Displaying items by tag: Export

Tajikistan: Tajikistan continued to import a small volume of cement in 2019, despite a year-on-year increase in the production and export. The country produced 4.2Mt of cement, 0.4Mt (10.5%) more than in 2018. 20,000t of cement was imported into the country in 2019, especially white cement, which is not produced in Tajikistan.

Exports of cement rose during 2019 to 1.5Mt, at a value of US$68.1m. 980,000t were exported to Uzbekistan, 576,000t were exported to Afghanistan and 80,600t were exported to Kyrgyzstan.

Vietnam: Cement and clinker production in Vietnam is expected to rise by 4-5% to 101-103Mt in 2020, according to the Ministry of Construction. This includes domestic consumption of 69-70Mt and exports of 32-34Mt.

Chairman of the Vietnam Cement Association Nguyen Quang Cung said that cement demand has expanded at higher pace compared to GDP growth in previous years. He added that cement producers will have to face major challenges in 2020, with rising input costs, environmental and technological issues, as well as increasing wage costs.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Construction said that Vietnamese cement exporters would face fierce competition as China and Thailand increase exports. It recommended that domestic firms study market trends to adjust their production plans, stabilise cement prices and map out long-term business strategies.

The ministry has asked the Ministry of Industry and Trade to direct the Vietnam National Coal-Mineral Industries Holding Corporation Limited (Vinacomin) to provide sufficient coal, and the Vietnam Electricity to ensure adequate power for cement production activities.

Tunisia: Carthage Cement has obtained CE marking for its products to help it penetrate the European market. It plans to start a 0.15Mt cement export contract in March 2020.

Spain: Spain’s cement consumption in 2019 was 14Mt, up by 5.9% from 13Mt in 2018. Exports fell by 23% to 6.2Mt from 5.0Mt in 2018.

President of the national cement association Oficemen Víctor García Brosa attributed the demand growth to homebuilding but said that the housing market had a long way to go towards providing a reliable base for domestic cement production. “The 110,000 new homes that have started in 2019 represent half of the homes that were built annually before the global financial crisis,” he said. “For Spain, the real estate market should average between 180,000 and 200,000 new homes per year.” He estimated that cement consumption growth would slow to 2.0% year-on-year in 2020.

Vietnam: Maintaining exports will be critical for the Vietnamese cement industry amid rising production output and anticipated sluggish domestic sales in 2020, according to Nguyễn Quang Cung, President of the Vietnam Cement Association (VCA).

Cung also reported that two new cement plants will go into operation during 2020: a 2.5Mt/yr plant in Tân Thắng Commune in the central province of Nghệ, and a 4.6Mt/yr plant in Bỉm Sơn Commune, Thanh Hóa. These new facilities will give the domestic cement industry a total production capacity of more than 100Mt/yr, with local demand estimated to be closer to 70Mt/yr. “Maintaining exports will be critical for the cement industry this year,” said Cung, but domestic projects are likely to remain ‘sluggish’ due to stagnant infrastructure projects.

Over the medium term, Cung said that cement exports would fall to 25Mt in 2021 form 34Mt in 2020, based on an expectation that domestic sales will increase.

Tajikistan: Tajikistan produced 4.20Mt of cement in 2019; up by 11% from 3.80Mt in 2018. Cement exports in the period rose by 11% year-on-year to 1.55Mt from 1.40Mt. 2018’s exports amounted to 0.89Mt (64%) to Uzbekistan, 0.58Mt (41%) to Afghanistan and 0.08Mt (5.8%) to Krygyzstan. Asia-Plus News has reported that tightened pollution legislation in China has driven Chinese-based producers, which accounted for over 90% of Tajik production in 2018, to relocate operations to their country’s western neighbour.

Bangladesh: Producers exported US$5.03m-worth of cement and clinker from Bangladesh in the six months to 31 December 2019 - down by 13 from US$5.75m in the corresponding period of 2018 and 1.6% below the government’s target of US$5.11m. Arab News has reported that the recipients of Bangladeshi cement and clinker included India, Myanmar, Nepal, the Maldives and Sri Lanka.

