Displaying items by tag: Cemex

Spain: Cemex has signed a collaboration agreement with Enagás, through its subsidiary Scale Green Energy, to develop logistics solutions for the maritime transport of captured CO₂ from cement production, aiming to accelerate industrial decarbonisation. The partnership will explore options for transporting captured CO₂ via pipeline. It includes developing a full CO₂ value chain, from capture at Cemex facilities to maritime shipment in liquefied form aboard a new vessel designed by Scale Green Energy, to eventual delivery to a licensed storage site in southern Europe. Scale Green Energy plans to design a next-generation vessel with a capacity of 20,000m³ for the transport of liquefied CO₂, enabling flexible and efficient transport to multiple Mediterranean storage hubs.

Jesús Saldaña, general manager of business development and investee companies at Enagás, said “This alliance to develop comprehensive logistics for the maritime transport of captured CO₂ represents an opportunity for Enagás and Cemex to jointly lead innovation to help decarbonise the industry, boosting its competitiveness, and for Spain to play a leading role in achieving the European Commission's goal of capturing 50Mt of CO₂ by 2030.”

Benjamín Cabrera, director of cement and technology operations at Cemex Spain, added “To advance the decarbonisation of the cement industry, it is essential to develop large-scale logistics solutions that allow us to manage large volumes of CO₂ safely, efficiently, and competitively. This agreement lays the foundations for a pioneering infrastructure that will connect Cemex plants in Spain with the main storage hubs in the Mediterranean.”

Mexico: Cemex has completed the sale of its operations in Panama to Dominican-Republic based industrial conglomerate Grupo Estrella for an enterprise value of approximately US$200m. The divested assets include a 1.2Mt/yr capacity cement plant in Calzada Larga, Chilibre, along with related ready-mix, aggregates operations, and rights to acquire additional reserves. Cemex has increased its holdings to a majority stake in US-based Couch Aggregates, using a small portion of the Panama sale proceeds to offset the EBITDA impact from the divestment.

“These transactions are important building blocks in our strategy to rebalance our portfolio and continue investing in growth in priority markets,” said Jaime Muguiro, CEO of Cemex.

US: Peru-based UNACEM has appointed Rafael Villalona as the CEO of its operations in North America.

Previously, Villalona was the CEO of Cemex in the UAE from 2020. He worked for the cement producer in various roles from 2007 starting in the Dominican Republic. He became the Country Manager for Jamaica in 2011, Haiti in 2015 and the group’s Vice President Commercial & Logistics based in Egypt in 2019. He was also the chair of the Mexican Business Council in the UAE in 2024 and 2025. Villalona holds an undergraduate degree in civil engineering from the Ohio State University and a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Maryland.

Spain: Titan Group has appointed Juan Moreno as Investment and Business Development Manager. Moreno previously worked as a Venture Architect for Cemex Ventures from 2017 to 2025. Before this he was a consultant as the Boston Consulting Group. He holds a master’s degree in civil engineering from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and a master’s of business administration qualification from INSEAD.

Tanzania: Elsawy Ahmed has resigned as the manager of Twiga Cement’s Wazo Hill plant. He had been in post at the subsidiary of Heidelberg Materials since 2017. He is now working as a technical consultant.

Elsawy started his career as a Quality Control Supervisor for Assiut Cement in Egypt. He later worked for Cemex Egypt and became a plant manager for Cemex in Bangladesh in the early 2000s. He joined Italcementi in 2006 becoming Maintenance & Project Manager for subsidiary Suez Cement in the mid-2010s. Elsawy holds a degree in chemistry from Assiut University.

Spain: Cemex has appointed Oliver Chaddock as Trading Head for Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. He has worked for Cemex in trading roles since the late 2000s, becoming a planning analyst in 2008 and moving on to director-level trading roles from 2011. His last position was as Trading Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Chaddock holds an executive master of business administration (MBA) qualification from the IE Business School in Madrid.

Mexico: Cemex has reported a 5.3% year-on-year decrease in its sales to US$4.13bn for the second quarter of 2025 compared to the same period of 2024. Its operating earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) also fell by 10.5% to US$823m.

The company attributed the declines to challenging demand conditions in Mexico and the US and a difficult comparison base in 2024. In Mexico, this related to strong infrastructure spending in 2024 prior to national elections. Cemex noted that higher local currency prices in key markets and strong volume performance in its Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region partially mitigated the results. The EMEA region recorded its highest-ever first-half operating EBITDA.

The company’s reports stated “Our operations in Europe continue progressing on decarbonisation with net CO₂ emissions in the quarter reaching a new record low of 418kg/t cement equivalent. Demand conditions continue to improve in the Middle East and Africa with volumes expanding at double-digit rates, fuelled by housing, non-residential projects and large infrastructure works.”

Cemex’s sales in Mexico fell by 23% to US$1.06bn in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the US$1.38bn in 2024. Domestic grey cement, ready-mixed concrete and aggregates sales volumes contracted by 16%, 15% and 19% respectively. In the US, Cemex blamed the drop on high rain levels in various places and continued poor performance of the residential market. Due to this sales fell by 6% to US$1.3bn.

Holcim Mexico has been promoting itself as the lynchpin of the group’s growth in Latin America this week. The move makes sense following the spin-off of Holcim’s North America business in late June 2025. The company says that Mexico has a housing deficit, has the highest profitability margin in Latin America and it is leading the transformation toward circular and low-carbon construction.

