Displaying items by tag: China Resources Cement

China: FLSmidth, Sino Environment Engineering Development (SEPTEC) and China Resources Cement (CRC) have signed a partnership to provide pyroprocessing co-processing systems to cement plants. FLSmidth will be responsible for the design, engineering and integration of the integrated waste burning solution, with SEPETC acting as a general contractor.

The agreement follows a project at CRC's Hongshuihe cement plant that took municipal and industrial waste from the city of Binyang in Guangxi. FLSmidth installed a Hotdisc system that could process 300t/day of waste to support the cement plant’s cement production capacity of 3200t/day.

"China's energy intensive industries, such as cement production, are coming under pressure from the government that wants to rebalance the economy towards a less energy-hungry mode of growth, curb pollution and reduce carbon emissions. CRC plans to initiate several similar municipal solid waste co-processing projects for other cement producers with FLSmidth and SEPETC as partners," said FLSmidth China Country Manager, Cyril Leung.

In China's latest five-year plan, the government encourages more cement producers to co-process municipal solid waste in the cement industry, with an aim of getting 15 - 20% of the cement kilns in the country to be co-processing waste by 2020. In 2017, China will introduce a national carbon-trading scheme in 2017.

China: China Resources Cement’s (CRC) profit has fallen by 36% to US$102m in the first nine months of 2016 from US$159m in the same period of 2015. Its turnover fell by 11.5% to US$2.25bn from US$2.55bn. Cement sales volumes grew by 5.4% to 57Mt from 54Mt and clinker sales volumes fell by 22% to 2.9Mt from 3.8Mt. Turnover fell in all regions that the cement producer operates in with the exception of Yunnan and Guizhou. No explanation was provided for the falling turnover and profit but the company did highlight that the average cost per tonne of cement fell by 14% year-on-year.

China: JI Youhong has been appointed as the executive director, chief executive officer and a member of the executive committee of China Resources Cement with effect from 22 September 2016. He succeeds Pan Yonghong who has resigned from each of these roles.

Ji, aged 51 years, joined the group in October 2003 and has served various managerial positions of the company, including the general manager of various cement and concrete subsidiaries, the Marketing Controller from November 2008 to December 2012 and the Regional General Manager (Guangxi) from April 2012 to September 2016. He currently serves as the director of various subsidiaries of the company.

Ji is a senior engineer of building materials accredited by the Private Enterprise Senior Engineer Panel of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He graduated from the Nanjing Industrial College (currently known as Southeast University), China with a bachelor’s degree in engineering in 1985 and a master’s degree in inorganic and non-metallic materials in 1988. He has over 28 years of experience in construction materials engineering and marketing. He is currently the Chairman of the Guangxi Cement Association.

Check out this graph of Chinese cement prices from September 2015. An author at Business Insider attributes it to Larry Hu, the Chief China Economist for Macquarie. It pretty much sums up the mood analysts have at the moment regarding the Chinese cement industry.

Figure 1: China cement prices, 2012 – 2015. Source: CEIC, Bloomberg, Macquarie Research September 2015.

The recent announcement by the Assets Supervision and Administration Commission regarding the merger of China National Building Materials Group Corporation (CNBM) and China National Materials Group Corporation (Sinoma) comes hot on the heels of a series of poor half-year financial returns from China’s major cement producers. Attempts to tackle overcapacity in its local cement industry have been underway for a few years now. Actions taken include demolishing outmoded capacity, merging companies and expanding overseas. However as the construction markets have cooled in the country the scope of what the cement industry is facing has become clear, as revenues and profits have tumbled.

Now that the first half cement sales volume data has become available from the National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBSC) the response of the cement industry to its predicament has emerged. As can be seen in Figure 2 there has been a rough trend of sales decline throughout 2014 and 2015. The first half of 2016 has started to buck this trend as sales volumes have risen year-on-year for both quarters.

Figure 2 – Chinese cement production by quarter, 2014 – 2016. Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Sales revenues have dropped for most of the major companies that have publicly released their results for the first half of the year. The exception is Taiwan Cement, which makes a large proportion of its sales revenue outside of China (People’s Republic of China). Its sales revenue in China barely rose year-on-year in the first half of 2016. However, the cement sales volumes for all these companies have started to show what is happening. They have risen for most of the producers examined. Essentially, each of these producers is producing more cement but making less money. As Digital Cement puts it, the industry is in a 'low-profit position.' Increased market competition and endemic industry overcapacity are causing this.

Mergers and acquisitions have been the big story for the European multinational producers following the economic crash in 2007. Returns from low growth markets have been substituted for efficiencies of scale, knowledge sharing and greater international reach. Lafarge and Holcim merged in 2015 and HeidelbergCement is due to complete its acquisition of Italcementi later this year. However, as LafargeHolcim's disappointing financial returns and its continued slew of divestments show so far, the merger has not worked as well as may have been hoped… yet.

Whether China's version of this works with its large state owned enterprises is uncertain. Mergers are meant to cut out inefficiencies through economies of scale. Yet the question remains: can even larger Chinese cement producers do this when they are state controlled and harangued by pressures outside the normal market, particularly when local regions try to preserve their industries. The last such big deal, between Anhui Conch and China Resources Cement, fell apart in July 2016. The plans for CNBM and Sinoma may fare better but if the price of cement keeps falling then the market may have other ideas.

For more information see the China country report in the September 2016 issue of Global Cement Magazine

China: China Resources Cement has started operation at its 6000t/day cement plant in Lianjiang, Guangdong. The integrated cement plant is aimed at markets in the west of Guangdong and the southeast of Guangxi. The company has completed the construction of all of its planned production lines in Guangdong. Its total clinker and cement production capacities in Guangdong are 14.4Mt/yr and 22.5Mt/yr respectively.

China: China Resources Cement (Fengkai), a subsidiary of the China Resources Cement, has started operation of its sixth 5000t/day clinker production line at its cement plant in Fengkai County, Guangdong Province. The site has a total clinker production capacity of 9.3Mt/yr and a cement production capacity of 8Mt/yr. the plant mainly serves the Pearl River Delta area of Guangdong Province.

China: Anhui Conch and China Resources Cement have entered into a strategic co-operation agreement. According to the agreement Anhui Conch shall assist the China Resources Cement in the construction and the upgrade of its cement plants. Both parties intend to build a knowledge transfer system to allow their experience in production, technology and business management to be shared. They also have agreed to jointly promote the sustainable and healthy development of the cement industry in China and explore the possibilities of co-operation in China and overseas.

China: China Resources Cement’s revenue has fallen by 24% year-on-year to US$609m in the first quarter of 2016 from US$800m in the same period in 2015. Its gross profit fell by 39% to US$126m from US$207m. However, its profit attributable to the owners of the company fell by 99% to US$0.85m from US$85.1m. It blamed the drop in gross profit on lower selling prices in the quarter compared to 2015.

The cement producer reported that its sales volumes of cement grew by 6% to 15.8Mt in the quarter. Rises in sales volumes were reported in Guangxi, Yunnan and Guizhou.

China: China Resources Cement has issued a profit warning for the first quarter of 2016. It expects its profit for the three-month period to drop ‘significantly’ year-on-year due to lower prices of cement and clinker in China. The Chinese cement producer reported a profit of US$85.1m for the first quarter of 2015.