Displaying items by tag: Cemex

UK: Cemex has installed Patol’s Firesense linear heat detection cable (LHDC) at its 1.8Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Rugby. The installation uses a digital interface to monitor a zonal length of LHDC which will detect any overheating in the plant’s lubrication systems.

Spain: Following its 2018 appeal against a Euro445m fine for misreporting losses, granted on condition of the company paying the court Euro300m in line with its obtaining specified mortgages and land sales, Cemex continues to release its holdings on the Iberian peninsula.

Cinco Días has reported that Cemex’s Spain operations closed its sale to Turkey’s Çimsa of its White Cement division in the first quarter of 2019 for 180 million. In 2018, the Spanish subsidiary of Cemex divested itself of five pieces of property at a profit of Euro17,000. Its Azuara production line in Saragossa Province generated capital gains of Euro462,000.

In the first half of 2019, Cemex reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in Europe of Euro185m, up by 21% from US$168m in the same period of 2018.

Cemex’s Spanish presence began in 1992, when it acquired the country’s two largest cement companies, and it was hit by the downturn of 2008. La Nueva España reports that Cemex has applied for concessions from the Port of Gijón for storage of a dissembled biomass fuel hopper which had been awaiting shipment to Cemex’s Tilbury plant when the recession struck, grounding it in the the port, where it has remained ever since. Autoridad Portuaria de Gijón, the administrative body responsible, is currently considering Cemex’s application.

Spain: Cemex España plans to build a cement import terminal at the port of El Musel in Asturias in northern Spain. Cemex has requested 2491.2m2 of space within the second tranche of the Olano Engineer Dock. It is expected that the installation will be built by June 2020.

The Euro5m facility will have 6000t of cement storage capacity from two 41.1m-high silos with bulk truck loading capacity of 200t/hr and a cement bagging plant with a capacity of 1950bags/hr (25kg).

With a good number of the financial results published by the non-Chinese multinational cement producers for the first half of 2019, it is now time for a roundup. Graphs 1 and 2 below lay some of the basics with the general sales revenue and cement production volume trends.

Graph 1: Sales revenues from large multinational cement producers in the first half of 2019 and 2018. Source: Company reports.

Graph 2: Cement sales volumes from large multinational cement producers in first half of 2019 and 2018. Source: Company reports.

This is only part of the picture as the larger companies had various complications. For example, LafargeHolcim’s apparent falling revenue and sales volumes is mainly due to its massive divestments in South-East Asia. On a like-for-like basis its sales and sales volumes of cement rose. Its recurring earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) better illustrated this with a rise of 7.2% year-on-year in real-terms to Euro2.41bn in the first half of 2019 from Euro2.25bn from 2018. The company didn’t have it all its own way though with falling cement sales volumes in Asia despite the divestment and poor growth in its Middle East Africa region.

By contrast HeidelbergCement reported growing sales but its earnings and profits were down. Its profit fell by 33% to Euro291m from Euro435m. This was blamed on the group’s sale of its Ukraine subsidiary in April 2019. The operations were sold to Overin Limited, part of Ukrainian investment company Concorde Capital Group, for Euro13m. HeidelbergCement said that the divestment resulted in a loss of Euro143m. Aside from this, as Bernd Scheifele, the chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement, explained, positives in markets in Asia, Western and Southern Europe compensated for weaker business in North America and the Africa-Eastern Mediterranean Basin Group area.

Cemex has a tougher time of it than its larger rivals due its greater reliance on American markets. Slow starts to infrastructure projects were blamed in Mexico, poor weather hit earnings in the US and problems occurred further south too. Luckily Europe was strong for the company with lots of good news areas. It wasn’t enough though as Cemex’s sales fell by 4% to US$6.72bn from US$7bn and its operating EBITDA dropped by 11% to US$1.21bn from US$1.36bn.

As for the other companies covered in the graphs, Buzzi Unicem and Titan Group prospered due to the US market. The former described its US activity as ‘lively.’ However, it admitted that its sales growth there was mainly caused by falling imports in the face of weak domestic demand and ‘considerable production and logistical difficulties’ in June 2019 caused by flooding of the Mississippi river. Titan, meanwhile, caught a well-deserved break after recent years with growth also in Greece and Southeastern Europe. Vicat managed to stave off a decline in sales due to poor markets in Turkey, Switzerland, Indian and West Africa through its acquisition of Brazil’s Ciplan in late 2018. Yet, its earnings and cement sales volumes fell anyway.

Dangote Cement once again suffered at home in Nigeria, while its Pan Africa business grew. Trouble at home was pinned on lower volumes, price discounting, higher input and distribution costs and higher fuel and power costs in the first half of 2019. Of more concern, earnings fell in Pan Africa too in the first half due to market conditions in South Africa and Zambia. As ever though Dangote Cement’s diversity in Sub-Saharan Africa should see it through. Finally, Semen Indonesia continued to ride high as its sales increased by 23% to US$1.17bn due to its absorption of LafargeHolcim’s assets. Unsurprisingly, its sales volumes grew at a similar rate, to just below 13Mt in the first five months of 2019. Yet trouble may be store ahead as its local sales fell by 7% in this period.

