Displaying items by tag: GCW108

Following on from last week's analysis column (Global Cement Weekly #107: Gimmie Water - water conservation in the cement industry) Irish cement producer CRH has released its 2012 Sustainability Report.

Unfortunately, no comparable figures for water usage per cement production were published and CRH noted usage measurement as a group objective. Its best estimate was that the group used 36Mm³ of water in 2012, with 12% of that figure (4.4Mm³) used in cement production.

Otherwise plenty of good news filled the report with improvements shown for most of the key indicators. Notably chief executive office Myles Lee pointed out that CRH had substantially increased alternative fuel usage in its European cement operations in 2012 and that this helped with rising energy costs.

Sticking with CRH, the Irish cement producer recently released information on its development strategy for the first half of 2013.

Despite - or perhaps because – of decreasing profits in 2012, CRH's development spend has nearly doubled year-on-year to Euro470m from Euro250m. The increase is mainly due to the asset swap with Cementos Portland Valderrivas (CPV), which was announced in February 2013. CRH agreed to transfer a 26% stake in Corporacion Uniland to CPV. In return, CPV agreed to transfer its 99% stake in Cementos Lemona to CRH, as well as giving CRH its UK-based cement importer Southern Cement.

In its press release CPV specifically mentioned that the asset swap would reduce its exposure to the Spanish cement market. On CRH's side the inclusion into the deal of a UK cement importer may be incidental but having an additional destination for potential excess Spanish cement production capacity can only be prudent.

Elsewhere this week, Turkmenistan's decision to protect domestic cement production with a 100% import duty raises interesting implications for exporters in the region such as Iran. It is unclear whether Turkmenistan is blocking Iranian exports altogether or just taxing them more. Either way, following news of a Iraqi block on Iranian exports, it seems likely to dent Iran's ambition to reach 18Mt of exports in the 2013 – 2014 Iranian calendar year, which will end on 20 March 2014.

France: Lafarge has announced changes to its Executive Committee due to start from 1 September 2013. Sonia Artinian and Peter Hoddinott will join existing committee members Eric Olsen, Guillaume Roux and Alexandra Rocca.

Sonia Artinian, currently Country CEO for Romania, is appointed as Executive Vice-President of Organization and Human Resources, taking over from Eric Olsen.

Artinian, a French national, joined Lafarge in 2008 as Senior Vice-President Organization, Learning and Development. She started her career as a strategy consultant, notably working for Cap Gemini Consulting. She is a graduate of École nationale de génie rural des eaux et forêts and of Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (section biology).

Peter Hoddinott, currently Head of Energy and Strategic Sourcing at the Performance department, is appointed as Executive Vice-President of Performance, taking over from Guillaume Roux.

Hoddinott, a British national, joined Lafarge in 2001 with the acquisition of Blue Circle by Lafarge. He worked for the mining industry before joining Blue Circle in 1995, where he held several operational positions in the UK, before being appointed General Director for the Philippines in 1999. He is a graduate of Imperial College and holds a Master of Business Administration from London University.

Eric Olsen, currently Executive Vice-President Organization and Human Resources, is appointed Executive Vice-President of Operations, taking over from Jean-Carlos Angulo, who has decided to retire.

Olsen, a US national, joined Lafarge in 1999 after starting his career at Deloitte & Touche. He became Chief Financial Officer of Lafarge North America in 2004.

Olsen holds a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and accounting from the University of Colorado, and an MBA from the HEC international business school in Paris.

Alexandra Rocca, currently Senior Vice-President Group Communications, is appointed as Executive Vice-President Communications, Public Affairs and Sustainable Development.

Rocca, a French national, joined Lafarge in 2010 as Senior Vice-President Group of Communications and has been a member of the group Executive Committee since January 2012. She began her career at Printemps Group in 1986 with subsequent roles at Air Liquide Group, Galeries Lafayette and Crédit Agricole S.A. group. She is a graduate from the HEC international business school in Paris, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris and holds a BA in French literature.

Guillaume Roux, currently Executive Vice-President Performance, is appointed Executive Vice-President of Operations.

Roux, a US-French dual national, has spent his entire career with Lafarge which he joined in 1980 as an internal auditor. Subsequent roles since have included Chief Executive for Turkey in 1999, taking responsibility for Lafarge's cement operations in South-East Asia in 2002 and becoming Executive Vice President and Co-President of the Cement Division with the responsibility for the Cement business in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2006. In 2008 he supervised the integration of Orascom's operations with Lafarge. He is a graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris.