The bullseye on Latin America was first planted by Holcim in the group’s NextGen Growth 2030 strategy that was released in March 2025. With the company preparing to separate off its most profitable section in the US, it decided to highlight new reasons for investors to stay interested. The summary was ‘focused investment’ in attractive markets in Latin America, Europe, North Africa and Australia, sustainability-driven growth with demolition materials singled out and an emphasis on the building solutions division. Although the Latin America division supplied the smallest geographical share of new group net sales in 2024 (US$3.9bn, 19%), the profitability metric presented, recurring earnings before interest and taxation (EBIT) margin, gave the region the highest result. Or in other words, Holcim is telling investors that it may have divested North America but it still has business south of the Rio Grande… and it looks promising. It then said that it has the ‘best’ geographical coverage and vertical integration in the region and the largest construction materials retail franchise in the form of Disensa.

Understandably, the likes of Cemex, Cementos Argos, Votorantim and others might take exception to some of this. For example, Cemex reported net sales in excess of US$6bn in Latin America and the Caribbean, and Votorantim reported net sales of around US$4.8bn in 2024. Yet, Holcim’s claim of regional spread does carry some weight. It purchased Comacsa and Mixercon in Peru and assets from Cemex in Guatemala in 2024. At the end of the year the group owned integrated cement plants in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru. Plus it held grinding plants in the French Antilles and Nicaragua. All of these are majority-owned subsidiaries, often also with aggregate, ready-mixed concrete and building systems businesses. Holcim may have sold up in Brazil in 2022 but it still holds a relatively intact network in Latin America.

Graph 1: Grey cement production in Mexico, 2020 - April 2025, rolling 12 months. Source: National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI).

As for the market, Holcim reported modest but growing net sales in Latin America in 2024, despite lower sales volumes plus elections in Mexico, economic issues in Argentina and political instability in Ecuador. Focusing on Mexico, local cement volumes were said to be stable, aided by a recovery in bagged cement in spite of bulk sales falling on the back of fewer infrastructure projects. Holcim Mexico also spent US$55m on building a new grinding unit at its integrated Macuspana plant in Tabasco. Once complete, the update will increase the site’s capacity by 0.5Mt/yr to 1.5Mt/yr.

Cemex, the market leader in Mexico, released more direct information. It saw its sales and operating earnings fall in 2024. This was blamed on a poor second half to the year following the presidential election in June 2024. GCC’s sales fell more sharply in 2024 and this was blamed on “energy infrastructure limitations and permitting delays in Juarez.” So far in 2025, in the first quarter, the pain in Mexico for the construction sector has continued, with both Cemex and GCC noting strong falls in cement volumes and sales due to a slowdown in industrial demand. Holcim has not reported on Mexico directly so far in 2025 only saying that sales have risen in local currencies in Latin America as a whole in the first quarter. Cemex started a cost cutting exercise in February 2025 in response to the situation. Graph 1 above shows Mexican cement production. Although it should be noted that Cemex and GCC still run subsidiaries in the US. Holcim now does not. Rolling 12-month cement production figures in Mexico started falling in September 2024 and continued to do so until April 2025, the date of the latest data provided by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.

Despite falling volumes though, the price of cement in Mexico remains high by international standards. At the start of July 2025 the National Association of Independent Businessmen (ANEI) raised the alarm that distributors had warned of an 8% price rise on the way. It’s in this environment that news stories such as Bolivia-based Empresa Pública de Cementos Bolivia (ECEBOL), a producer in a landlocked and mountainous country, preparing to export clinker to Mexico from July 2025 start to sound credible. Sales may have been down in Mexico in 2024 but earnings and margins remain high. In the medium-to-longer term the country looks even more promising, with plenty of scope for development and building products. Ditto the rest of Latin America.

One way a multinational heavy building materials company with a presence in sustainability-obsessed Europe might gain an advantage in the region is by using its knowledge to capture the easier decarbonisation routes first. This is exactly the route Holcim and Holcim Mexico seem to be taking by promoting lower carbon cement and concrete products, and by growing the recycling of demolition materials. Another option, of course, is that Holcim is bolstering its Latin America division ahead of a potential divestment. Either way, Holcim is presenting a plan for growth in its new form, shorn of North America. It’s all to play for.

Belgium: Cembureau, the European Cement Association, has elected Jon Morrish as its president and José Antonio Cabrera as its vice president. They will serve in the positions for a two-year term.

Morrish has been the CEO for Heidelberg Materials in Europe since 2024 and a member of its managing board. He joined Hanson in 1999 and became a member of the group’s managing board in 2016. He was the head of the North America Group area until early 2020 and then took on responsibility for the Western and Southern Europe Group. He holds an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Leeds and a master’s of business administration (MBA) qualification from the Cranfield School of Management.

Antonio Cabrera is the president of Cemex Europe, Middle East & Africa. He joined Cemex in 2000. Notable positions include president for Cemex in Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Haiti, Vice President of Strategic Planning for Cemex in the Asia, Middle East and Africa region. He started his professional career at Cemex in cement operations. He holds a undergraduate degree in physics from La Laguna University in Spain and an MBA from the IE Business School.

Sweden: Alcemy has appointed Alejandro Espejel Garcia as its Head of Sales - Cement Business Line. He previously worked as a Business Development Manager for the Germany-based artificial intelligence software company.

Espejel Garcia worked for Denmark-based FLSmidth from 2012 to 2024. He started as a Senior Reliability Specialist for the equipment supplier notably becoming Country Manager and Head of Mining Sales - Mexico in 2018 and Managing Director for FLSmidth Panama at around the same time. He subsequently was appointed as Vice President - Head of Group Digital’s Smart Service in 2021 and Vice President - Head of ERP Transformation in 2023. Before working for FLSmidth he held various roles with Cemex from 2004 to 2011 ending his tenure as a Regional Technical Manager in Mexico. He holds an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and a master’s of business administration qualification from the Copenhagen Business School .