Other major producers omitted here include Ireland’s CRH and India’s UltraTech Cement. Both are set to release their results later in August 2019 and will make for essential reading as the market conditions so far in 2019 become clearer. The latter in particular will be worth watching if a report by Indian credit agency CARE Ratings out this week is correct. It has forecast production capacity growth of 120Mt by 2030 in India. UltraTech Cement is perfectly poised to benefit from this.

Mexico: Cemex has made a series of changes its senior level organisation with changes to the heads of its operations in the US and its South, Central America and the Caribbean region. These personnel changes will come into effect from 1 September 2019.

Jaime Muguiro Dominguez, the current president of Cemex South, Central America and the Caribbean, and managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of Cemex Latam Holdings (CLH), has been appointed president of Cemex USA. He succeeds Ignacio Madridejos who had held the role since late 2015. Madridejos will leave Cemex to become the CEO of Ferrovial, a Spanish infrastructure development company.

Jesus V Gonzalez Herrera, current Cemex Executive Vice President of Sustainability and Operations Development, has been appointed president of Cemex South, Central America and the Caribbean. In addition, on 6 August 2019, Gonzalez was appointed CEO of CLH by the board of directors of CLH.

Juan Romero Torres, currently the Executive Vice President of Global Commercial Development, has been appointed Executive Vice President of Sustainability, Commercial and Operations Development. This new role combines Romero’s current responsibilities with those of the Executive Vice Presidency of Sustainability and Operations Development, which include the Health & Safety, Operations and Technology, Energy, Procurement, Sustainability and Research & Development areas.

UK: Chris Leese has decided to leave Cemex UK after 30 years with the company. His varied career at Cemex has seen him taking responsibility for a broad range of activities, notably as Vice President of Readymix VP and more latterly as Vice President of Aggregates.

Leese has been a long-standing champion of health and safety improvements, taking a lead role at Cemex and the broader industry. He was the chair of the MPA Health and Safety committee for over nine years.

Trinidad & Tobago: The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has ruled that cement sold by Rock Hard Cement can be classified as ‘Other hydraulic cement.’ As such it is subject to a tariff of up to 5% under Common External Tariff (CET). Rock Hard Cement’s competitor Trinidad Cement and its subsidiaries had been arguing that the company’s products be classified as ‘Building cement (grey)’ and be charged a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) tax of 15% when imported into the region, according to the Barbados Today newspaper. The decision by the court is the latest in a series of legal cases between Rock Hard Cement and Trinidad Cement

However, the CCJ also said that recent developments in the cement industry made it appropriate for a study to be performed by the CARICOM Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) to assess whether the tariff rate for imported ‘Other hydraulic cement’ ought to be increased to give additional protection to regional cement manufacturers so that these manufacturers might obtain an appropriate level of protection. It also recommended greater collaboration between regional cement producers in undertaking global trade commitments.

Mexico: Cemex Mexico has launched a new website to sell concrete. It is intended to serve builders, contractors, small business owners, architects, construction entrepreneurs and the general public for any size of project from 1m³ upwards.

The site includes an online calculator to help customers work out the amount of concrete required for a project and technical support to aid the transaction. It also supports scheduling delivery at a specific time and date, as well as having visibility and tracking of the order in real time. The company says it is the first conle concrete sales channel in the country with ‘express’ service and full coverage.

Colombia: Cemex Latam Holdings has denied that it has an office dedicated to illegal activity following accusations of bribery in the local media. In a statement to the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia, the company said that its Enterprise Risk Management office “supports the decision-making process by anticipating and coordinating risk management that could make it difficult for Cemex to reach its strategic objectives and identify short, medium and long-term opportunities.” It addd that risk management was an institutional process followed by companies around the world to anticipate and mitigate potential business hazards.

Cemex Colombia has been linked by Semana magazine and other outlets to payments to political figures in return for preferential treatment on construction contracts. The cement producer has also faced a long running investigation by local and US agencies into unusual payments relating to its Maceo cement plant project in Antioquia.

US: Nine of Cemex USA’s ready-mixed concrete (RMX) plants in the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California have earned ISO 14001:2015 certification for their environmental management systems (EMS). The company says these are the first RMX operations in the country to achieve the designation.

The nine plants located in Berkeley, Concord, Oakland, Pleasanton, San Carlos, San Francisco, San Jose, Union City and Santa Clara, California each received certification after Lloyd’s Register, an accredited third-party organisation, audited Cemex USA’s West Region management system at corporate and site level, verifying that it conforms to the standard. In addition to the plants, Cemex USA’s Livermore office also earned the certification.

“Effective environmental management systems are critical in helping our operations meet and exceed our environmental and sustainability goals. By following well-established standards of ISO 14001:2015, our operations can continue to build on their successes while serving as inspiring examples for others to follow across the US,” said Cemex USA president Ignacio Madridejos.

Earlier in 2010 Cemex’s Clinchfield cement plant in Georgia became the first Cemex operation in the US to achieve ISO 14001:2015 certification. The company is currently in the process of achieving the certification at several other of its operations in cement, ready-mix and aggregates across the country.