Algeria: Algeria sold cement and clinker worth US$59.3m in the first 11 months of 2019 – up by from US$17.5m in the corresponding period ending 30 November 2018. The country’s 40Mt/yr-capacity cement industry serves a domestic demand of 22Mt/yr. Algeria Press Service has reported that Algeria’s key trade partners for exported cement were sub-Saharan African nations, according to former Minister for Trade Saïd Djellab.

Turkey: Sabanci Holding and HeidelbergCement joint subsidiary Akçansa achieved an undisclosed Turkish record figure for nine-month cement exports over the period ending 30 September 2019. The exports included 1Mt of clinker. Akçansa general manager Umat Zenar said, “We achieved a 46% increase in our port capacity utilisation rate,” in attributing the growth to its logistics advantage over competitors and effective port management.

Last month Soyuzcement, the Union of Russian Cement Producers, reported that cement production was on course to grow by 8% year-on-year to 58Mt in 2019. This estimate was based on growth from January to October 2019 followed by a modest rise in November.

Graph 1: Cement production in Russia, 2010 – 2019. Source: CM Pro, Ernst & Young.

The pickup is significant because it’s the country’s first annual resumption of growth since 2014. At that time low commodity prices, a worsening economy and international sanctions broke a fairly steady growth cycle that had started in 2000. The only blip in that run was the global economic downturn around 2008. In the medium to long term Soyuzcement’s review pinpointed growth drivers as being government-backed residential housing schemes, integrated land development projects and an increase in the construction of concrete roads. This increase has been driven by consumption growth in most regions, led by a 12% rise in the Central Federal District although the Volga Federal District started to slow in the second half of 2019.

Figure 1: Russian Federal Districts by cement production in 2016. Source: Soyuzcement.ru.

Anecdotally, this change in the fortunes of the Russian cement industry can be seen in the volume of news coverage on the Global Cement website over the last few years. The mean number of news stories on the country in 2016 and 2017, increased by half in 2018 and then again in 2019. Partly this is down to our attempts to increase our coverage of the region but it also shows a general trend. In the news specifically there haven’t been many new plant projects domestically but there has been a steady stream of upgrades and maintenance related stories. For example, Eurocement subsidiary Kavkazcement reported in recent weeks that it had installed a replacement dry kiln. This has been part of a group of upgrades that Eurocement has started in 2019. On the supplier side both Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer and Italy’s Bedeschi opened subsidiaries in Russia in 2019.

One thing that didn’t seem to slow down the growth were mounting tariffs on Russian exports into Ukraine. Russia’s neighbour first blocked imports of cement from Russia in May 2019 due to, what it said was a Russian ban on imports. It then followed this with an antidumping rate of 115% for imported clinker and Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) from Russia. It also penalised imports from Belarus and Moldova, although at lower rates. Russia’s cement export rates seemed untroubled by this, rising by 13.5% year-on-year to 0.8Mt in the first 10 months of 2019. Exports hit of high of just below 2Mt/yr in 2014 but have since stabilised at around 1Mt/yr. Imports reached around 5Mt/yr in the early 2010s and have been slowly declining since then, reaching 1.5Mt in 2018.

The lowered production rate that the Russian cement industry has faced over the last five years has been noteworthy given the apparent low capacity utilisation rate. The Global Cement Directory 2019 records the country as having a production capacity of 111Mt/yr. This gives Russia a capacity utilisation rate of 48% in 2018! Unlike, say, the countries in southern Europe that have had to rationalise their cement industries following the post-2008 decline, Russia may have structural aspects to the industry that have helped protect it from lower utilisation rates. These include relatively low export-import rates and the large size of the country with limited sea access to many regions. Most of its production capacity is located in the west but a sizable minority of plants are based further east across the Ural, Siberian and Far Eastern regions. Even under subdued economic conditions, plants in these places are likely to be less susceptible to foreign imports, for example.

Looking ahead, the question is whether the current growth that the cement industry is enjoying is viable once government spending slows down. Alongside this the industry could also focus on sustainability. As the government announced in early January 2020, the country expects to face both negative and positive effects from climate change. The cement industry could be at the front of this trend if it decides to clean up production and/or move into new markets as the Arctic region opens up.