Displaying items by tag: Brand

Costa Rica: Cementos Progreso has launched its brand in Costa Rica, marking its entry into a seventh Central/South American market.

Chief executive officer José Raúl González said “Our company believes in the region, understands its potential and is committed to adding value to all Central Americans. The launch of our flagship brand in the Costa Rican market is key to our growth and investment plans, which seek to generate development and employment in the local and regional cement industry."

Austria: Lafarge Austria and Perlmooser Beton will operate under the new name Holcim Austria from May 2023. Both companies have been part of Holcim Group since 2015. The rebranding exercise follows the renaming of LafargeHolcim as Holcim that took place in mid-2021.

Lafarge Austria operates two cement plants, at Mannersdorf and Retznei respectively, with a total production capacity of 1.6Mt/yr. Its headquarters is in Vienna. The company employs around 250 people.

Canada/US: Lehigh Hanson has rebranded as Heidelberg Materials North America, with immediate effect. The cement producer said that the new brand reflects its broad, innovation-driven approach to becoming the North American industry leader in sustainability and digital solutions.

President and chief executive officer Chris Ward said “This is a major step change for our company, both globally and here in North America. We are thrilled to begin this transformation in North America today, and continue our global journey to grow our business beyond cement and aggregates and become the most sustainable company in the sector.”

Peru: UNACEM (Unión Andina de Cementos) has updated its branding, including its logo, for its 10th anniversary following the merger of Cemento Andino and Cementos Lima. The new logo is intended to convey its essence, origin and its commitment to union and sustainable construction, according to the Ojo newspaper. It is based around the letter ‘U’ and is also meant to be reminiscent of a quarry seen from above. The rebranding exercise is also being run at the same time as the company’s 'Co-building Peru' campaign, where it seeks to promote the message that, “...the infrastructure of a country is built with cement, a homeland is built by all of us, working together.”

Brazil: Votorantim Cimentos’ net revenue grew by 18% year-on-year to US$3.60bn in the first nine months of 2022 from US$3.04bn in the same period in 2021. Its cement sales volumes rose slightly to 27.8Mt. However, its adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 16% to US$659m from US$780m.

Domestically the group said that its revenue grew because price rises counteracted falling sales volumes of cement. Outside of Brazil it reported growing revenue, apart from in its Latin American business. Here it blamed the fall on a new competitor entering the Uruguayan market and market issues in Bolivia. Earnings were noted to have decreased in every region mainly due to mounting fuel, raw material and energy costs.

Votorantim launched a new logo in October 2022 and completed its acquisition of Heidelberg Materials' Southern Spanish businesses in November 2022. The purchase included an integrated cement plant located in Málaga, three aggregates quarries and 11 ready-mix concrete plants in the Andalusia region.

UK: Cookstown Cement has rebranded as Cemcor. The company formed in January 2022 following its acquisition of the 0.45Mt/yr Cookstown cement plant from Holcim in January 2022. It then announced investments of around Euro14m towards making environmental and process upgrades at the unit. The company also purchased a limestone quarry in Cookstown, a shale quarry in Dungannon and a terminal at Belfast Harbour.

Algeria: Lafarge Algeria has launched Chamil cement, a 40% reduced-CO₂ cement, which contains locally sourced clay and ferrous materials. The producer developed Chamil cement based on technology from the Rouiba Construction Development Laboratory.

Lafarge Algeria aims to achieve export volumes of 3Mt across its product range in 2022.

Mexico: Cemex’s North American logistics subsidiary Cemex Servicios Logísticos has changed its name to Alliera. Alliera will continue its 15-year tradition of operating as an independent third-party logistics company, serving customers across various industries.

Cemex Mexico president Ricardo Naya said “For Alliera, Cemex’s strategic priorities are ensuring our collaborators’ health and safety, sustainability and innovation. Within this package of priorities, we always seek growth, as we do now with Alliera, which is part of Urbanisation Solutions, our most recently created business branch.”

Philippines: Cemex subsidiary Solid Cement is installing a new US$356m, 1.5Mt/yr line at its Antipolo cement plant. When operational in April 2024, the line will increase the plant’s capacity by 79% to 3.4Mt/yr. Over the first four months of the project since March 2022, Solid Cement invested US$197m in silos and mechanical installation. The new 1.5Mt/yr line will use Low Temperature Clinker technology to reduce its CO₂ emissions, and will also recycle waste hot gases for raw materials drying.

Solid Cement is building the plant using 6000t of its own Vertua reduced-CO2 cement, which it says will further reduce its net carbon footprint by 564t.

Philippines president and CEO Luis Franco said “We will maintain our active role in supporting the development of this nation, as we have done in the past 25 years.”

El Salvador: Holcim El Salvador has officially inaugurated an upgrade to its Maya cement plant. The company has invested US$11.6m towards increasing clinker production capacity by 0.45Mt/yr at the unit. Total cement production capacity of the plant has increased to 1.9Mt/yr from 1.2Mt/yr previously. The Maya cement plant previously reduced production levels significantly in 2008 in response to the global financial crisis at the same time. Oliver Osswald, Region Head of Holcim LATAM, attended the inauguration. The event was also used to launch Holcim’s new corporate branding in the region.