Displaying items by tag: China
AVIC leads bid for German cement plant builder KHD
16 October 2013Germany: AVIC International Beijing Company (AVIC) has lead an offer to buy KHD Humboldt Wedag International AG in a deal worth US$433m. It hopes to acquire all of the remaining KHD shares by way of a voluntary public takeover offer.
At the same time it has entered into share purchase agreements with numerous sellers to purchase 19.03% of shares in the German cement plant builder. Through its subsidiary, Max Glory Industries, AVIC already owns 20% of KHD, which will bring its total to 39.03%.
"This is a long-term investment for us. A more stable shareholder base will benefit KHD's worldwide employees, customers, suppliers and financing partners and KHD will continue providing environmental friendly and state-of-the-arts products and services," said Mr Diao, president of AVIC Beijing Company.
China issues guideline to cut overcapacity
15 October 2013China: China's State Council, the country's cabinet, has issued a guideline to tackle production overcapacity in several industrial sectors. According to a statement on the Chinese government's website and reporting by the Xinhua News Agency, the guideline targets the cement sector and four other sectors suffering from overcapacity including steel, electrolytic aluminium, sheet glass and shipping.
The move is a key measure for the government to achieve stable growth, restructuring, transformation and an 'upgraded' version of the Chinese economy, according to the 'Guideline to tackle serious production overcapacity'. The guideline will play a key part in current and future efforts to transform the economic growth mode and boost industrial restructuring, according to the statement.
China to cap coal usage below 65% by 2017
18 September 2013China: China has released a plan to cap coal consumption to below 65% of its total primary energy use by 2017 in order to tackle air pollution.
"The pressure to curb air pollution is rising amid China's industrialisation and urbanisation and increasing consumption of energy and resources," said the government plan. The plan follows widespread public awareness of air pollution since levels of particulate matter smaller than 2.5μm (PM2.5) recorded in Beijing broke World Health Organization safety limits in January 2013.
According to a plan published on the country's national website, new industrial projects in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in north China, the Yangtze Delta region in the east and the Pearl River Delta region in the south will be banned from building their own captive power plants. These regions will also be encouraged to replace coal use with power purchased from other areas or with power generated from natural gas or non-fossil fuels such as nuclear power. The plans follows previous measures to phase outdate industrial capacity.
However environmental activists and analysts quoted by Reuters have pointed out that the system could be undermined by loopholes such as allowing areas to import energy from elsewhere.
China cement news in brief
18 September 2013National: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has released a third list of 58 companies, including cement companies, which should cut their excess production capacity by the end of 2013 as a part of the country's economic restructuring drive. The ministry said that local authorities must ensure that overcapacity is eliminated, rather than transferred to other regions.
Regional: South-eastern Fujian province produced 52.1Mt of cement in the first eight months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 13.3%, according to data released by the local statistics bureau. Jiangxi Province produced 54.8Mt of cement in the first eight months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 21.1%.
Central Hubei province saw cement output increase by 8.3% year-on-year to 60.3Mt in the first seven months of 2013.
North-west Shaanxi province saw cement output total 53.9Mt in the first eight months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 9.3%.
Southern Hainan province has produced 10.5Mt of cement in the first seven months of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 26.3%. South-central Hunan province produced 9.47Mt of cement in August 2013, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%.
Corporate: Gansu Qilianshan Cement Group plans to spend US$43.4m on acquiring a 100% stake in Longnan Runji Cement to expand into the Gansu province market. Runji Cement currently operates a 2500t/day dry-process cement plant.
Sinoma subsidiary to buy stake in Hazemag
03 September 2013China: A subsidiary of National Materials Group (Sinoma) is buying a 59.1% stake in German mining equipment firm Hazemag & EPR for US$137m. The Chinese state-owned cement equipment manufacturer and cement producer made the announcement in a statement filed to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
"It will improve the technique, strengthen the management and establish the channels for the purpose of rapid expansion of Sinoma International to the field of mining equipment and generate more return for the group when Hazemag makes more profit in the future," said Sinoma chairman Liu Zhijiang in the statement.
