Displaying items by tag: CNBM

Nigeria: China-based Sinoma CBMI Construction has signed an agreement with BUA Cement to build three 3Mt/yr plants in Adamawa, Edo and Sokoto states respectively. When completed by the end of 2022, the projects will bring the producer’s installed capacity to 20Mt/yr, according to the Vanguard newspaper.

The deal is Nigeria’s largest ever single contract for the construction of cement plants. the project will cost US$1.05bn.

Argentina: 40 employees of China Nation Building Materials (CNBM) subsidiary Sinoma International Engineering have arrived at the site of Loma Negra’s upcoming L’Amalí cement plant in Olavarría. El Popular Medios News has reported that the engineers will complete work on the plant in time for commissioning in March 2021. The engineers caused a stir at the Ezeiza International Airport as they were dressed in protective clothing and masks unlike many other local travellers.

Cement scalpers in Tanzania have been threatened with jail time for hoarding cement! The country faced a shortage of cement and other building materials in October 2020 and Prime Minister Kassim Majawali ordered an investigation into the issue following the conclusion of the presidential election earlier that month. Both regional commissioners and the National Prosecution Service have been dragged into the initiative. Director of Public Prosecutions Biswalo Mganga promised to local press that wrongdoers could face up to 30 years in prison for daring to hoard products or distort the market.

Rhetoric aside, the situation is curious given that HeidelbergCement’s local subsidiary, Tanzania Portland Cement, seemed to think in its 2019 annual report, that the country faced a 5Mt/yr overcapacity from integrated and grinding plants compared to a total production base of 10.6Mt/yr. However, the East African newspaper reported that despatches fell to 150,000t in October 2020 from 450,000t in September and August 2020, with a 30% surge in the price in some parts of the country.

In the wake of this, Dangote Cement apologised publicly for failing to communicate a planned stoppage at its Mtwara plant to the wider public. Tanga Cement then denied that its production was down. It said instead that production was at the highest level and that large chunks of its output was servicing government-backed infrastructure projects like the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the Kigongo-Busisi Bridge, which will span the southern end of Lake Victoria. It also blamed a lack of trains on the Tanga-Moshi, which was reopened in mid-2019. It seems reasonable that cement prices might vary quite markedly, even before the profiteers got involved, due to the reasons above. Other issues locally include poor transport links, long distances in a country like Tanzania, the recent election and lingering hiccups from the blockage of imports from Kenya in 2018 that may not have helped either. The investigation continues.

A wider issue here is how much cement production capacity the country and the region can support given a propensity for spikes in prices. As Global Cement has covered previously (GCW456 and prior issues) Chinese producers have been heading into Sub-Saharan Africa over the last decade. Huaxin Cement bought ARM Cement’s assets in Tanzania in May 2020. It renamed the company African Tanzanian Maweni Limestone and then started trial production of clinker at the newly upgraded 0.75Mt/yr Maweni Limestone clinker plant in July 2020. Depending on how long ARM Cement’s former subsidiary was out of action, this one seems unlikely to rock the market too much. Tanga Cement also took the opportunity in November 2020 to say that talks with the government about a new 0.5 – 0.75Mt/yr grinding plant in Arusha were progressing

The proposed 7Mt/yr CNBM/Sinoma ‘mega’ plant is another matter entirely. Most of its output is intended for export but any disruption to local transport links, current or future, could swamp the local market. The export of Chinese infrastructure development around the world through its loan system could offer (occasionally literal) bridging solutions here as cement from a Chinese-backed factory is used to build the transport networks backed by Chinese loans that allow exports to proliferate. Tanzanian President John Magufuli’s comments that the poor terms for a US$10bn Chinese loan supporting a port project could “…only be accepted by a drunken man,” may not have helped international diplomacy. Still, Chinese money is actively getting things built here and elsewhere around the world at a rate previously unheard of.

Returning to the present, it makes a change to highlight a market where cement is truly demanded. A coronavirus-related lockdown may have slowed sales in the first half of 2020 but Dangote Cement estimated that the total market for cement in Tanzania was about 4.2Mt in the first nine months of 2020 and it reported its highest ever orders and dispatches in September 2020. That the country’s prime minister decided to discuss cement prices is a reminder of how important the commodity remains in parts of the world.

China: Xia Zhiyun has resigned as the president of China National Materials International Engineering (CNBM Engineering). However, he will remain a director of the company, a member of the strategy and investment committee of the board of directors and a member of the nomination committee. The company is part of CNBM Group. It provides engineering services and equipment to the international cement, housing, industrial equipment and light industry sectors.

