Displaying items by tag: Cemex

Vicat’s plans to buy another 42% stake in Sinai Cement became public this week. Once completed, the France-based company should own 98% of the Egyptian company, based on previously published ownership figures. The announcement heralds a rapprochement in the relationship between the cement producer and the Egyptian government.

Last year Vicat raised a case against the government with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) over an argument about how it could invest in Sinai Cement as a foreign company. All seems forgiven and forgotten now with a settlement agreement signed in March 2022 between Rania el Mashat, the Minister of International Cooperation on behalf of the Egyptian government, and Guy Sidos, the chairman and chief executive officer of Vicat Group. Local press reported that the government is trying to attract more direct foreign investment. Sinai Cement reported a loss attributable to its parent company of around US$19.1m in 2021, down from a loss of US$30.3m in 2020. However, its sales rose by 63% year-on-year to US$78m.

Sinai Cement has some specific operating issues related to its geographic position in the Sinai Peninsula and ongoing security concerns. Yet its mixed fortunes also sum up some of the continuing challenges the Egyptian cement industry is facing. After years of overcapacity, the government introduced reduced cement production quotas in July 2021 and this is mostly perceived to have improved prices in the second half of the year. Vicat described the arrangement as having capped the local market at 65% of its production capacity and it said that prices recovered ‘significantly’ as a result in the second half of 2021. Cemex’s regional chief Carlos Gonzalez told local press that the move had given plants “A glimmer of hope for the return of balance to the cement market.” The company has also announced a US$20m local investment backing up this view. Not all the foreign multinational companies entirely agreed, with HeidelbergCement reporting a ‘sharp’ decline in sales volumes although chief executive officer Dominik von Achten did describe the country as ‘coming back’ in an earnings call about his company’s financial results in 2021. Solomon Baumgartner Aviles, the chief executive officer of Lafarge Egypt, was also cooler about the production cap in a press interview in October 2021, describing it as too early to assess how well the cap was working and noting that the gap between supply and demand was still large.

Vicat said in its annual report for 2021 that, “Provided no further adverse geopolitical, health or security developments occur, the current climate is unlikely to jeopardise the prospects of an improvement in the subsidiary’s profitability, which should begin to gradually occur.” The geopolitical bit was timely given that Russia’s war in Ukraine started on 24 February 2022. It also targets the latest problem hitting Egyptian cement producers: energy costs. The head of Arabian Cement told Enterprise Press that initially some producers had opted to temporarily stop production and use stocks instead to attempt to try and wait until the energy price volatility ended. However, it stayed high so the cost of cement has gone up generally. Producers are now trying to switch to using a high ratio of natural gas, such as 10%, but this is dependent on the government letting them.

The Egyptian government, for its part, is facing a decision whether to supply subsidised gas for domestic industry or to export to Europe. The backstory here is that Egyptian cement producers are facing yet another step change in fuel supply. In the mid-2010s lots of plants switched from heavy fuel oil and gas to coal. High international coal prices could be heralding another change.

Alongside this the value of Egypt’s cement exports rose by 151% year-on-year to US$456m in 2021 from US$182m in 2020. The Cement Division of the Federation of Egyptian Industries has attributed this to growth mainly on the African market. This trend continued in January and February 2022 with cement exports up by 141% year-on-year to US$104m from US$43m. The main destinations were Ghana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Libya.

HeidelbergCement summed up the current state of the Egyptian cement market in its 2021 annual report as follows “The development of the Egyptian cement market continues to be determined by government intervention.” What happens next is very much in the hands of the state as it decides whether to extend the production cap, which fuels to subsidise, whether to allow exports and where to invest in infrastructure projects. One variation on this theme may be local decarbonisation targets. At the end of March 2022 the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) launched a series of Net Zero Accelerator initiatives, including one in Egypt. How a country that produces more cement than it needs reduces its CO₂ emissions presents another challenge for manufacturers and the government to grapple with.

Mexico: Increases in raw material prices and energy costs, as a result of high inflation levels, will affect the operating margins of cement companies listed on the Mexican Stock Exchange in the first quarter of 2022, according to analysts quoted by CE NoticiasFinancieras.

Jacobo Rodríguez, director of Economic Analysis at Black Wallstreet Capital, explained that, "Despite the fact that companies are slow to pass on the increase in their costs to their final products, we will see pressure on their margins in their results in the first quarter of the year and from now on.”

