Displaying items by tag: GCW163
Who watches the cement plants?
13 August 2014The comic book series 'Watchmen' takes its title from the Latin phrase 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' which is translated as 'Who watches the watchmen?' Commonly used today to warn against government, police and judicial corruption, the saying might also apply to those groups who watch big industry such as the Atlas of Environmental Justice.
This initiative is an online database compiled by the Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) to map environmental conflicts around the world. It's a great tool, it is professionally presented and the project is backed by the European Commission. EJOLT's goals are to give those fighting for environmental justice a voice and to gather data to allow policy change.
As ever the problem with any form of user-content database is who vets the submissions and how much of 'reality' does the data actually represent compared to a more curated project. The mass use of Wikipedia shows that these issues can be overcome to some extent, while user-submitted online hotel and restaurant reviews often suggest otherwise.
All three conflicts registered in the EJ Atlas in southern England, where the Global Cement office is based, offer incomplete or misleading data. The entry for the third runway expansion at Heathrow airport doesn't present the economic benefits of expanding the airport or what the alternatives are. Rightly, the activists will argue that they have significantly smaller resources compared to the big industrial multinationals to fight their corner. Unfortunately this shows in the EJ Atlas and the user-submitted data approach it uses.
At the time of writing only 15 cases are tagged as cement-related out of a total of 1154. This is far fewer cases than you might expect with no mention, for example, of any of the regular environmental scuffles the cement industry faces in North America. The cases it does list are mainly based in Latin America with other clusters in southern Europe and India. Of these, three have been mislabelled and are not even related to the cement industry. The rest are mainly concerned with pollution due to waste incineration and mineral extraction worries. The waste incineration listings have a certain irony about them considering that these cement plants are almost certainly praising themselves for their reduced carbon emissions!
In the online world big companies can sometimes be at a disadvantage to nimble activist campaigns. Journalists from national media outlets can easily find campaigns with a web or social media presence to provide counterpoint for editorial. A good example is the Stop Titan Action Network that formed to fight Titan America's cement plant in Castle Hayne in North Carolina, US.
If the EJ Atlas accrues more attention and/or carries on past its project deadline of 2015 then the problems with the atlas may be fixed as activists log more cases, industry refutes them and the moderators weigh up the arguments in line with the project's aims of environmental justice. As previous online examples have shown, engagement may be better than ignoring these kind of initiatives.
India: Orient Cement has appointed Sushil Gupta as chief financial officer following a meeting of its board of directors. Other appointments included Rahul Deshmukh as chief operating officer and S K Pandey as plant head of Devapur.
UK/Singapore: The private equity firm CVC Capital Partners is in discussion with Singapore's Government Investment Corporation (GIC) about a combined bid for assets being sold by Holcim and Lafarge as they prepare to merge, according to Sky News. CVC is also understood to be talking to other state investment funds about the proposed deal.
At least two other private equity groups have been formed to bid for the divestments that Holcim and Lafarge are preparing to sell. Blackstone has teamed up with Cinven and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. BC Partners and Advent International are also preparing a joint bid. Initial offers are understood to be due in September 2014.
Democratic Republic of Congo: PPC Barnet DRC has awarded an EPC contract to Sinoma International Engineering Company for the construction of a new cement plant in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The signing took place in Kinshasa marking the inaugural phase of the construction. The main sponsors of the US$300m project include PPC, Barnet Group and the International Finance Corporation. The investment forms part of PPC's expansion plans in Africa, which aim to increase the company's revenue from outside South Africa from the current 26% to 40% by 2017.
"The plant is located near Zamba in the Cataracts district, approximately 230km from Kinshasa. The fully-integrated plant will consist of a five-stage preheater kiln with an inline calciner and will produce 1Mt/yr of cement to serve both the rapidly growing market in the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighbouring export markets," said PPC's Business Development Executive Trevor Barnard.
The plant is expected to take around 26 months to complete and commissioning is scheduled for the last quarter of 2016. The new plant will generate approximately 300 direct jobs once fully operational.
Tongling Shangfeng Cement to expand into Kyrgyzstan
13 August 2014Kyrgyzstan: Gansu Shangfeng Cement has announced its subsidiary Tongling Shangfeng Cement has signed a cooperation letter of intent with Zhu Rongjun to buy equities and invest in Zeth Cement in Kyrgyzstan.
