Displaying items by tag: Cementir Holding
Cementir revenue rises marginally
18 February 2020Italy: Cementir Holding, a Caltagirone Group company, closed 2019 with revenues of Euro1.21bn, according to the consolidated preliminary results examined yesterday by the board of directors chaired by Francesco Caltagirone Jr. This represents a year-on-year rise of 1.2% compared to 2018.
Cementir’s gross operating margin grew by 10.6% to Euro263.8m. Cement and clinker volumes, however, fell by 3.4% to 9.5Mt. On a like-for-like basis, cement and clinker sales were down 5%. The company attributed this to a ‘negative trend’ in Turkey, partially balanced by the positive performance of Belgium and Denmark. Ready mixed concrete sales also fell due to the effects of the Turkish economy. Overall ready mixed concrete sales fell to 4.1Mm3/yr, a drop of 16.4% year-on-year.
Global Cement and Concrete Association launches research network
10 October 2019UK: The Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) has launched ‘Innovandi,’ a research network between industry and scientific institutions. The network intends to research the areas of process technology, including the impact of co-processing, efficiency of clinker production and implementation of CCUS/ technologies, and products. This will include the impact of clinker substitutes and alternative binders in concrete, low carbon concrete technology and improve the understanding of CO2 reduction through re-carbonation.
“Our industry is fully committed to taking action to reduce CO2 emissions. As such, Innovandi is an industry led initiative and will bring together the best minds from all corners of the cement and concrete world, academia and business. Together we will truly collaborate on a global scale and use our expertise to find new ways of working and developing effective innovations,” said Benjamin Sporton, the chief executive officer (CEO) of the GCCA.
24 companies from the cement and concrete industry, including cement and concrete manufacturers, admixture specialists and equipment suppliers, have committed to the initiative, with scientific institutions and additional companies set to join as its work begins work. These include Buzzi Unicem, Cementir Holding, Cementos Argos, Cementos Molins, Cementos Pacasmayo, Cemento Progresso, Cemex, CNBM, Chryso, CRH, Dalmia Cement, FLSmidth, Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC), GCP Applied Technologies, Mapei, HeidelbergCement, LafargeHolcim, Nesher Israel Enterprises, SCG Cement, Titan Cement, Refratechnik Cement, Sika Technology, Subote New Materials and Votorantim.
As part of the new initiative, the GCCA also intends to establish an annual Innovandi global conference to promote collaboration on innovation and research in the sector.
Cementir Holding moves registered office to the Netherlands
07 October 2019Netherlands: Cementir Holding has moved its registered office to the Netherlands. The building materials producer approved the decision in late June 2019. The transfer will not affect the company’s listing on the Italian Stock Exchange or its tax residence, which will remain in Italy. At the time chairman Francesco Caltagirone, Jr said that the decision to move the company’s headquarters was a, “purely technical choice that in no way disregards our group's deep Italian roots.”
Cementir Holding is a multinational manufacturer of grey and white cement, ready-mixed concrete, aggregates and concrete products, exporting to over 70 countries worldwide. It is a global leader in white cement and the group employs approximately 3100 people in 18 countries. The group sold its principal Italian business, Cementir Italia, and its shares in related companies to Italcementi in early 2018.
Turkey drags on Cementir’s half-year results
29 July 2019Italy: Cementir Holding has blamed poor performance in Turkey for falling cement sales volumes. Although it said that positive trends in Scandinavia, the Baltics and Belgium had party compensated for this. Its sales volumes of grey and white cement fell by 12.2% year-on-year to 4.32Mt in the first half of 2019 from 4.92Mt in the same period in 2018. Ready-mixed concrete sales dropped by 21.3% to 2Mm3 from 2.54Mm3. Its revenue rose slightly by 0.6% to Euro592m from Euro589m. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 14.7% to Euro110m from Euro96m.
Natural pozzolan use in the US
03 July 2019Charah Solutions has been steadily building up its fly ash distribution business in recent years with an eye on the supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) market. This week it opened the third of its new series of SCM grinding plants, at Oxnard in California, US. The unit sticks out because it is focusing on grinding natural pozzolans. The plant will receive natural pozzolan by truck and rail and then use Charah’s patented grinding technology to produce pozzolan marketed under its MultiPozz brand. The previous plants in this series mentioned natural pozzolans but this is the first to promote it explicitly.
The change is potentially telling because global demand for granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) outstrips supply. Both performance benefits and environmental regulations are pushing this. It’s a similar situation for fly ash, also driven by trends to close coal-fired power stations in some countries. As Charles Zeynel of SCM trading firm ZAG International explained in the March 2019 issue of Global Cement Magazine, “...volcanic pozzolans are a potential SCM of the future. This is gaining traction, but it’s slow progress at the moment. This will be the answer for some users in some locations.”
The problem though is that natural pozzolans are down the list of preferred SCMs for their chemical properties after silica fume, GBFS and fly ash. The first is expensive but the latter two were traditionally cheap and easy to obtain if a cement or concrete producer had access to a source or a distribution network. Natural pozzolans are very much subject to variations in availability.
It’s no surprise then that Charah is promoting natural pozzolans in a Californian plant given that state’s environmental stance. It’s unclear where Charah is sourcing their pozzolan from but they are not the only company thinking about this in the US. Sunrise Resources, for example, is working on the environmental permits for a natural pozzolan mine near Tonopah in Nevada. As it described in its company presentation, California and Nevada are the most affected states in the fly ash supply crisis because they are, “...at the end of the line when it comes to rail deliveries from power stations in central and eastern USA.” It also estimated that California used 0.9Mt of pozzolan in its cement production of which about 90% is fly ash. The state produced 9.6Mt in 2015. Other companies are also mining and distributing natural pozzolans in the US as the website for the National Pozzolan Association (NPA) lists. Although, if this line-up is comprehensive, then the field is still fairly select. Most of these companies are based in the west of the country.