Heriberto Sandoval, investment advisor at Increase Kapital, said “The cement industry is strongly affected by the increase in energy costs and, considering that the high cost pressures worldwide will be longer lasting than originally thought, this will lead to a decrease in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) this year.”

Mexican cement companies recorded a decline in the price of their shares between January and March 2022. Market leader Cemex led the way, with a 23.59% drop in the value of its shares. The second largest drop was seen by GCC, which lost 9.5% of its value. Cementos Moctezuma’s shares also lost 3.05% of their value in the first quarter of 2022.

Germany: Mexico-based Cemex has joined a consortium with Sasol EcoFT and Enertrag that plans to use CO₂ and hydrogen to produce aviation fuel. The project is part of Cemex’s Future in Action program and is part of its plan to develop a carbon neutral operation at its Rüdersdorf cement plant by 2030. The consortium will source green hydrogen generated from wind and solar energy from Enertrag. The CO₂ will come from the Rüdersdorf cement plant, which will provide 100t/day CO₂ in the project’s initial stages. Sasol will then contribute its technology to produce e-kerosene, which, once certified, can be blended to constitute up to 50% of jet fuel.

The Rüdersdorf carbon neutral alliance includes over 20 start-ups, universities, companies from other industries and authorities working to develop industrial-scale solutions achieve the first carbon-neutral cement plant in the world.

Enertrag is a renewable-energy company based in Brandenburg. It operates utility-scale integrated energy plants in 10 countries. Its plants produce electricity and green hydrogen from wind and solar sources.

Sasol EcoFT is part of Sasol Group. It uses its technology to produce sustainable fuels and chemicals from green hydrogen and sustainable carbon sources, via the Power-to-Liquids process.

Panama: Cemex exported 3000t of bagged Ordinary Portland Cement to Jamaica from the Bahía Las Minas Grain Terminal in Colón. Data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industries shows that the company started exporting cement in January 2021 and recorded sales of over US$17m in 2021. In the first two months of 2022 Panama exported OPC to countries including Jamaica, the Bahamas, Guyana, Bonaire, Cuba and Curaçao.

US: Cemex has increased production of Portland limestone cement (PLC) at its Lyons plant in Colorado. PLC is expected to become the plant’s primary product by the summer of 2022. The blended cement has been produced at the site for over 15 years. However, Cemex says it is growing production to meet the company’s carbon reduction goals and meet increased demand for lower carbon materials.

Cemex USA has also increased PLC production at its plants in Brooksville, Florida, and Demopolis, Alabama. The start of PLC production or further increases is planned for other cement plants later in 2022.

UK: Cemex UK has announced the global launch of its OnPoint coloured cement mortars for off-site and urban architectural applications. The range includes 35 colour palette options.

Europe regional mortars sales manager Mike May said “On heritage projects, we can now accurately colour-match existing mortars for repointing and maintenance work. Our existing buildings account for more than 35% of the world’s energy consumption, so solutions like Cemex OnPoint can significantly contribute to a more efficient built environment and a better future for all.”

Mexico: Cemex has published its 2021 Integrated Report. Under the report’s Climate Action section, Cemex recorded a 4.7% year-on-year decrease in its CO₂ emissions per tonne of cementitious material. Alternative fuel (AF) substitution rose to 29%, while its products’ average clinker factor fell to 75%. It was the first company to complete a global roll-out of its reduced-CO₂ cement and concrete range (Vertua). It established Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi)-verified well below 2°C 2030 climate action goals and joined the UN’s Race to Zero and the Business Ambition for 1.5°C coalition. It also became a founding member of the World Economic Forum’s First Movers Coalition for zero-carbon economic development.

The year also brought major Sustainability and Circular Economy milestones, including managing 57 times the volume of waste it sent to landfill, positively impacting 25m lives through its Social Impact Strategy and processing 61% of global sales through its Cemex Go digital sales platform. For the second consecutive year, its Net Promotor Score was 68, ‘substantially above’ the construction and engineering industry average.

Poland: The Building Research Institute has issued environmental product declarations (EPDs) for all six cement types produced at its Chełm and Rudniki cement plants and Gdynia grinding plant. The products in question were two CEM I cements, two CEM II Portland fly ash cements, another CEM II cement and a CEM III slag cement. Cemex Poland additionally obtained EPD certification for its Vertua Classic and Vertua Plus concrete products.

