Displaying items by tag: Expansion

Philippines: Holcim Philippines is reported to be considering additional clinker lines in line with the government's ‘Build Build Build’ infrastructure initiative. The LafargeHolcim subsidiary is already in the process of undertaking national expansion from 10Mt/yr in 2018 to 12Mt/yr in 2019.

Pakistan: Kohat Cement Company Ltd. has ordered four vertical roller mills (VRM) from Germany’s Loesche in order to expand its cement plant in Kohat, 160km west of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.

The order comprises a 4-roller raw material mill with a material throughput of 500t/hr and two cement mills each with a grinding capacity of 210t/hr of Portland cement. The order is finally complemented by another vertical roller mill for grinding 50t/hr of anthracite. They will all be used on the same cement production line, which Kohat Cement is in the process of building. The lead time for the mills will be eight months.

The plant’s production capacity is currently around 2.8Mt/yr of Portland and white cement. When the new line enters production, the plant’s capacity will rise by 2.2Mt/yr to reach 5.0Mt/yr.

China: Asia Cement (China) said that its profit attributable to owners for the six months that ended on 30 June 2018 surged by a factor of 10.7 to reach US$139.3m compared to the same period of 2017. Revenue amounted to US$718.8m, an increase of 47% from a year earlier.

Meanwhile, China Resources Cement (CRC) announced that its net profit for the first six months of 2018 was US$2.0bn, a rise of 145.5% year-on-year. CRC’s turnover amounted to US$2.36bn, an increase of 40.4% from a year earlier.

The Chinese government has once again reiterated that it will continue to strictly prohibit cement companies from adding new capacity, despite improving profits. Years of efforts to cut excess capacity in the sector have helped to improve the industry's profits, but signs are emerging that some factories are increasing new capacity, according to Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which released a joint statement with the state economic planning agency. It said that expansion projects to produce more cement, won't be approved. In addition, factories' plans to replace out-dated capacity with new capacity must comply with government rules.

India: Birla Corporation plans to increase its cement production capacity to 20Mt/yr by 2021. At present it has a capacity of 15.5Mt/yr, according to the Hindu newspaper. The company plans to increase its capacity by both expanding existing units and building new ones. It acquired Reliance Cement in mid-2016.

Nigeria: Lafarge Africa’s chairman Mobolaji Balogun says that the company plans to cut its debts by 2020 before continuing with its expansion programme. In an interview with Bloomberg he said that the cement producer wants reduce its leverage ratio to below 70% from over 100% at present.

The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim wants to take advantage of improvements in the Nigerian economy and a recovery in South Africa to grow its profits. Its total debt recently dropped to about US$600m. Lafarge Africa incurred debt to expand the production capacity at its Calabar cement plant and plans to add more production to plants in the southwest and the north of the country.

India: Grasim Industries plans to invest up to US$870m in its cement business by the end of 2021. The subsidiary of Aditya Birla that also operates UltraTech Cement, wants to modernise its existing cement plants, carry out environmental upgrades and increase the production capacity of the units it acquired from Jaiprakash Associates, according to the Mint newspaper.

Aditya Birla Group’s chief financial officer Sushil Agarwal said that the company wants to increase the capacity utilisation rate of the former Jaiprakash Associates cement plants to over 85%, the standard level for the other UltraTech Cement plants. He added that on average cement plants in India have a capacity utilisation rate of 75%.

Spain: Cementos Alfa, part of Cementos Portland Valderrivas Group, has received permission from the Ministry of Environment to expand its quarry. The approval also allows the cement producer to expand the area of its quarry, according to the El Diario Montañés newspaper. The quarry currently produces 0.6Mt/yr of limestone and marl that are used for clinker production at the neighbouring plant.

Zimbabwe: Lafarge Zimbabwe is looking to expand its operations as it is set to commence exploratative drilling for lime within the next two months. It already has two mining operations where limestone is extracted at Mbubu in Mashonaland East Province and Sternblick quarry in Harare.

The company told local press that exploratative drilling was anticipated to commence in April 2018. This comes as its environmental impact assessment for limestone exploration drilling in Pfura Rural District was approved. The company has contracted Bumira Environmental Consultants to perform the environmental assessment.

India: JSW Cement plans to bid for Binani Cement. Managing director Parth Jindal said that the cement producer would partner with a private equity fund to make the offer, according to the Economic Times newspaper. He added that the company is looking for acquisitions in the cement sector. It has also made a bid for Kalyanpur Cement that has a cement production capacity of 1Mt/yr in Bihar. The company aims to reach a production capacity of 20Mt/yr by 2020.

India: JK Cement plans to invest up US$234m over the next 3- 4 years on an expansion project to increase its cement production capacity by over 30% to 14Mt/yr. Rajnish Kapur, the head of the company’s cement business, told the Press Trust of India that the cement producer is considering expanding existing plants and building new ones due to anticipated government infrastructure spending and a good monsoon. He said that it is in the process of evaluating expansion opportunities at its Mangrol plant in Rajasthan. It is also looking to build a new plant in Panna, Madhya Pradesh. It intends to finance the expansion through a mixture of internal funds and via loans.