Displaying items by tag: Capacity

Zimbabwe: Livetouch Investments plans to build a new 200,000t/yr cement plant in Zvishavane, Midlands Province. The first phase of construction will reach completion in mid-2024 and cost US$20m. When subsequently commissioned, the plant will create 300 new jobs. The Chronicle newspaper has reported that the upcoming plant is situated close to Livetouch Investments' existing limestone resources.

Livetouch Investments' mananging director Kyle Wang said that the company is building the plant in order to reduce Zimbabwe's reliance on imports of cement, notably via Zambia. Zimbabwe already has a cement capacity of 2.6Mt/yr, but a cement demand of just 1.6Mt/yr.

Vietnam: New cement lines will raise Vietnamese cement production capacity by 4% year-on-year in 2023 to over 120Mt/yr. Vietnam News Summary has reported that upcoming new capacity scheduled to commence operations during the year include a 4.5Mt/yr line at a Xuan Tanh Cement plant and a 2.5Mt/yr line at a Long Son Cement plant.

Vietnamese cement demand was 65Mt in 2022. Several producers suspended cement lines during the second half of that year due to high costs and unfavourable market conditions.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement commenced clinker production from a new 3.15Mt/yr kiln line at its Pezu integrated cement in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in late December 2022. This latest expansion increases the producer’s domestic production capacity by 26% to 15.3Mt/yr, from below 12.2Mt/yr earlier in 2022. The company also operates cement plants in Democratic Republic of Congo and Iraq with an additional capacity of 4.4Mt/yr.

The International News newspaper has reported that Lucky Cement anticipates domestic cement demand to grow due to the rebuilding of homes destroyed by flooding in 2022.

India: Dalmia Cement (Bharat) has concluded a contract for the acquisition of cement and other assets from Jaypee Group for US$684m. Mint News has reported that the deal will bring Dalmia Cement (Bharat) into control of an additional 9.4Mt/yr of cement production capacity, including 6.7Mt/yr of clinker production capacity, as well as 280MW-worth of fossil fuel-fired power capacity. All cement and grinding plants included under the deal belonged to Jaypee Group subsidiaries Jaiprakash Associates and Jaiprakash Power Ventures and are situated in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

India: UltraTech Cement says that it recently commissioned two new grinding units in Northern India. The Aditya Birla subsidiary commissioned a new 1.8Mt/yr grinding unit at its expanded Dhar integrated cement plant in Madhya Pradesh on 27 November 2022. The company also inaugurated its new 1.8Mt/yr Dhule grinding plant in Maharashtra. The projects form the first phase of 12.9Mt/yr-worth of planned expansions, announced by the company in late 2020.

UltraTech Cement's managing director Kailash Jhanwar visited the Dhar cement plant to congratulate the team there on its contribution to the expansion drive.

India: JK Cement has commissioned its latest new grinding plant in Uttar Pradesh. Reuters News has reported that the facility has a cement production capacity of 2Mt/yr.

JK Cement is on track to increase its total installed capacity to 23Mt/yr by the end of 2023.

Bangladesh: Crown Cement has estimated the total cost of cement capacity currently unused in Bangladesh at US$1.46bn. The figure is even higher when maintenance costs are included, according to Crown Cement's chief advisor Masud Khan. Over the past 15 years, national cement capacity has nearly quadrupled to 83.3Mt/yr from 22.4Mt/yr, while demand has merely doubled to 46.7Mt/yr from 22.8Mt/yr. Khan estimated the cost per 1Mt/yr of new Bangladeshi cement capacity over the period at US$40m.

Khan said that producers continue to anticipate an acceleration in local cement consumption growth in the medium-term future. Reflecting on the situation up to the end of 2022, he said "They thought if they were not prepared for the growing demand, they would lose their market share. That was why they continued expansion, bearing the burden of excess capacity." Khan forecast a further decline in the industry's capacity utilisation if gross domestic product undergoes a forecast drop during the 2023 financial year, impacting on producers' results for the year.

India: Adani Group plans to invest US$12.1bn across the various sectors in which it operates in the state of Karnataka before 2030. Press Trust of India News has reported that the company has confirmed that expansions to its cement operations will be included under the investment package.

Adani Group's four cement facilities in Karnataka share a cement production capacity of 7Mt/yr.

India: UltraTech Cement has projected six-month cement capacity growth of 8.2% to 131Mt/yr by 31 March 2023, the end of the 2023 financial year. At the end of the first half of the 2023 financial year on 30 September 2022, its capacity was 121Mt/yr. In the third quarter of the 2023 financial year, UltraTech Cement expects to commence commercial operations at its upcoming 3.5Mt/yr Pali, Rajasthan, cement plant and upgraded Dhar, Madhya Pradesh, cement plant, to which it is adding 4.2Mt/yr in new capacity. The remaining new capacity consists of smaller capital expenditure investments in various sites across India. UltraTech Cement's chief financial officer Atul Daga forecast that the producer will invest a total of US$731 - 853m in capacity expenditure throughout the 2023 financial year.

The Business Standard newspaper has reported that UltraTech Cement expects to further increase its cement production capacity by 22% over the three years up to the 2026 financial year, to reach 160Mt/yr.

Nepal: Udayapur Cement has urged the Nepalese government's Ministry of Finance to process its application for a loan of US$3.82m. The Kathmandu Post newspaper has reported that the producer plans to invest in an upgrade to its 800t/day-capacity Gaighat cement plant in Province No.1. The plant is reportedly unable to meet its capacity due to frequent issues with its 33-year-old equipment. The producer hopes that an upgrade will increase the plant's production capacity by 41% to 2.5m bags/yr. It also expects its expenditure on coal to fall by 25% as a result.

Director general Gopi Neupane noted the Gaighat cement plant's access to high quality limestone not available elsewhere in the country. He said "We will turn the factory into a profit-making enterprise if the additional investment is provided. We have huge scope for exporting cement to Uttar Pradesh and Bihar (in India)."