Displaying items by tag: GCW311

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement has counteracted falling sales volumes with a price rise. Its sales volumes of cement fell by 15% year-on-year to 0.65Mt in the first half of 2017 from 0.76Mt in the same period in 2016. However, its sales revenue rose by 4% to US$26m from US$25m.

Overall the cement producer said that the country’s cement market contracted by 1% during the reporting period. Cement shipments from local producers rose by 5% though as imports remained flat and exports doubled due to favourable foreign exchange rates. Steppe Cement’s local market share fell to 15% from 18% but its exports rose markedly to 11% of its sales from 4%. The cement producer forecasts that the country as a whole will consume 9Mt of cement in 2017.

India: The Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA) says that demand for cement is likely to grow in the second half of the Indian financial year due to the new Goods and Services Tax (GST) and increased infrastructure spending. The cement industry is also expected to benefit from a 30% reduction in logistic costs due to simplified state border checks, according to the Press Trust of India. The CMA’s forecast follows a fall in growth for the cement industry in the previous financial year.

India: The Cement Corporation of India (CCI) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited (RINL), the owner of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant to build a 2Mt/yr slag and fly ash cement plant. RINL will provide the blast furnace slag and fly ash for the project. The plant is expected to cost US$23m and it will take 15 months once the deal is finalised.

Angola: Nova Cimangola has inaugurated a new 2.4Mt/yr cement plant at Cacuaco in Luanda. China’s Sinoma International Engineering built the US$400m plant in 21 months, according to the Jornal de Angola newspaper. Investment for the project came from Nova Cimangola and Ciminvest, its main shareholder.

The new unit is intended to repalace Nova Cimangola’s existing cement plant at Kikolo near Luanda, which has limited limestone reserves. The new plant occupies an area of 700 hectares with larger mineral reserves. Following the start-up of the plant Nova Cimangola’s production will rise to 3.6Mt/yr from 1.8Mt/yr. The new plant will also create 200 jobs, 85% of which are expected to go to local workers.

Ukraine: Pavel Kachur, the head of the Ukrainian cement producers association Ukrcement, has accused imports of cement from Belarus of not following the proper certification process. He said that imported cement had not been tested properly in an independent laboratory, according to Interfax-Ukraine. He also complained about energy subsidies for Belarusian cement that make it more competitive internationally and noted that Belarus is closed to exports of cement from the Ukraine.

Oman: Oman Cement has announced that its net profit after tax for the first half of 2017 was US$13m, a fall of 27% year-on-year compared to the same period of 2016 when it made US$17.7m. Its sales for the first half were US$76.4m, a smaller fall of just 2.3% compared to the first half of 2016, when sales were US$78.2m. This is indicative of higher input costs for the company.

Spain: The Spanish cement makers association Oficemen says that cement consumption grew by 11% year-on-year to 4.9Mt in the first five months of 2017. It attributed the rise to increased residential housing construction. The association forecasts that, if the growth continues, the consumption may reach 12.3Mt in 2017, the strongest figure since 2012.

However, exports have fallen by 7.6% to 3.76Mt. Oficemen said that this decline has reduced the benefit of improvements in the domestic market and kept production capacity levels of 50% at cement plants. It also raised recent increases in electricity costs as cutting the competiveness of the industry’s exports.

Kenya: Bamburi Cement is set to start a US$39m upgrade to its Athi River grinding plant in August 2017. Preliminary work on the 18-month project started in January 2017 and construction is about to commence, according to the Business Daily newspaper. The upgrade will increase cement production by 0.9Mt/yr at the unit when it is completed in mid-2018. Following the project the cement producer’s total national cement production capacity, including its integrated plant in Mombasa, will reach 3.2Mt/yr.

Liberia: The government is considering a 17-year tax reduction deal worth US$200m to encourage the Liberia Steel and Cement Mining (LICEMCO) to build a cement and steel plant. The so-called Investment Incentive Agreement is between the government, the TIDFORE Investment Company and LICEMCO, according to the Liberian Observer newspaper. A government Committee on Investment and Lands, Mines and Energy will investigate and report on the proposal by the end of July 2017.

Brazil: Bag producers Cocelpa Companhia de Celulose e Papel do Paraná (Cocelpa) and Arpeco Artefatos de Papéis have both filed for bankruptcy protection. They cited rising production costs, the country’s economic crisis and an unsuccessful sale plan, according to the Valor Economico newspaper. The companies operate plants at Curitiba and Araucária and they mainly produce bags for the cement industry. Despite being market rivals the two companies have filed for protection together due to structural links between them.