Displaying items by tag: Export

Vietnam: State-owned Vietnam Cement Industry Corporation (Vicem), the country’s leading cement producer, sold 9.2Mt of cement and clinker in the first four months of 2018, a 6.7% year-on-year rise from the same period in 2017. The corporation’s clinker and cement output also increased by 5% and 1.5% to 6.49Mt and 7.24Mt, respectively. Vicem aims to produce 1.8Mt of clinker and 2.5Mt of cement in May 2018. Its cement and clinker sales are expected to reach 2.7Mt in May 2018.

Vicem sold about 26.6Mt of cement and clinker in 2017, a rise of 3% year-on-year. 23.6Mt was sold locally, a 4% rise, and 3Mt was exported, a fall of 3%.

Laos: The Ministry of Industry and Commerce says that the value of cement exports rose by 25% to US$19m in the first quarter of 2018 from US$15.2m in the same period of 2017. However, imports fell by 14% to US$16.4m from US$19.1m, according to the Vientiane Times newspaper. Exports have risen as new production capacity has been commissioned in the country.

Laos exported a value of US$0.2m in 2016 but this grew to US$47.6m in 2017. Imports fell to US$68m in 2017 from US$84.3m in 2016. The country has 16 cement plants and other units are being built. At present the country has a capacity of 4.4Mt/yr. This is expected to grow to 6.7Mt/yr once all the current projects are completed. Local infrastructure projects are driving local demand including the several hydropower plants and the Laos-China railway.

Ghana/Portugal: Cimpor and ETE Group have collaborated to export 55,900t of clinker from Portugal to Ghana. The clinker was transferred via barges from the river terminal of Cimpor’s Alhandra cement plant before being loaded into a bulk carrier at the Port of Lisbon, according to CE NoticiasFinancieras.

Algeria: Groupe des Ciments d’Algérie’s (GICA) has made its first export to Europe. The Ministry of Industry and Mines said that 45,000t of cement was exported to Europe via GICA’s building materials distribution subsidiary, according to the L’Expression newspaper. The consignment was the last part of a contract to export 0.2Mt of cement to Europe.

Saudi Arabia: Najran Cement has received a clinker export licence from the Ministry of Commerce and Investment. The licence is valid for one year from 30 April 2018.

Czech Republic: Cement Hranice’s cement sales rose by nearly 9% year-on-year in 2017 due to despatches to fellow subsidiaries of Buzzi Unicem in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Its overall sales rose by 6.3% to Euro61.5m from Euro57.9m, according to the Czech News Agency. Board member Roman Michalcik said that the local construction sector had grown in 2017 due to good weather towards the end of the period and large local infrastructure projects.

Peru: UNACEM’s cement despatches for the first quarter of 2018 have fallen slightly due to a contraction in the construction market, delayed infrastructure projects and political instability leading to lower private investment. The cement producer’s income rose by 8.9% year-on-year to US$147m in the first quarter of 2018 from US$135m in the same period in 2017. Its clinker production fell by 12.9% to 1Mt and its cement production fell by 0.6% to 1.2Mt. It attributed the fall in production to a scheduled maintenance shutdown of its Atocongo plant. However, clinker exports through the Port of Conchán increased to 0.28Mt in the period.

Nigeria: Joe Makoju, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Cement, has revealed that the cement producer exports 0.21Mt of cement to Ghana, Togo and Niger in the first quarter of 2018. The company’s revenue grew by 16% year-on-year to US$668m from US$575m, according to the Vanguard newspaper. Its profit increased by 29% to US$199m from US$154m. Cement sales rose by 2.8% to 6.2Mt from 6.03Mt.

No consolidation has happened yet in the Saudi Arabian cement industry but exports have started to be announced. Yanbu Cement signed an export deal in March 2018 to despatch 1Mt of clinker and 0.5Mt of cement from one year from 1 April 2018. Prior to that, Al Jouf Cement Company started a contract to export 72.000t/yr to Jordan from late February 2018. Earlier still, Bahrain was expected to benefit from a lifting of cement export tariffs at the end of January 2018.

Its early days yet but some of sort of action is starting to happen about the country’s falling cement sales. If export deals are in the early stages of being set following the lifting of the ban, then local movements of cement have intensified. As Al Rajhi Capital reports in its latest market update, that producers have been forced by low sales and high inventory levels to take action. It says that cement companies have started to sell products in different parts of the country than they do normally leading to a ‘price war’. The financial services and analytical company has pinpointed the central region as the key battleground as company market shares have fallen over the last six months as northern producers have moved in.

Graph 1: Cement sales (Mt) by quarter in Saudi Arabia, 2015 to March 2018. Source: Yamama Cement.

Cement sales fell by 15% year-on-year to 11.8Mt in the first quarter of 2018 from 13.7Mt in the same period in 2017. This is the first time in recent years that sales did not rise from the fourth quarter to the following first quarter. Not a good sign. Despite the bad news, a few producers did mange to increases their deliveries in the first quarter, including Saudi Cement, Hail Cement, Umm Al Qura Cement and United Cement.

Bizarrely, into this sales environment, plans for the long delayed Al Baha Cement cement plant project have re-emerged. The project previously has received coverage at various stages over the years. This time it has reportedly gained a licence to set up the company and it hopes to start tendering for the build in the second half of 2018. The investors may want to leave it a little longer given the current state of the Saudi cement industry.

Algeria: LafargeHolcim Algeria has conducted its fourth cement export operation to West Africa. Nearly 8500t of Ordinary Portland Cement were despatched from the port of Arzew in Oran, according to the Algeria Press Service. It follows previous batches in December 2017, March 2018 and the start of April 2018.

The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim aims to increase its cement and clinker exports to West Africa to 5Mt by 2020. In Algeria the company runs two cement plants at M'Sila and Oggaz in Mascara. It also operates a plant at Biskra as a joint-venture with Souakri Group and it manages SCMI’s Meftah's plant in a partnership.