2020 has been a year like no other and this clearly shows in the financial results of the major cement producers so far.

The first jolt is that several major Chinese cement producers have seen their sales fall. Following a tough first quarter due to coronavirus, the Chinese industry then overcame floods in the summer, to eventually report a decrease in cement output of 1.1% year-on-year to 1.68Bnt in the first nine months of 2020. The world’s largest cement producer, CNBM, reported a slightly smaller drop in sales year-on-year in the first nine months of 2020. This relatively small fall, just below 1%, may be due to CNBM’s size and diversity of business interests. Other large Chinese producers have noted bigger losses, such as Huaxin Cement’s 9% sales decline to US$3.04bn and Jidong Cement’s 5% sales fall to US$3.8bn. However, Anhui Conch actually saw a 12% rise in sales to US$18.7bn.

Graph 1: Sales revenue from selected cement producers, Q1 - 3 2020. Source: Company reports.

Graph 2: Cement sales volumes from selected cement producers, Q1 - 3 2020. Source: Company reports.

LafargeHolcim’s sales look worse in Graph 1 than they really are because the group was busy divesting assets in 2019. Its net sales fell by 7.9% on a like-for-like basis to US$18.7bn in the first nine months of 2020, a rate of change similar to HeidelbergCement’s. Being a properly multinational building materials producer brings mixed benefits given that these companies have suffered from coronavirus-related lockdowns in different times in different places but they have also been able to hedge themselves from this effect through their many locations. In the third quarter of 2020, for example, LafargeHolcim was reporting recovering cement sales in its Asia-Pacific, Latin America and western/central parts of its Europe regions but problems in North America. Again, HeidelbergCement noted a similar picture with cement deliveries up in its Africa-Eastern Mediterranean Basin Group area, stable in Northern and Eastern Europe-Central Asia and down elsewhere. How the latest round of public health-related lockdowns in Europe round off a bad year remains to be seen.

The other more regional producers are noteworthy particularly due to their different geographical distribution. Cemex has seen a lower fall in sales revenue and cement sales volumes so far in 2020, possibly due to its greater presence in North America. What happens in the fourth quarter is uncertain at best, with US coronavirus cases rising and the Portland Cement Association (PCA) expecting a small decline in cement consumption overall in 2020. Along similar lines, Buzzi Unicem appears to have benefitted from its strong presence in Germany and the US, leading it to report a below 1% drop in sales revenue so far in 2020, the lowest of the decreases reported here for the western multinational cement companies.

Looking more widely, UltraTech Cement, India’s largest producer, had to contend with a near complete government-mandated plant shutdown in late March 2021. The figures presented here are calculated for comparison with other companies around the world due to the difference between the standard calendar financial year (January to December) and the Indian financial year (April to March). However, they suggest that Ultratech Cement suffered a 14% fall in sales to US$3.9bn and an 8% decline in sales volumes to 56Mt, among the worst decline of all the companies featured here. This is unsurprising given that UltraTech mostly operates in one country. Sure enough it bounced back in its second quarter (June – September 2020) with jumps in revenue, earnings and volumes.

Finally, for a view of a region that hasn’t had to face coronavirus-related economic disruption of anything like the same scale, Dangote Cement has reported solid growth so far in 2020, with rises in sales and volumes both above 5%. Economic problems at home in Nigeria have seen relatively higher growth elsewhere in Africa in recent years but now the pendulum has swung back home again. The big news has been that the company has pushed ahead with plans to turn Nigeria into a cement export hub, with a maiden shipment of clinker from Nigeria to Senegal in June 2020. The vision behind this has expanded from making Nigeria self-sufficient in cement from a few years ago into making the entirety of West and Central Africa cement and clinker ‘independent.’

The big news internationally this week was of the reported effectiveness of a Covid-19 vaccine in early trials by Pfizer and BioNTech. It might not yet make it into people’s arms at scale but it shows that the vaccine appears to work and that others in development and testing may do too. Building material manufacturer share prices didn’t rally as much as airlines or cinema chains on the news, construction has carried on after all, but this is a positive sign that normality for both health and wealth is on the way back at some point in 2021. One point to consider, given the wide regional variation with the economic effects of coronavirus, is what effect a disjointed global rollout of a vaccine or vaccines might have. A building material manufacturer dependent on a region that stamps out the virus later than other places might face an economic penalty. Recovery seems likely in 2021 but it isn’t guaranteed and the implications of the coronavirus crisis seem set to persist for a while yet. Here’s hoping for a different outlook at this point in 2021.

