Displaying items by tag: GCW251
Lafarge Africa approves acquisition of UNICEM
16 May 2016Nigeria: The board of directors of Lafarge Africa has approved the acquisition of an additional 50% equity interest in the Untied Cement Company of Nigeria (UNICEM). The purchase was handled on the same terms of its initial acquisition of 35%. Following the acquisition Lafarge Africa will own an indirect interest of 100% in UNICEM.
The 50% share is currently held by Egyptian Cement Holdings, a company jointly owned by LafargeHolcim and Lafarge Africa. LafargeHolcim owns Egyptian Cement Holdings via Holcibel. Lafarge Africa is buying its latest purchase of shares from Holcibel.
Zimbabwe: The Cement and Concrete Institute of Zimbabwe has presented a paper to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce suggesting government intervention in the cement industry including banning imported cement. The paper also calls for a protection tariff on imported cement of US$50/t, granting import licences to local producers, cancelling or reviewing all issued permits in circulation in the country and lowering duty on raw materials according to local press.
The country’s cement producers include Lafarge, PPC and Sino Cement. Together they have a cement production capacity of 1.85Mt/yr compared to an estimated demand of 1.17Mt/yr in 2016. Together these cement producers have invested nearly US$185m in cement plants upgrades within the last five years. However, a surplus of cement in the region means that South Africa, Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana export cement to Zimbabwe which is threatening the local producers’ investment.
China: Harbin Xiaoling Cement in Heilongjiang province has taken the environment ministry to court after its approval to operate was rejected following complaints by residents. The cement company’s representatives say the ministry was wrong to overrule a decision by the local authorities in 2011 that granted approval for production at the plant, according to the South China Morning Post.
The ministry took action following complaints by residents about noise and dust pollution. They argued that residents living within 500m of the plant should have been relocated following the recommendation of an environmental review conducted when the plant expanded production in 2009. However, the cement plant has countered that it was built in 1932, whilst the area was under Japanese occupation, before any resident moved to the area.
Austria: The Federation of Austrian Cement Industry (VÖZ) has reported that its national cement market volumes grew by 4% year-on-year to 4.6Mt in 2015. Overall sales turnover increased by 4.3% to Euro388m. Alongside this, the use of alternative fuels by the cement industry increased to 76.1% in 2015 from 75.5% in 2015.
Rudolf Zrost, CEO of VÖZ, lauded the growth in cement volumes despite a ‘difficult’ year. Looking ahead to 2016 he expected that a turnaround in housing investment and hopes for infrastructure spending in 2016 would aid the market.
He also warned against emissions trading describing it as ‘bureaucratic’, as stifling innovation and as having no basis in reality.
US: A worker has died from a fall at the Midlothian Ash Grove Cement plant in Texas on 10 May 2016. The worker, Roderick U Barnes, was a maintenance mechanic at the plant according to the Waxahachie Daily Light newspaper. Barnes had been working on the top of a concrete mixing tower. The Mine Safety and Health Administration and Ash Grove Cement are conducting investigations into the cause of the accident.
India: The Heavy Industry Minister Anant Geete has arranged a meeting with officials of the Telangana state government and the Cement Corporation of India (CCI) to discuss the possibility of opening the closed CCI cement plant in Adilabad. The meeting will be held in June 2016 at Hyderabad or New Delhi, according the Hindu newspaper.
The meeting is the second occasion that ministers from Telangana have met with Geete to lobby for the reopening of the CCI plant. Options being considered include privatising the plant or retaining control by the government. The cement plant has a production capacity of 4Mt/yr.
Italy: Cementir has made a loss of Euro6m in the first quarter of 2016. It made a profit before tax of Euro3.8m in the same period in 2015. It reported that its revenue rose by 2.8% to Euro210m from Euro205m. Its sales volumes of grey and white cement rose by 8.7% to 2.01Mt from 1.85Mt.
The Italian cement producer reported strong performances in the Scandinavian countries, Malaysia and Egypt. Sales revenue in Turkey increased in the quarter but this was offset by currency fluctuations. In China revenue fell by 9% year-on-year in the period. In Italy revenue fell by 8% due to a fall in sales volumes of cement.
Greece: Titan has reported a loss of Euro18.6m for the first quarter of 2016. The figure is a loss compared to the net profit of Euro6.6m it made in the same period in 2015. However, its sales turnover rose by 19% to Euro338m from Euro284m and its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose by 86% to Euro43.3m from Euro23.2m. The company blamed the loss on currency exchange variations particularly from the devaluation of the Egyptian pound against the Euro by 19%.
The group noted that its sales had increased in the quarter in all regions with the exception of Greece. By region it saw strong growth in the US with a 34% in turnover to Euro174m. In Greece construction was mostly limited to government projects limited by the continued economic problems and capital controls. In the group’s south-eastern Europe regions turnover rose by 27.6% to Euro35.8m. In Egypt demand for cement continued to grow helped by the use of solid fuels at its plants. Turnover in the quarter increased by 8.3% to Euro65.3m.
Switzerland: LafargeHolcim’s net sales have fallen by 5.5% year-on-year to Euro6.06bn in the first quarter of 2016 from Euro6.41bn in the same period in 2015. Its sales volumes of cement rose slightly by 1.4% to 56.6Mt from 55.8Mt. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 15.6% to Euro774m. It blamed the fall in sales on ‘challenging conditions’ in Nigeria, Brazil and India.
By region the cement producer reported that sales volumes of cement in Asia Pacific rose by 6.6% to 30.1Mt supported by a stabilisation of the Chinese economy with growth in March 2016. However, its sales revenue was affected by low prices. In Europe cement sales fell by 3.1% to 7.7Mt due to slowing construction growth in the UK despite improvements in France and Switzerland. In Latin America cement sales fell by 10.7% to 6Mt mainly due to problems in Brazil. In the group’s Middle East Africa region cement sales rose by 3.1% to 10.8Mt led by Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria. Finally, in North America sales of cement grew by 18.9% to 3.4Mt boosted by a ‘vigorous’ housing market.
“The first quarter is not indicative of our full year performance. We are on track with our plan and we see favourable underlying trends,” said chief executive officer Eric Olsen in a statement. The multinational construction materials producer intends to keep to its 2018 targets announced in November 2015. It will do this through holding down costs, continuing its Euro3.16bn divestment programme and increasing benefit from synergies following the merger of Lafarge and Holcim in 2015.
FLSmidth and GE to partner on data platform
12 May 2016Denmark/US: FLSmidth and GE (formerly General Electric) have announced a partnership to create digital solutions for increasing productivity in the cement and minerals industries. The new solutions developed on GE's cloud-based Predix platform will use FLSmidth's knowledge of cement and minerals processing along with GE's industrial application of networked physical objects (the internet of things) to increase the productivity of connected equipment units in the cement and mining industry.
FLSmidth will build their solutions on top of the Predix platform with applications for managing process flows. This should allow customers to leverage process data and analytics for monitoring, benchmarking their performance and predicting maintenance of their equipment.
"Cement and mining companies already collect significant volumes of data, but currently, only a fraction of it is used. This will be the first available solution for a full coherent process monitoring to leverage optimisation solutions offered by a full service provider like FLSmidth," said FLSmidth’s head of Global Research & Development Jens Almdal.