Materials director Michał Grys said “For us, product certification is another important step towards sustainable construction and a sustainable future. EPD declarations provide our clients with additional confirmation of the properties of products offered by Cemex Poland. They also improve their chances of obtaining LEED or BREEAM certificates for their investments.”

From the Nordics to the Mediterranean, European countries lead the field in reduced-clinker cement production using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). While consumers, faced with ever-greater choice, continue to opt for sustainability, projects to improve existing SCMs and develop new ones have won government backing and have become a matter of serious investment for other heavy industries beside cement. European cement producers’ decisions are steering the course to a world beyond CEM I. Yet, even in Europe, great untapped potential remains.

Companies generated a good deal of marketing buzz around their latest reduced-CO₂ cement ranges in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022: Buzzi Unicem’s CGreen in Germany and Italy, Holcim’s EcoPlanet in six markets from Romania to Spain, Cementir Holding’s Futurecem in Denmark and Benelux, and Cemex’s Vertua in Spain and several other countries. All boast reduced clinker factors through the use of alternative raw materials. This, however, is really a rebranding of a long-established norm in Europe.

Since 2010, cements other than CEM I have constituted over 75% of average annual cement deliveries across Cembureau member countries (all cement-producing EU member states, plus Norway, Serbia, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and Ukraine). This statistic breaks down differently from country to country. CEM II is the norm in Austria, Finland, Portugal and Switzerland, with deliveries in the region of 90%. Portland limestone cement (PLC) makes up a majority of deliveries in all four. It has been central to Switzerland’s transition to 89% (3.72Mt) of CEM II deliveries out of a total 4.18Mt of cement despatched in 2021. There, the main types of cement were CEM II/B-M (T-LL) Portland composite cement, with 1.38Mt (33%), and two different classifications of PLC: CEM II/A-LL PLC, with 1.28Mt (31%), and CEM II/B-LL PLC, with 888,000t (21%).

A second approach is that of the Netherlands, where CEM III blast furnace slag cement with a clinker factor below 65% predominates, favoured for its sulphate resistance and the protection it offers against chloride-initiated corrosion of steel reinforcement in marine settings. By contrast, the UK has traditionally maintained a higher reliance on CEM I cement. This can be partly explained by the preference of builders there for adding fly ash or ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) at the mixing stage. Nonetheless, CEM II Portland fly ash cement held a 14% (1.43Mt) market share in the UK’s 10.2Mt of cement consumption in 2021.

The UK Mineral Products Association (MPA) has identified limestone as an underutilised resource in the country’s cement production. Together with HeidelbergCement subsidiary Hanson Cement, it has applied for a change to National Application standards to allow the production of Portland composite cement from fly ash and limestone or GGBFS and limestone. The association has forecast that Portland composite cement could easily rise to 30 – 40% of UK cement consumption, and that this has the potential to eliminate 8% of the sector’s 7.8Mt/yr-worth of CO₂ emissions.

Metallurgical waste streams have long flowed into European cement production, primarily as GGBFS, but also as bauxite residue. In 2021, alumina production in the EU alone generated 7Mt of bauxite residue, of which the bloc recycled just 100,000t (1.4%) that year. Two projects – the Holcim Innovation Center-led ReActiv project and Titan Cement and others’ REDMUD project – aim to produce new alternative cementitious materials from bauxite residue.

By collaborating with other industries, cement producers’ investments can most effectively reduce the overall cost of using these materials in cement production. In Germany, HeidelbergCement and ThyssenKrupp’s Save CO₂ project aims to develop new improved latent hydraulic binders or alternative pozzolan from GGBFS by producing slag from directly reduced iron (DRI). The Save CO₂ team believes that GGBFS substitution for clinker has the capacity to eliminite 200Mt/yr of CO₂ emissions from global cement production.

Meanwhile in the world of mining, ThyssenKrupp and others’ NEMO project is investigating the recovery of a useable mineral fraction for cement production from the extractive waste of the Luikonlahti and Sotkamo mines in Finland and the Tara mine in Ireland, through bioleaching and cleaned mineral residue upcycling. This may give cement producers full access to Europe’s 28Bnt stockpiles of sulphidic mining waste, of which mines generate an additional 600Mt each year.

Denmark-based CemGreen, which produces the calcined clay supplementary cementitious material CemShale, is developing a shale granule heat-treating technology called CemTower. This consists of three pieces of equipment vertically integrated into cement plants’ preheaters, kilns and coolers, and brings the processing of waste materials – here oil shale – to the cement plant.

