Displaying items by tag: Brazil

Brazil: Paulo Camillo Penna, the president of the Brazilian cement association SNIC, predicts that the local industry will start to recover in 2018. His comments follow the publication of data for August 2017, according to the Valor Econômico newspaper. He added that the country would need four or five years of growth to resume the levels of 2014, the last year sales increased reaching 71Mt. Sales of cement have been falling less steeply than previously but are still projected to end 2017 with a decrease of 7%. Sales are then forecast to grow by 1% in 2018 with a more rapid recovery expected to begin in 2019.

Europe: RHI and Magnesita have announced divestment agreements ahead of their proposed merger. RHI has signed a contract with a European refractories supplier for an undisclosed sum regarding the sale of its dolomite business in the European Economic Area. The sale consists of the production sites at Marone in Italy and Lugones in Spain. Magnesita has entered into a definitive agreement with Intocast to divest its business related to the production and supply of magnesia carbon bricks produced at the company's Oberhausen plant in Germany for Euro20.3m. Both sales were required by the European Commission as part of the merger process.

“With the sale of the two sites, the combination of RHI with Magnesita is also still right on schedule,” said RHI’s chief executive officer Stefan Borgas with regards to his company’s divestments “We expect the confirmation by the European Commission in the near future.”

RHI signed a contract in August 2017 to sell its production sites at San Vito in Italy and Sherbinska in Russia that produce fused cast refractories for the glass industry. Production at the company’s plant at Aken in Germany was stopped in the first half of 2017 for an indefinite period. RHI plans to sell or close the plant to maintain its production utilisation rate across the business.

Argentina/US: Loma Negra has filed for a US$100m initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange. The subsidiary of Brazil’s InterCement wants to sell shares of Loma Negra in Argentina and New York to raise cash and cut debt, according to sources quoted by Reuters. Proceeds from the offering will be used to reduce debts at InterCement’s parent company Camargo Correa. The Brazilian company originally purchased Loma Negra in 2005 for US$1bn.

Brazil: The state government of Mato Grosso has reached an agreement with Votorantim to recover US$79m in tax from Votorantim. The payment refers to an under-payment of tax made in error by the company's cement plants in Corumbá and Nobres in 2015, according to Midia News. The state’s tax recovery unit absolved the cement producer of any blame, instead attributing the error to an interpretive issue.

Brazil: According to data from SNIC, Brazil's national cement industry association, domestic cement sales came to 4.7Mt in July 2017, down by 10.5% compared to July 2016. Sales per working day were also down by 10.5% in the year-on-year comparison, but up by 3.3% compared to June 2017.

In the first seven months of 2017, domestic cement sales came to 30.7Mt, a fall of 9.1% from the same period of 2016, while in the 12 months ending July 2017 sales totalled 54.3Mt, down by 9.8% year-on-year. Apparent consumption in July 2017 stood at 4.7Mt, down by 10.1% from July 2016, with an accumulated 9.7% drop in apparent consumption in the 12 months to 31 July 2017. SNIC notes that the figures are in line with expectations for the period, though there may have been some impact from the political and economic instability in recent months. SNIC forecasts a 7% drop in domestic cement sales in 2017.

Brazil: LafargeHolcim has launched a marketing campaign for its Cimento Montes Claros cement brand in six states and the Federal District. The campaign is intended to increase brand recognition and improve its relationship with customers in Minas Gerais, Pernabuco, Bahia, Paraiba, Rio Grande do Notre, Goias and the Federal District, according to the Sags website. The campaign includes television and radio coverage, advertising on transport networks and social media spots. The campaign is planned to run until December 2017.

Brazil: Bag producers Cocelpa Companhia de Celulose e Papel do Paraná (Cocelpa) and Arpeco Artefatos de Papéis have both filed for bankruptcy protection. They cited rising production costs, the country’s economic crisis and an unsuccessful sale plan, according to the Valor Economico newspaper. The companies operate plants at Curitiba and Araucária and they mainly produce bags for the cement industry. Despite being market rivals the two companies have filed for protection together due to structural links between them.

Brazil: SNIC, the Brazilian National Union of Cement Industry, reports that total cement sales have fallen by 9% year-on-year to 26Mt in the first half of 2017 from 28.6Mt in the first half of 2016. SNIC president Paulo Camillo Penna said that the figures were in line with the organisation’s forecasts and that they show a deceleration in the decline of cement consumption. Consumption is expected to pick up in the second half of the year and SNIC predicts that it will fall by 5 – 9% for the year as a whole.

Brazil: The Brazilian competition authority CADE has cleared the proposed merger between Brazil’s Magnesita and Austria’s RHI Group without restriction. This is the last major regulatory approval the merger process has required. RHI and Magnesita announced in October 2016 that were to merge to create a new refractory company called RHI Magnesita in 2017.

Brazil: Votorantim’s net revenue from its cement business fell by 14% year-on-year to US$731m in first quarter of 2017 from US$848m in the same period in 2016. The cement and steel producer blamed the continuing decline on an 8% drop in cement consumption which triggered lower sales volumes and prices. Negative currency exchange effects also contributed to the situation as the country continued to suffer from the on going political crisis and the resulting negative effects on the local economy. The company’s adjusted earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for its cement division decreased by 49% to US$60.9m from US$119m.

Outside of Brazil the group started up a 1.2Mt/yr expansion project in Turkey in April 2017. In North America its good performance driven by strong demand and cost optimisation helped to offset the group’s overall performance. In China the group sold ‘non-core’ assets worth Euro30m in May 2017.