Nigeria: The China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) has released plans to invest around US$1bn in Nigeria towards the construction of a cement plant and other projects, including the modernisation of a port near Lagos, a saw mill, real estate investment and manpower development. President of CCECC, Yuan Li, made the announcement in conjunction with a Nigerian delegation to Beijing led by the Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.

Uganda: Hima Cement has completed the installation of new bag filter technology at its Kasese plant. The US$3.2m bag filter technology investment is geared towards bringing the stack emissions in line with the global environmental standards.

"We invested significant resources to conduct environmental impact assessments to ensure that the plant operations met all the required environmental standards for its manufacturing processes and operations," said Peter Robson, Hima Cement's Plant Manager.

Hima Ciment, part of Bamburi Cement that in turn is a subsidiary of Lafarge, expects the plant's target emissions to be below Lafarge's industrial targets. Further testing is expected to be completed by the end of July 2013. Project manager Jackson Molo added that Bamburi Cement achieved 0.01mg/m3 emissions with the same technology at a plant in Mombasa in 2012. The Kasese plant has a cement production capacity of 0.85Mt/yr.

India: UltraTech Cement, part of the Aditya Birla Group, is working on environmental clearance for a new US$415m cement plant in Tamil Nadu, according to Indian media. The project will have a cement production capacity of 5.5Mt/yr, a clinker production capacity of 4.5Mt/yr, a 75MW captive power plant (with additional power from diesel generating sets of about 18MW) and a 15MW waste heat recovery facility.

The public hearing for the project was conducted in May 2013 as part of the environment impact assessment and management plan. The plant is intended to two have two production lines. The total project area is about 263 hectares with a plant area of about 86 hectares.

UltraTech is one of the largest cement producers in India with a total capacity of around 52Mt/yr.

Kenya: ARM Cement's pre-tax profits for the first half of 2013 have risen by 28% year-on-year to US$11.5m driven by a rise in cement sales, according to Reuters. The Kenyan cement producer has also forecast a strong performance for the second half of 2013.

Ireland: Irish building materials supplier CRH has shown continued improvements in most of its cement sustainability initiative key performance indicators in its 2012 sustainability report.

Of note, CRH improved its net CO₂ emissions per tonne of cementitious product by 5% to 637kg/t. Fuel substitution rose to 20.8% from 17.3%. The Lost Time Incident (LTI) rate per million man-hours for direct employees fell from 2.54 to 1.49. Particulates per specific g/t of clinker fell to 108 from 328.

However, CRH's emission for SO_x per specific g/t of clinker rose to 304 from 204. CRH blamed this rise on an increased use of alternative fuels in some plants.

In his forward to the report chief executive office Myles Lee commented that CRH's Materials Division had substantially increased alternative fuel usage in its European cement operations in 2012 that softened cost inflation in energy-related inputs.

Azerbaijan: Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has opened a cement production line at a new 1Mt/yr cement plant in Gazakh. The project is a joint investment between Akkord Industrial Construction Investment Corporation and the International Bank of Azerbaijan. Construction began at the plant in 2010.

Construction of the plant has been planned in two stages, starting with the commissioning of cement first followed by gypsum production. Construction work on the cement production line was completed in March 2013. The plant has a planned clinker production capacity of 2500t/day.

Australia: Haver & Boecker has publicly announced the creation of its new subsidiary, Haver Australia. Started in early 2013 the four-man team led by René Dechange is based in Malaga near Perth, Western Australia.

In addition to supporting Haver's customer base, the subsidiary is focused on expanding into the mining industry of Western Australia. The new subsidiary offers Haver & Boecker's range of packing technology and Haver & Tyler's mineral processing technology. In addition to sales Haver Australia also covers servicing and spare parts.

India: Chandrashekhar Hiremath, trade union leader and president of the Shramajeevigala Vedike, will begin an indefinite fast from 15 July 2013 on behalf of worker rights at cement plants in Gulbarga and Koppal districts of Karnataka state. According to The Hindu newspaper, Hiremath is demanding that cement plants keep their word on payment of wages to over 8500 contract labourers at four major plants.

At a press conference Hiremath said that Vasavadatta Cements, Rajashree (Ultratech) Cements, Chettinad Cements and Ultratech Cements had failed to follow an agreement made in 2011 stating that they would regularise contract labourers and bring them under the cement wage board. Currently, contract labourers are paid a wage of US$65-180/month. Yet under the wage board they would gain a minimum wage of US$256/month at the four cement plants.