Displaying items by tag: China

China: Asia Cement China recorded a 23% year-on-year rise in net sales in the first half of 2021 to US$820m from US$668m in the first half of 2020. Its profit for the period also rose, by 21% to US$171m from US$141m.

The company increased its cement sales to US$796m, up by 26% from US$630m. It said that total Chinese cement sales hit a record high during the half of 1.15Bnt, up by 14%. Average cement prices were lower than in the corresponding period of 2020. The company said that it expects prices to rise after bad weather ends in late August and the supply of steel and aggregates resumes fully.

Nigeria: Madugu Cement plant to build a 5Mt/yr cement plant at Kembu in Gombe state. The producer has awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project to China-based Sinoma International Engineering Company. Construction will consist of two phases, each of which will establish a production line of 2.5Mt/yr capacity. The Nigerian Tribune newspaper has reported that, when commissioned, the plant will be the second in Gombe state. The state has extensive gypsum reserves and a surplus of coal and hydroelectric power.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement says that its new 6Mt/yr cement plant at Okpella in Edo state is ready to enter cement production. The Daily Independent newspaper has reported that group invested US$1bn in the plant. China-based Sinoma International Engineering Company supplied engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services. When commissioned, the plant will employ 6000 people, according to the owner.

Dangote Cement is in the process of establishing a further 6Mt/yr cement plant at Itori in Ogun state. The launch of both plants will give the producer an active cement capacity of 41.3Mt/yr. The company says that its aim is to increase the uptake of cement in Nigeria. It said, “We still need to do more to make the cement get to the poorest of the poor.”

Philippines: Holcim Philippines plans to invest US$4.18m in upgrades to its cement plants at La Union, Bacnotan, and Lugait, Misamis Oriental to improve business and sustainability performance.

The subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim held a ceremonial signing ceremony on 7 July 2021 to award the contract to Sinoma CBMIPH Construction to install a drying facility at the La Union plant. The project is intended to reduce the fuel consumption of the unit by reusing hot gases from operations to dry materials. The integrated plant was recently awarded an ISO 45001:2018 for Occupational Health and Safety Management System and recertified for ISO 9001:2015 (Quality Management System) and ISO 14001:2015 (Environmental Management System) by certification body TÜV Rheinland. Holcim Philippines has also contracted Sinoma CBMIPH to install a drying facility at its Lugait plant that will reduce moisture of raw materials to improve grinding operations. The La Union and Lugait projects are scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2022 and by the end of October 2021 respectively.

In January 2021, Holcim Philippines also started projects worth US$2.42m to raise the efficiency of converting qualified waste materials to alternative fuels of its cement plant in Bulacan, Norzagaray. These will enable its Geocycle subsidiary to support the Bulacan plant to increase its thermal substitution rate by using more post-consumer and municipal solid wastes as alternative fuels.

Ethiopia: China-based Sinoma International Engineering’s subsidiary Suzhou Sinoma has signed an initial deal with Western International Holdings to build a 10,000t/day clinker production line at Lemi in Amhara Region for around US$326m. The line includes entry of raw materials to the packaging of finished cement. Once Western International Holdings establishes a company to carry out the project Suzhou Sinoma will sign a further contact to confirm the deal. At this point construction is expected to take around 20 months.

LafargeHolcim became Holcim this week with the launch of its new group identity. It also released a manifesto. Corporate names and logos come and go in the swirl of capital but straight up declarations of intent are rarer. Companies in the normally conservative building materials sector don’t tend to do this. This is more the terrain of political movements. So what’s going on?

Figure 1: From a merger of equals to building progress for people and the planet, the LafargeHolcim and Holcim logos.

Looking at the new logo gives us a few clues. The light grey-brown Tetris-style ‘L’ and ‘H’ letters symbolising the ‘merger of equals’ have gone. In its place come two circular symbols that look like they might connect. Together they give the impression of a slanted figure of eight or a lemniscate (infinity symbol). All of this is set to a few shades of blue and green. Could these two symbols be suggesting recycling or the circular economy? Who knows, but hopefully the advertising agency that came up with it was well remunerated. Luckily for us Holcim’s chief executive officer, Jan Jenisch, explained it, “Today marks a milestone for our company in our transformation to become the global leader in innovative and sustainable solutions.”

The manifesto is clearer. Entitled ‘Building progress for people and the planet’ it lays out some of the problems facing the world, such as population growth, urbanisation and climate change mitigation. It then addresses how Holcim is already tackling these issues and how it wants to go further in becoming part of the answer. This is the big vision so it doesn’t trouble itself with the detail on how, for example, the company is going to eliminate process emissions from clinker production on its journey to net zero. This is after all the big pitch to hearts and minds. It also doesn’t stain its fingers with anything suggesting who is going to pay for this grand noble ambition. We’ll have to wait for the next investor’s event to discover how much of this dream washes over into the private equity and pension fund crowd.

In Holcim’s defence, as one of the world’s largest building materials producers, it needs to carve itself a grand vision to occupy within a future preoccupied with climate change. Pretty much everyone in the developed world uses products manufactured by Holcim and its competitors even if they don’t realise it. Yet they are increasingly becoming more aware of the negative issues raised by environmental campaigners. Over in the developing world, adequate housing and infrastructure provision are live political issues for many as economies grow. Threading the needle to tie these trends together is quite the challenge for Holcim and the others. As a public company it serves its shareholders, but, as a multinational wedged in the middle of the climate change debate cascading into global politics, it ultimately answers to everyone. Hence a mission statement or a manifesto makes sense.

Meanwhile, for a glimpse on the Chinese approach to these kinds of problems, China National Building Materials (CNBM) subsidiary China Building Materials Academy (CBMA) signed a knowledge sharing agreement this week with the Canada-based International CCS Knowledge Centre to collaborate on carbon capture technology. The project plans to start with a 155kg CO2/day pilot on an active cement plant kiln. If successful, the study could lead to CNBM rolling it out across its entire cement operations. This would be hugely significant globally and given the scale of the Chinese industrial sector there’s also a reasonable chance it could happen at speed. If this occurred CNBM could leave the politics to its owner, the Chinese government.

Philippines: China-based Sinoma Construction will renovate Holcim Philippines’ La Union cement plant in Bacnotan, North Luzon. Seetao News has reported that the company signed a contract with the subsidiary of Switzerland-based Holcim in July 2021. The work involves a capacity expansion, renovation and de-bottlenecking. The aims of the projects are to promote the modular grinding station market and expand Holcim’s Philippines business and deepen its localisation.

Vietnam: The Vietnam National Cement Association (VNCA) has reported a 27% year-on-year rise in cement and clinker exports to 21.0Mt in the first half of 2021. The Viet Nam News newspaper has reported that the value of cement exports rose by 32% to US$812m. The growth was attributed to China’s environmental policies and the promotion of clinker imports.

China: China National Building Materials (CNBM) subsidiary China Building Materials Academy (CBMA) has signed a knowledge sharing agreement with the Canada-based International CCS Knowledge Centre to collaborate on carbon capture technology. Their first initiative will pilot a CBMA model and front end engineering design (FEED) to a test platform with a capture capacity of around 155kg CO₂/day on an active cement plant kiln. If successful, the study may see CNBM roll out CCS across its entire cement operations.

Vietnam: The Building Material Forum has predicted that Vietnam’s cement export volume will undergo a 25 – 30% short and medium-term decline if the government of China suspends its stimulus package on infrastructure. The Viet Nam News newspaper has reported that China’s subsidisation of infrastructure and industrial construction totalled US$163bn in 2020, up by 34% year-on-year.