One last thing to consider is that various groups are tackling a potential future lack of SCMs for the cement industry by making their own pozzolanic materials through the use of calcined clay. These groups include the Swiss-government backed LC3 project and Cementir’s Futurecem products. Using clay should bypass the supply issues with natural pozzolans but the cost of calcining it requires at the very least an investment to get started.
As concrete enthusiasts often point out, a variant of pozzolanic concrete was used by the Romans to build many of their iconic structures, some of which survive to the present day. To give the last word to the NPA, “What is old is new again: natural pozzolan is back!” If environmental trends continue and steel and coal plants continue to be shut then it might just be right.
Cementir sales down in 2018 due to issues in Egypt and Norway
15 February 2019Italy: Cementir Holding’s sales revenue fell by 4.2% in 2018 on a like-for-like basis due to poor performance in Egypt and Norway. Military operations in the Sinai impacted production in Egypt between February and May 2018 and bad weather in Norway affected the first quarter. However, it noted good results in Malaysia, Belgium and China.
On an adjusted basis its revenue rose by 4.9% to Euro1.2bn from Euro1.14bn. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew by 7.1% to Euro239m from Euro223m. Grey and white cement sales volumes fell by 4.4% to 9.8Mt from 10.3Mt. Ready-mixed concrete volumes fell slightly to 4.9Mm3.
Cementir results adjust to business outside of Italy
09 November 2018Italy: Cementir’s sales and earnings have benefited from new assets in the US as well as good performance in Belgium and China. Its sales revenue rose by 4.8% year-on-year to Euro893m in the first nine months of 2018 from Euro852m in the same period in 2017. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 5.2% to Euro163m from Euro155m. Its cement sales volumes fell by 1.8% to 7.52Mt from 7.66Mt. However, these figures take into account the company’s sale of its Italian operations.
Francesco Caltagirone Jr, chairman and chief executive officer, said, “In the first nine months of 2018 the EBITDA benefited on the one hand from the contribution of the US by Euro12.3m and from the improvement in Belgium and China, on the other it suffered the deterioration of earnings in Egypt due to the curfew introduced in February 2018 and the resulting stop of all transport activities until May 2018, in Norway due to bad weather in the first quarter, and in Turkey due to the economic and currency crisis getting worse in the month of August.”
In March 2018 the company purchased a controlling stake in Lehigh White Cement in the US from HeidlebergCement. It operates the company with Cemex as a junior partner. In October 2018 Cementir, through its subsidiaries, acquired an additional stake in Egypt’s Sinai White Cement increasing its share to 71.1% from 66.4% for Euro3.8m.
Cementir’s net profit rises sharply
27 July 2018Italy: Cementir Holding’s net profit rose to Euro77m in the first half of 2018, a massive 400.5% increase compared to just Euro15.5m in the first half of 2017. Revenues increased by 5.7% to Euro588.5m from Euro556.9m in the first half of 2017. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) improved by 9.5% to Euro96m from Euro87.7m in the first half of 2017. The impact of the devaluation of the main foreign currencies against the Euro on the gross operating margin had a negative effect of Euro7.9m. At constant exchange rates, EBITDA in 2017 would have amounted to Euro103.9m.
Chairman and CEO Francesco Caltagirone Jr explained that the results were up compared to the first half of 2017 also on a like-for-like basis, without the effect of the acquisition of Lehigh White Cement Company in the United States. The improvement in the gross operating margins in Turkey, Belgium and China, offset the worsening results in Egypt, Norway, Malaysia and Denmark. The results were also negatively affected the unfavourable winter weather conditions in the first quarter in Scandinavia and Belgium, as well as the earlier timing of Ramadan in Turkey and Egypt.
Italy: Cementir’s sales and earnings have fallen following the divestment of its local business. Its sales dropped by 1.6% year-on-year to Euro242m in the first quarter of 2018 from Euro246 in the same period of 2017 when adjusted for the divestment. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 12.4% to Euro241m from Euro27.5m. Cement sales volumes increased by 4.1% to 2.08Mt from 2Mt.
“The exit of Cementir Italia group from the perimeter of consolidation and the improvement in Turkey and China offset the deterioration of results in Egypt caused by the curfew introduced in February 2018, the effects of harsh weather conditions in Scandinavian countries, and the fewer number of working days due to the early Easter holidays, which resulted in lower earnings in Norway and, to a lesser extent, in Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Malaysia,” said the company in a results statement.
The group’s board of directors has also approved a business plan for 2018 to 2020 to recognise changes in its portfolio. In 2020 the group forecasts that the Nordic and Baltic countries and the US will generate about 72% of the group's revenue, while the Eastern Mediterranean area, including Turkey and Egypt, will generate 20% and the Asia Pacific area, including China and Malaysia, will account for around 6%.
US: Dan Harrington has been appointed as the head of Cementir Holding for its North America region. He will lead Cementir's newly formed Region North America, which comprised of the North American cement production and distribution operations of Lehigh White Cement and the group's existing US concrete products company, Vianini Pipe.
Harrington was previously the president and chief executive officer of Lehigh Hanson North America and he has served as the chairman of the Portland Cement Association (PCA). He holds a science degree from Pennsylvania State University, an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University and an MA and PhD in executive management from Claremont Graduate University.