Initially the two companies intend to build a 300t/day clinker production line and support cement production lines in Chui province. Tongling Shangfeng will hold 58% of Zeth Cement and Zhu will own the remaining 42%. Zhu has agreed to inject limestone mining rights and land-use rights that the company owns or controls for cement production into Zeth.
Oman: Raysut Cement has warned that the large volume of cement from the UAE to Oman is creating 'undue competition' in the local market. It has reacted to this by maintaining sales locally, increasing its profit and increasing its own exports in Yemen and Africa. The company made the announcement as part of its half-year results for 2014.
The group reported revenues of US$129m for the first half of 2014, no change in comparison to the same period in 2013. Profit before tax rose by 6.7% year-on-year to US$45m.
The group sold 1.3Mt of cement and 17,400t of clinker in the first half a 2014, a decrease of 3% year-on-year compared to total sales of cement and clinker. In the first half of 2013 the group sold 1.32Mt of cement and 27,900t of clinker. The group attributed the decline to 'severe' competition from UAE suppliers in the north of Oman. It compensated for this with increased sales in the south of the country and larger export volumes.
The Oman-based cement producer also announced new projects it is working on, including setting up a distribution terminal in Duqm, additional silo capacity at the Salalah plant and an off-shore wheel loader system to facilitate bulk cement handling.
Vissai Ninh Binh Group to export 1.5Mt of clinker to Réunion
11 August 2014Vietnam: Vissai Ninh Binh Group has signed a contract with a French partner to export 1.5Mt of clinker to Ciment de Bourbon to serve to expressway road project on the French island of Réunion. This is the biggest contract that Vietnamese cement producers have secured to date, said Vissai Ninh Binh Group's deputy director Nguyen Tien Dat.
The clinker will be shipped at a price of US$42/t under the contract that will be effective for five years, the deputy director said. He noted that the firm has carefully considered the prices to avoid the negative impact driven by the fluctuations in prices of transportation.
Indonesia: PT Indocement Tunggal Prakarsa Tbk is preparing to invest US$150m towards building two greenfield cement plants in North Sumatra and in Pati, Central Java respectively. Each plant will have a cement production capacity of 2.5Mt/yr. The company is currently conducting a feasibility study, said Indocement's president director Christian Kartawijaya. The investment is intended to boost the company's production by 2018 in reaction to decreasing market share.
Indocement aims to boost its production capacity by about 45% to 30Mt/yr in 2018 when the two greenfield plants are expected to have begun operations. Currently the company produces 20.6Mt/yr of cement. The new plants will maintain the company's market share in Indonesia at 31%. The company will source the funding internally.
Indocement has allocated US$385m for capital expenditure in 2014 to boost cement production. In October 2013 the company started work on its 4.4Mt/yr cement plant at Citeureup. This plant is planned to start operation in the fourth quarter of 2015.
Holcim India fined US$11m for tax evasion
11 August 2014India: Delhi Government's Revenue Department has fined Holcim India US$11m for evasion of stamp duty. It also directed the company to pay stamp duty of US$36m and a penalty of US$11m within 30 days for violation of stamp duty. Collector of Stamps (HQ) Lalit Mohan told local media that Holcim India had violated the payment of stamp duty with the merger of Ambuja Cement.
"The stamp duty on the merger order is payable at the rate of 3% on the total amount of US$1.2bn which comes out to be US$36m... The company is required to adjudicate or pay stamp duty within a period of one month which it failed to do," said Lalit Mohan in the order.
In its submission to the Revenue Department, Holcim India stated that there was no transfer of movable and immovable assets from transferor company (Ambuja Cement) with transferee company (Holcim) except shares held by transferor company in other companies have been transferred to transferee company. Subsequently the company did not see itself as liable for stamp duty.
Semen Indonesia orders silos from Claudius Peters
11 August 2014Indonesia: Claudius Peters has received an order from Semen Indonesia to supply three new cement storage silos for their new integrated cement plant in Rembang, Central Java.
Claudius Peters will supply three Expansion Chamber (EC type) storage silos, with a diameter of 24m and a volume of 20,000t each. Cement will be discharged to two mobile VME-type bulk loading stations underneath each silo. Separate aeroslide transport to the packing plant is also included. These three new cement storage silos will be integrated with the four new packing plants which Semen Indonesia ordered at the start of 2014 from Claudius Peters.