Displaying items by tag: Cementos Portland Valderrivas

Spain: Pedro Carranza, the CEO of Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV), has sought to reassure his company with regards to the future of the Alcalá de Guadaíara plant in Andalusia following a dispute with local authorities.

“The future of the Alcalá de Guadaíra cement plant is assured,” he said. “It is an efficient, low-cost and very well located plant in a very attractive economic environment where construction growth is above the national average. The Alcalá plant is here to stay.” Carranza added that only ‘distortion of international markets’ could compromise the plant’s future. He called for a surge in public infrastructure investment as soon as possible.

The plant has been involved in a long-running dispute with local authorities regarding co-processing of alternative fuels. A project is now underway. The plant is also exploring long-term renewable energy purchase contracts and the installation of solar panels on its site.

Spain: Pedro Carranza, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Grupo Cementos Portland Valderrivas, has been named as the president of Fundación Laboral Andaluza del Cemento y el Medio Ambiente (FLACEMA). He succeeds Francisco Zunzunegui, who has held the post since late 2017. FLACEMA promotes the co-procesing of waste by the Andalusian cement industry. It was set up in 2003 by the Association of Manufacturers of Cement of Andalusia (AFCA) and a group of major unions.

Spain: Cementos Portland Valderrivas’ (CPV) Alcalá de Guadaíra plant has awarded first place in its children’s painting competition to Eva María Gómez, a student at the nearby CEIP Ángeles Martín Mateo primary school. The student depicted the daily work conducted at the plant in vibrant colours. Second place went to Lucía López from the same school. Special mention was also made to Ainhoa Manzano. The competition was run with the Andalusian Foundation for Cement and Environment (FLACEMA).

Spain: Cementos Portland Valderrivas’ (CPV) Alcalá de Guadaíra plant near Seville has updated its environmental standard. It uses an integrated environmental management system, based on the UNE-EN ISO 14001: 2015 standard and the European regulation on eco-management and eco-auditing (EMAS) CE No. 1221/2009, modified according to regulation (EU) 2017 / 1505. The plant has been certified since 2004 but this was updated to the new version of the standard in mid-2018.

The plant also uses a health and safety management system certified since 2009 according to 18.001: 2007 OHSAS. The unit reported that it had no accidents to the end of August 2018.

Spain: Cementos Alfa, part of Cementos Portland Valderrivas Group, has received permission from the Ministry of Environment to expand its quarry. The approval also allows the cement producer to expand the area of its quarry, according to the El Diario Montañés newspaper. The quarry currently produces 0.6Mt/yr of limestone and marl that are used for clinker production at the neighbouring plant.

Tunisia: Portugal’s Secil and Spain’s Cementos Portland Valderrivas have both submitted bids for Carthage Cement. Other bidders included local company Omnium des Industries et de la Promotion, Malta’s Eurocem and a consortium of Asamer Kurt, Petech and Melton Enterprise. The companies are bidding for a 50.52% stake in the Tunisian cement producer.

Spain: Mexico's Carlos Slim has appointed Carlos Jarque and Juan Rodriguez Torres as proprietary directors of Cementos Portland Valderrivas. After the appointments, Carlos Slim controls more than half of the board of directors of Cementos Portland Valderrivas, with Gerrardo Kuri as CEO. Spanish builder FCC has three representatives on the board of Cementos Portland Valderrivas, namely Esther Koplowitz, Alicia Alcocer and Carmen Alcocer Koplowitz. FCC is the second biggest shareholder in Cementos Portland Valderrivas.

Spain: Spanish association of cement producers Oficemen has appointed Isidoro Miranda as its new chairman. Miranda, the managing director of Lafarge Cementos, will replace the former chairman of Cementos Portland Valderrivas and current CEO of builder FCC, Juan Bejar. Oficemen also named Jaime Ruiz de Haro, Jose Maria Aracama, Feliciano Gonzalez and Jorge Wagner as vice presidents.

Spain: The board of directors at Spanish construction group FCC will propose in the following days the appointment of Juan Bejar CEO to replace Baldomero Falcones who occupied the position for five years, according to Spanish business newspaper Expansion.

At present Bejar is a chairman at FCC's subsidiary Cementos Portland Valderrivas and Globalvia, in which FCC is a partner of Bankia. He was also a chairman at Citigroup Infrastructure Management and CEO at Ferrovial Infraestructuras and Cintra.

The new CEO will take his position in a moment when FCC is focused on a restructuring process, aimed at meeting the fall of the traditional business, the difficulties of the cement subsidiary and Austrian unit Alpine as well as the need to repay Euro1.6bn debt.

The results are in from the European cement majors and the news from the Mediterranean producers is grim. A common phrase found in most of these financial reports was the 'challenging economic environment' in western Europe. Here's what this means.

In Spain, Cemex saw its net sales in its Mediterranean region (consisting mainly of Spain) slump by 17% to Euro1.10bn. Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV) posted a loss of Euro83m for the first nine months of 2012, almost 10 times the loss for the same period in 2011. In July 2012 the Spanish cement association Oficement noted that demand had fallen by 60% year-on-year.

In Italy, Italcementi reported a 92% crash in net profit, to Euro17.1m, for the first nine months of 2012, and a drop in revenue of 4%, to Euro3.39bn, for the first nine months of 2012. Buzzi Unicem reported a 21% decline in sales volumes of cement and clinker, and a drop in sales of 15% to Euro430m. Vicat reported that Italian sales across all its business lines were down by 9% for the year.

By contrast, beleaguered Greek producer Titan has finally started to show a (slight) increase in its revenue. It has been able to report a second consecutive quarter where turnover has risen year-on-year. Although Titan's net profit for the same period still plummeted by 96% to Euro2m.

Elsewhere progress of a kind is being made despite the ongoing European slump, mainly due to profitable assets held outside of western Europe.

Lafarge reported that its overall sales were up by 4% to Euro4.39bn in 2012 so far. Yet its income has fallen by 44% to Euro332m and its profits are suffering from its restructuring programme. In western Europe Lafarge noted that cement volumes were down by 11% to 12.5Mt so far in 2012 and that sales were down by 9% to Euro2.43bn.

Holcim reported a 5% increase in overall net sales and a 7% increase in operating profits to Euro1.57bn. In western Europe Holcim's sales volumes were down by 4.6% (like-for-like) to 20.1Mt and sales were down by 6% to Euro3.68bn.

HeidelbergCement reported a 2.5% increase in overall sales but pre-tax profits have fallen by 5% to Euro601m. HeidelbergCement's revenue from its cement business in western and northern Europe was down by 5% to Euro1.3bn. Buzzi Unicem reported overall flat sales at Euro2.15bn but net profit rose by 50% to Euro85m. Despite this Buzzi Unicem reported a drop of 8.5% in Germany.

Vicat reported little change in sales at Euro1.73bn for the year so far. Vicat's financial reporting made it hard to tell how much was lost in Europe but French cement sales were noted as being down by 12%. Cemex's sales volumes were down by 13% in northern Europe, with net sales down by 15% to Euro3.09bn. Italcementi's cement sales volumes in central and western Europe fell by 16.8% to 12.2Mt.

Of the major producers only Lafarge failed to state the obvious in its outlook about western Europe: that sales will continue to decline in 2012 and 2013. If Titan has set the bar for how much more pain the other European producers have yet to face then conditions are likely to get worse. Get ready for even more 'challenges' in 2013.