpha Cement Company, Bestway Cement and Cherat Cement Company, along with military investment fund Fauji Foundation and utilities provider Kot Addu Power Company. Pakistan Today News has reported that Fauji Foundation and Kot Addu Power Company’s plans consist of a joint acquisition of 84% of Attock Cement, followed by a mandatory public offer for the free float. Alpha Cement Company, meanwhile, may seek to buy as much as 92%, through a follow-on offer.

Attock Cement commands 3Mt/yr of capacity in South Pakistan, reportedly an increasingly attractive region, amid the on-going ‘revival’ of exports from Karachi port.

Alpha Cement Company was incorporated in Karachi in November 2024.

India: ACC Chair Karan Adani says that he expects the cement industry to benefit from the an anticipated US$2.2tn in new public infrastructure spending between 2025 and 2030.

Press Trust of India News has reported that Adani said "ACC crossed the 100Mt/yr cement capacity milestone in April 2025, propelling us closer to our ambitious 140Mt/yr target by the 2028 financial year." The company’s capacity corresponds to 15% of an all-India installed capacity of 686Mt/yr.

India: During the fourth quarter of the 2025 financial year (which ended on 31 March 2025), premium products constituted 16% of Shree Cement’s sales mix, up from 12% one year previously. During the period, the company further diversified its offering with the launch of two new premium cements, Bangur Marble Portland slag cement and Extra White Portland slag cement, in Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Both products are designed for maximum brightness and smoothness within their category of CEM-II Portland slag cements. The company says that its growing portfolio helped it to increase its full-year financial realisation per tonne by 5% year-on-year.

Business Today News has reported that managing director Neeraj Akhoury said "In the 2025 financial year, 74% of our cement output was blended, avoiding over 7.2Mt of CO₂ emissions."

Shree Cement crossed 60% consumption of energy from renewable sources in May 2025, Construction World News has reported. It has 582MW of installed renewable power capacity and is currently in the process of building a 1MW battery storage system at one of its cement plants in India.

Japan: Taiheiyo Cement has announced that it will expand the export of blended cement through the establishment of a new facility at its Saiki Ash Centre in Saiki City, Oita Prefecture. Taiheiyo Cement says that the facility, which will meet growing demand for blended cement in South East Asia, is part of its sustainability strategy. The blended cement will use fly ash from domestic coal-fired power plants.

The new facility will expand Taiheiyo Cement’s blended cement export capacity from 0.8Mt/yr to 1.3Mt/yr.

Indonesia: Cement production fell by 7.4% in Indonesia during the first quarter of 2025, falling from 14.5Mt in 2024 to 13.4Mt in 2025, according to data from the Indonesian Cement Association (ASI). March 2025 was particularly low compared to the year prior, with sales for the month falling by 21.6% to 3.8Mt. The nation’s capacity utilisation rate was estimated at just 57%.

Regionally, the steepest decline was seen in Kalimantan, where sales for the first quarter of 2025 were 21.8% lower than in the same period of 2024. Sales in Bali and Nusa Tenggara fell by 15.2%, while Sulawesi saw a decline of 13.9%. The decrease in Kalimantan was due in part to the slower development of projects in the new capital city Nusantara, as the government has slowed down spending on the project.

More widely, ASI chairman Lilik Unggul Raharjo attributed the national contraction in cement sales to weaker household spending, as well as slower infrastructure construction. He projected continued pressure on the cement industry throughout the rest of 2025, driven by global economic uncertainty and excess production capacity.

Raharjo also pointed to global policies to reduce carbon emissions as another burden on the industry, citing Australia's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which is set to take effect in 2027. The policy will require a carbon tax to be paid on products with emissions that exceed a set limit, which could disrupt clinker exports from Indonesia to Australia. These are currently in the region of 1Mt/yr.

Vietnam: Siam Cement Group Vietnam (SCG Vietnam) recorded sales of US$301m in the first quarter of 2025, 43% of group regional sales outside of Thailand.

SCG Vietnam hosted Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at its US$5.5bn Long Son petrochemicals complex earlier in 2025, when it announced that currently planned investments will target the petrochemicals division, as opposed to cement. It acquired the Sông Gianh cement plant in Quảng Bình for US$156m in 2017.