Displaying items by tag: Cahya Mata Sarawak

Malaysia: Repair costs at Cahya Mata Sarawak’s (CMS) Kuching cement plant have reduced the profits of the company’s cement division. The planned maintenance period in January and February 2018 was the first major shutdown carried out by the group since it purchased the integrated unit in 2007. The division’s performance was also hit by an increase in the price of imported clinker due to a reported ‘tight supply’ in the international market. The division’s profit before tax fell by 17% year-on-year to US$9.56m in the first half of 2018 from US$11.5m in the same period in 2017. However, its revenue grew by 8%.

Overall, CMS reported revenue growth of 15% to US$183m and a pre-tax profit increase of 32% to US$42.9m. It attributed the strong performance to its other subsidiaries.

Malaysia: Cahya Mata Sarawak's (CMS) sales from its cement division have fallen in 2017 due to lower sales volumes of cement and concrete. However, the cement producer said that the average production cost per tonne of cement had fallen due to cheaper coal prices and cheaper imported clinker. Its sales revenue fell by 7.5% year-on-year to US$133m in 2017 from US$144m in 2016. Its operating profit fell by 3.5% to US$25.9m from US$26.8m. The division also benefitted from the opening of the Mambong grinding plant in late 2016.

Malaysia: Richard Curtis is to retire as Group Managing Director of Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad (CMS) on 31 December 2017. He will then remain as a Non-Independent Non-Executive Director until the end of 2018. Curtis will be succeeded by Isaac Lugun as the company’s Group Chief Corporate Officer and Goh Chii Bing as its Group Chief Operating Officer.

Malaysia: Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad’s (CMS) cement division’s operating profit rose by 2% year-on-year to US$23.6m in 2016 from US$23.2m in 2015. However, its sales revenue fell by 6% to US$127m from US$135m. The group blamed its falling sales on ‘challenging’ market conditions. Overall the group’s sales revenue and profit fell in 2016.

“2016 was a challenging period for us in terms of group performance meeting targets as we had faced challenging market and operational conditions. These macro factors included low commodity selling prices, higher costs of raw materials in the Cement Division resulting from the strong US dollar, and generally the sluggish private and public sector demand attributable to bank lending restraints and the lack of any new big projects. Our group’s core businesses, however, remained resilient during this period and continued to report stable earnings,” said Richard Curtis, Group Managing Director of CMSB.

Malaysia: Engineering company Christian Pfeiffer has released more information about a grinding plant that it completed at the Mambong cement plant for Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS) in 2016. The engineering procurement and construction (EPC) contract was originally signed in mid-2014 and it also included raw material handling, finished product storage silos and an automated packing plant.

The grinding plant consists of a two-compartment ball mill with a diameter of 4.8m x 15m effective grinding length equipped with a QDK 248-Z separator designed to produce 150t/hr of cement with a fineness of 3500cm²/g according to Blaine. The mill is supported by slide shoe bearings and driven by a lateral drive unit consisting of a girth gear and two pinion gear box with a floating shaft and a 5600kW main motor. The feed materials - clinker, gypsum and limestone - are dosed separately via weigh feeders, while fly ash can be added directly to the separator by a bucket elevator.

The ball mill is equipped with progressive lifting and classifying liners and filled with Allmax grinding balls. The material flow from the first to the second compartment is regulated by a Christian Pfeiffer intermediate flow-control diaphragm in Monobloc design, to ensure an ideal material level and particle size for fine grinding in the second compartment. The fine ground cement leaves the mill by a discharge diaphragm, in a Christian Pfeiffer Monobloc design, and is fed to the separator circuit by a bucket elevator. Separation of the ground cement is achieved by a bag filter application with minimum remaining dust content in the clean gas of below 10 mg/Nm³.

The cement produced is stored in two interchangeable 10,000t silos. One is a mono-cell and the other duo-cell, allowing for the production and storage of three different types of cement. Each silo is equipped with two bulk loading devices for conventional silo truck loading. Cement for the adjacent packing plant is transported via air slides and a bucket elevator. There, it can be filled into big-bags or cement paper bags by a rotary packer at a rate of 3000 bags/hr. At this stage the single packed cement bags can either be directly loaded on trucks or be transferred to a palletiser. The automated palletising system is designed for both pallet and palletless operation.

CMS officially launched the 1Mt/yr grinding plant in late 2016.

Malaysia: Cahya Mata Sarawak Berhad (CMSB) has officially launched its 1Mt/yr cement grinding plant at Mambong for a cost of US$45m. The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the unit was awarded to Germany’s Christian Pfeiffer Maschinenfabrik GmbH in April 2014. Construction at the site started in July 2014, production ramp-up commenced in December 2015 and it was fully commissioned earlier in 2016. The plant comprises a 150t/hour ball mill, a high efficiency separator, 2 units of 10,000t concrete silos, four-line bulk loaders and a 3000 bag/hour packing and palletising machine.

“This third plant will increase CMSB’s total annual rated cement production capacity by almost 60% to 2.75Mt/yr, well above current local demand of around 1.7 – 1.8Mt/yr.” said Richard Curtis, Group Managing Director of CMSB. The plant joins the company’s integrated cement plant at Mambong and a grinding plant at Bintulu. CMSB intends to meet growing cement demand in Sarawak, including from big projects such as the Baleh Dam and the Pan Borneo Highway.

The official launch also included the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between CMS Clinker and ZHA Environmental to enter into negotiations for the use of shredded rubber tyres as an alternate fuel in the production of clinker. CMSB has also signalled its intent to use slag in its cement manufacture as sources become available.

Malaysia: Cement manufacturer CMS Cement Sdn Bhd, a Cahya Mata Sarawak Bhd subsidiary, will invest in a third cement grinding plant that will boost its installed capacity by 1Mt/yr to 2.75Mt/yr.

Cahya Mata group managing director, Datuk Richard Curtis, said that the plant would be adjacent to CMS Cement's clinker plant in Mambong, Jalan Penrissen. "We are now evaluating tenders for the project. It is expected to be ready by 2016 to support Sarawak's future growth and development," said Curtis. He said that the new plant, which would be integrated with the clinker plant, would serve the needs of Kuching and its hinterland while the existing plant at Pending would cater for other towns in Sarawak when the new factory was commissioned.

CMS Cement recorded sales of 1.67Mt of bulk and bagged cement in 2013. Curtis said the company's cement sales were estimated to increase to 1.72Mt in 2014 and that the company might import 0.20Mt, which was lower than the 0.27Mt imported in 2013. Once the third grinding plant is operational, the company will be able to address any production disruptions when one of the plants is shut down for maintenance.

CMS Cement will invest US$18.1m on the new plant, a third bulk cement barge to improve distribution capability, a 4000t cement silo to increase storage capacity and an inline packer for the Bintulu grinding plant to beef up capacity for bagged cement.