China: The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) had finalised details of an overall plan to reduce overcapacity in the cement industry according to Xin Renzhou, an official with the MIIT interviewed by an affiliate of the Xinhua News Agency.
Xin said that the plan would require higher standards for environmental controls including fuel efficiency measures. Cement plants failing to comply with the new requirements will be ordered to make changes or face losing market access. Jing Xiaobo, another official from the MIIT, added that the through the plan China also intends to reduce overcapacity mby expanding domestic demand, accelerating its decommissioning strategy and optimising organisational structures in cement producers.
In addition to joint efforts between the MITT and the NDRC, the China Banking Regulatory Commission and other related authorities will issue a series of supporting policies on curbing overcapacity, and adopting more commercial measures to strictly control the output capacity of major industries, such as the cement industry.
China wants Taiheiyo plant closed
21 August 2013China: Taiheiyo Cement Corp. has been ordered by the Chinese city of Nanjing to close a local production facility by the end of 2014 according to The Nikkei. Closing the Nanjing plant would reduce Taiheiyo Cement's Chinese cement output capacity by 30 - 40%.
Nanjing cited air pollution as the reason and issued the same mandate to local cement manufacturers as well. It has not said whether or not there will be any compensation. The Japanese firm has said that it will ask the city to reconsider. If Taiheiyo Cement does not follow the order, the local partner with which it has a joint venture will likely be punished, with those in charge to be dismissed from the company.
Anhui Conch profit up by 4.9% in first half of 2013
16 August 2013China: Anhui Conch has reported that its net profit rose by 4.9% year-on-year to US$501m for the first six months of 2013 from US$477m in the same period of 2012. The leading Chinese cement producer attributed its result to lower input costs such as coal and cutting operating costs.
Conch reported a 14.7% increase in revenue year-on-year to US$3.86bn from US$3.36bn. However, its net cash flow generated from operating activities fell by 5.61% to US$1.04bn from US$1.10bn.
By region, sales revenue fell by 1.0% in its East China territory, the cement producer's biggest sales area, due to a decrease in prices to combat increased competition. Sales rose markedly in its Central and West China territories at 33.7% and 39.6% respectively. Sales rose more modestly in South China and for exports.
Projects that Conch completed in the first half of 2013, including three 5000t/day clinker production lines and eleven grinding plants, added 5.4Mt/yr of clinker production capacity and 12.1Mt/yr of cement production capacity. Two waste heat recovery systems were installed at Jianghua Conch and Guiding Conch adding 18MW of power. The group also successively implemented staged combustion technology modification for 45 clinker production lines and SNCR flue gas denitration technology modification for 25 clinker production lines.
China: China Resources has reported that its net profit rose by 80.4% year-on-year to US$148m for the first half of 2013. The major Chinese cement producer's revenue rose by 16.5% to US$1.66bn. Gross profit rose by 29% to US$383m.
China Resources expects that its cement production capacity will reach 76.5Mt/yr by the end of 2013. Clinker production capacity is expected to reach 51.8Mt/yr.
China prepares to cut cement capacity as output rises by 9.7% to 1.1Bt in first half of 2013
31 July 2013China: China produced 1.1Bt in the first half of 2013, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%, according to the latest statistics released by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The cement inventory of the country's major cement producers increased by 0.3% year-on-year to 27.76Mt. Profit for the cement industry remained flat with a 1% increase year-on-year to US$2.49bn.
Meanwhile the government is considering a detailed plan to eliminate outdated industrial production capacity, according to the China Securities Journal. The plan is expected to eliminate outdated capacity in the cement, steel, electrolytic aluminum, plate glass and shipbuilding sectors.
Zhu Hongren, chief engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), confirmed that MIIT and the NDRC are currently working on the plan. The plan will boost the sectors' utilisation of existing capacity by setting industry access standards and eliminating outdated capacity. To ease overcapacity in affected industries, MIIT ordered in late July 2013 around 1400 companies in 19 sectors to eliminate outdated production capacity by September 2013 and eliminate excess capacity by the end of 2013.