Displaying items by tag: Cementos Argos

US: Cementos Argos subsidiary Argos Florida Cement has won the Slag Cement Association (SCA)’s Durability and Infrastructure awards at its 2022 Sustainable Concrete Project of the Year Awards. The producer won the awards for its supply of slag cement to two projects in Florida in 2021. Its involvement in the American Bridge Company’s SR 679 Pinellas Bayway Bridge – Structure E replacement won it the Durability award, while its involvement in Superior Paving’s State Road 52 realignment. Argos Florida Cement congratulated its customers, who also received the awards.

Colombia: Grupo Gilinski has increased its stake in Grupo SURA by 7.7% to 32%. Grupo SURA controls a 36% stake in Grupo Argos, the parent company of Cementos Argos and US-based Argos USA. The deal awaits validation and agency approval.

Colombia: Grupo Argos subsidiary Argos recorded consolidated sales of US$2.57bn in 2021, down by 9.1% year-on-year from US$2.27bn in 2020. It sold 17.1Mt of cement across all regions, up by 16% from 14.6Mt in 2020. In the US, its cement sales rose by 5.7% to 6.1Mt, in Colombia they rose by 23% to 5Mt and in the Caribbean and Central America they rose by 27% to 6Mt. The producer’s earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 34% year-on-year to US$443m from US$406m.

CEO Juan Esteban Calle “I am extremely proud of these achievements, which are the result of a disciplined strategy of expansion, efficiencies and customer-centricity that has been carried out based on a long-term vision of sustainability, growth and profitability, aiming at delivering sustained and increasing value to our shareholders.”

Colombia: Cementos Argos has announced the launch of its new modular concrete solutions subsidiary Soluciones Modulares Argos. The company will produce precast concrete elements for use in housing and infrastructure construction. It aims to build 500 new homes in the second half 2022 and says that its products will halve building times.

Cementos Argos Colombia regional vice president Carlos Horacio Yustysaid "Modular concrete solutions revolutionise the execution of traditional structures and constitute a disruptive bet in construction systems technology."

Colombia: Cementos Argos has successfully commissioned its new cement terminal in Bolívar Department’s Cartagena Free Zone. Semana News has reported that the terminal will export cement to the Caribbean, Central America and the US. It triples Cementos Argos’ cement export capacity to 3.5Mt/yr.

US: Argos USA has announced the upcoming transition of its Roberta, Alabama, cement plant to Portland limestone cement (PLC) Type IL production. By mid-2022, the company plans to produce 100% PLC at the 1.7Mt/yr plant. Its Durham, Statesville and Wilmington cement terminals in North Carolina will also transition to the exclusive distribution of PLC. The Roberta plant will directly serve customers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Mississippi.

Argos USA has also launched PLC production at its Harleyville, South Carolina, Newberry, Florida, and Martinsburg, West Virginia, cement plants. It aims to begin producing PLC at all of its cement plants nationally by 2024.

CEO Bill Wagner said "We are excited to announce the transition of the Roberta plant to 100% (PLC) Type IL. With this transition, we continue to support our customers and the industry on its road to lower greenhouse gas emissions. With PLC, we are supplying a more environmentally friendly building solution for our customers, engineered to deliver an outstanding quality and performance while lowering our carbon footprint.”

Colombia: Cementos Argos has donated 21,500 bags (1075t) of cement to the Mayor's Office of Sogamoso to contribute to the rehabilitation of several main roads in Sogamoso, Boyacá and thus contribute to the improvement of the mobility of the municipality and benefit to more than 30,000 people. The company’s Sogamoso de Argos plant is in the vicinity.

“This donation has been fundamental for us. An acknowledgment, a thank you to Argos,” commented Rigoberto Alfonso, mayor of Sogamoso.

Colombia: Cementos Argos has invested around US$42m on a new terminal in the free trade zone of Cartagena. It is expanding its port infrastructure and tripling the import-export capacity of the site to 3.5Mt/yr. The new terminal, which adds to Argos' existing port facility, from which it exports cement and clinker to the US and other destinations in the Caribbean and Central America, will begin operations in the first quarter of 2022. An official ceremony marking the opening of the terminal will be held in January 2022.