Lastly, cement producers are exploring the possible uses of waste made of cement itself. In Wallonia, HeidelbergCement subsidiary CBR’s CosmoCem project is investigating the production of alternative cement additives from large available flows of local demolition, soil remediation and industrial waste. Similarly, the Greece-based C2inCO₂ project seeks to mineralise fines from concrete recycling for HeidelbergCement to use in the production of novel cements in its Greek operations.

In Switzerland, ZND Portland composite cement (produced using fine mixed granulate from building demolitions) is the third largest cement type, with 178,000t (4.3%) of total deliveries – narrowly behind CEM I with 239,000t (5.7%).Holcim Schweiz developed its Susteno 4 ZND Portland composite cement with Switzerland’s lack of any ash or slag supply in mind, demonstrating the potential flexibility of a circular economic approach to cement production.

On 21 March 2022, the University of Trier reported that it is in the process of mapping mineral resources, waste deposits and usable residues ‘on a cross-border scale,’ in an effort to produce new materials for use in cement production. Industry participants include France-based Vicat, CBR, Buzzi Unicem subsidiary Cimalux and CRH subsidiary Eqiom. Vicat is preparing a kiln at its 1Mt/yr Xeuilley cement plant in Meurthe-et-Moselle to use in testing new alternative raw materials developed under the project.

For Cembureau and its members, work continues, with the goal of Net Zero by 2050 constantly in sight. This goal includes a reduction in members’ clinker-to-cement ratios to well below 65%. In this, the association and its members are working towards a world not just beyond CEM I, but beyond CEM II, too. What exactly this will mean remains to be seen.

Sources

CemSuisse, ‘Lieferstatistik,’ 11 January 2022, https://www.cemsuisse.ch/app/uploads/2022/01/Lieferstatistik-4.-Quartal-2021.pdf

WSA, ‘December 2021 crude steel production and 2021 global crude steel production totals,’ 25 January 2022, https://worldsteel.org/media-centre/press-releases/2022/december-2021-crude-steel-production-and-2021-global-totals/

MPA, ‘Low carbon multi-component cements for UK concrete applications,’ July 2018, https://prod-drupal-files.storage.googleapis.com/documents/resource/public/Low%20carbon%20multi-component%20cements%20for%20UK%20concrete%20applications%20PDF.pdf

European Commission, ‘European Training Network for Zero-waste Valorisation of Bauxite Residue (Red Mud),’ 16 July 2020, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/636876

European Commission, ‘Industrial Residue Activation for sustainable cement production,’ 16 February 2022, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/958208

Recycling Portal, Zement der Zukunft – Forschungsprojekt „SAVE CO₂“ gestartet, 28 May 2021, https://recyclingportal.eu/Archive/65677

h2020-NEMO, ‘Project,’ https://h2020-nemo.eu/project-2/

European Commission, ‘Green cement of the future: CemShale + CemTower,’ 14 April 2021, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101009382

CosmoCem, ‘Communiqué de Presse,’ https://cosmocem.org/

CO₂ Win, ‘C²inCO₂: Calcium Carbonation for industrial use of CO₂,’ https://co2-utilization.net/en/projects/co2-mineralization/c2inco2/

Les Echos, ‘Rendre le ciment moins gourmand en CO₂,’ 21 March 2022, https://www.lesechos.fr/pme-regions/innovateurs/des-substituts-au-clinker-rendent-le-ciment-moins-gourmand-en-co2-1395002

Mexico: Cemex says that it plans to restart Line 2 at its CPN cement plant in Sonora State. The line has a capacity of 0.8Mt/yr. Cemex will invest US$29m in restarting it, bringing its total recent investments in the CPN plant to US$44m. It previously invested US$15m in a restart of the plant’s 1Mt/yr Line 1 in 2021. When operational in mid-late 2022, Line 2 will join the existing line in supplying cement to Arizona, California and Nevada in the US.

Cemex USA president Jaime Muguiro said “Many cement customers in the western US have been impacted by tight supply constraints for several months, and at Cemex, we are proactively looking for opportunities to further alleviate those conditions and enrich customer experiences by enhancing how we operate while utilising our global reach.” He continued “Customers require more cement to keep pace with the region’s growth, and we want to ensure they have stable and steady access to the high-quality materials that are essential to meet their needs.”