Eurocement changed owners this week when Sberbank took control of the company’s parent organisation. Due to a ‘difficult financial situation’ the state-owned bank said it had consolidated 100% of the shares of Eurocement’s parent company GFI Investment Limited. It’s uncertain quite how difficult this situation is but in 2016 the cement producer owed the bank Euro700m. Local media agency RosBiznesConsulting (RBC) reported in September 2020 that the ‘problem borrower’ that had caused a record increase in overdue debt at Sberbank in July 2020 was none other than Eurocement. Whilst Sberbank has said so far that it does not have operational control of the group, it is seeking a strategic investor for the asset.

This is a major story given that Eurocement is Russia’s largest cement producer and it operates 19 cement plants Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. It said it produced 16.5Mt of cement domestically in 2019 but this compares to a production capacity of around 50Mt/yr suggesting a considerably low utilisation rate of just one third! The producer has embarked on a modernisation programme in recent years but many of its plants are old and use wet-process production lines.

2019 finally saw the Russian cement market turn around following decline since 2015. Unfortunately, CM Pro reports that cement production in Russia as a whole fell by 5% year-on-year to 25.1Mt in the first half of 2020. Cement shipments fell by a similar rate. This trend appears to have carried on through July and August 2020. Cement consumption has fallen fairly uniformly in most regions with the exception of the Northwestern Federal District, which has seen a modest increase. In the middle of the year, Soyuzcement - the Union of Russian Cement Producers, was expecting wildly different scenarios ranging from falls of up to 10% in a negative situation to rebound of up to 3% in a positive one. It was pinning its hopes on government support for the construction industry in various ways. With the trend to August 2020, record breaking numbers of new coronavirus cases in early November 2020 and the onset of winter, it seems unlikely that Soyuzcement’s positive thinking will come to pass.

With this in mind who might want to buy into Eurocement? No doubt various private equity firms and local producers are watching the oil price carefully while they plan their next move. Internationally, LafargeHolcim seems the obvious western multinational contender with a presence in the country. Yet it seems unlikely it would want to take the risk, following its departure from certain regions like South-East Asia in recent years and persistent rumours about other divestment targets. HeidelbergCement’s balance sheet, credit lines and appetite for risk might not yet withstand a major investment in Russia. Buzzi Unicem has actually been expanding recently with an acquisition in Brazil but whether it’s prepared to bet on another market disrupted by coronavirus is unknown. China National Building Materials Group Corporation (CNBM) was reportedly planning on becoming a shareholder of Eurocement Group in 2016 but this may have just been bluster surrounding geopolitical links between Russia and China, and general cooperation between the companies on upgrading Eurocement’s old production lines. However, Russia is the next location in China’s Belt and Road initiative so it’s not ridiculous. Whoever steps up can expect the Russian government to take a keen interest, depending on how much control Sberbank wants to offer up of Eurocement. The story continues.

China: China National Building Materials (CNBM) recorded operating sales of US$27.2bn in the first nine months of 2020, down by 1% year-on-year from US$27.4bn in the first nine months of 2019. Net profit rose to US$2.82bn, up by 22% from US$2.31bn.

The group said, “On 17 April 2020, the Company became the first batch of first-tier mature enterprises of the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors, and carried out unified registration of debt financing instruments (TDFI) (including but not limited to super short-term commercial paper, short-term commercial paper, medium-term debentures, perpetual debentures, asset-backed notes, green debt financing instruments) in the China inter-bank bond market, which were issuable in different types and separate tranches, with a registration term of two years.”

China: China National Building Materials has submitted a letter of intent of cooperation to its subsidiary Sinoma International Engineering, in which it proposes the sale of several engineering businesses to the latter. ET Net News has reported that the assets in question are under negotiation, but may include Beijing Triumph Building Materials, Nanjing Triumph International Engineering and Sinoma Mining Construction.

China: Gansu Qilianshan Cement has announced that it expects to record a profit of US$208m in the first nine months of 2020, up by 41% year-on-year from US$147m in the corresponding period of 2019, according to Reuters. It said the results would be in line with its growth trajectory thanks to a significant increase in demand towards the end of the first half of 2020.

Zimbabwe: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Lafarge Zimbabwe and China National Building Materials (CNBM) subsidiary CBMI have announced the signing of a contract for the establishment of a 0.7Mt/yr-capacity grinding plant at the 0.5Mt/yr Manresa cement plant in Harare. CBMI executive director and general manager Tong Laigou said that, when completed, the plant “will significantly increase the market occupation rate, competition and influence power of Lafarge Zimbabwe, and will also ease the cement supply tension in the country.”