"This new terminal will allow us to substantially increase cement exports to the US, taking advantage of the growing demand for construction materials in that country," said Juan Esteban Calle, the chief executive officer of Cementos Argos.

Honduras: Cementos Argos plans to expand the production capacity of its 1Mt/yr Piedras Azules cement plant by 35%. The plan is part of a group of planned projects, including solar power and alternative fuels, with a total investment value of US$23m. The company expects to complete all of the work before 2024. It says that the expanded operations will generate 500 new direct job opportunities.

The company will increase its energy supply from the Comayagua solar power plant to 25% of the plant’s requirements from 20% at present. It will also establish a new 1.2MW solar power plant at Río Blanquito. The cement producer will also strengthen its industrial waste co-processing operations with the aim of achieving 12% refuse-derived fuel (RDF) substitution rate by 2030, the equivalent of 5500t/yr. If reached, this will reduce the company’s carbon footprint in the country by 14%.

Chief executive officer (CEO) Luis Eduardo Tovar said "This investment is a vote of confidence of Argos in Honduras and represents our commitment to the country's economic reactivation and our firm determination to contribute to the consolidation of prosperous and sustainable communities based on competitive and visionary initiatives.” He continued “We will continue our efforts to promote the development of Honduran families through the creation of social value at a national level."

Saint-Gobain has headed back to the attention of the cement sector this week with a deal to buy GCP Applied Technologies and a joint-venture with Cementos Argos in Colombia.

The first development carries on the French conglomerate’s move into the construction chemicals market. In October 2021 it acquired Chryso for Euro1.02bn. Other recent deals include agreements to buy Romania-based construction chemicals company Duraziv in May 2021 and Mexico-based IMPAC in October 2021. The GCP Applied Technologies deal is valued at Euro2.3bn with closure planned by the end of 2022. As Saint-Gobain put it, “The combined platform of Weber, Chryso and GCP offers customers a highly comprehensive portfolio of construction chemicals solutions with strong complementary geographic footprints.” It says that it sees the planned acquisition as the “logical next step” to expand its market share in admixtures and additives. It also reckons that Chryso and GCP Applied Technologies are complimentary geographically with Chryso positions mostly in Europe, Middle East and Africa and with GCP’s positions in North America, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Once the deal goes through, Saint-Gobain will operate 75 production sites in the sector in 38 countries. The specialty building materials part of GCP will then be integrated into the CertainTeed subsidiary in North America.

The arrangement in Colombia concerns a joint-venture intended to focus on lightweight and sustainable building materials. Detail is scarce beyond an announcement by Cementos Argos on its website but the focus appears to be on bringing in Saint-Gobain’s mortar products and/or technology into the local market.

This move towards the lightweight building materials market may sound familiar. That’s because it is similar to what Holcim has also been doing recently, notably with its acquisition of Firestone Building Products earlier this year. It is interesting though to see both companies targeting the lightweight sector from different places. Both have also framed their intentions in terms of sustainability goals. Notably, Saint-Gobain has far lower carbon emissions than many cement producers. For example, Holcim reported sales of around Euro22bn in 2020 with absolute gross Scope 1 CO₂ emissions of 110Mt. Saint-Gobain reported sales of around Euro38bn with total Scope 1 CO₂ emissions of 7.9Mt.

At an investors event in October 2021 Saint-Gobain’s chief executive officer Benoit Bazin said that the group’s ambition was to become the worldwide leader in light and sustainable construction. Saint-Gobain’s business portfolio was diverse already before the GCP announcement, with its construction products focused on ‘lighter’ materials such as gypsum wallboard, insulation and glass. Its expansion into the construction chemicals market is of relevance to the cement industry directly through the supply of admixtures for cement and concrete. It’s also of interest to wider trends in construction because the acquisitions show another company chasing the lightweight building materials market. One expectation, as countries and companies have signed up to net zero carbon commitments, is that the demand for lightweight materials in the building envelope will grow and companies are reacting accordingly. The question at this stage is whether there is space in their growing market for all of them.