Displaying items by tag: GCW325

Australia: Environment Protection Authority Victoria (EPA) has approved an application from Boral Cement to build a new 1.3Mt/yr cement grinding plant at Geelong in Melbourne, Victoria. The works will include an enclosed ball mill and covered store, covered belt conveyors, outdoor product stockpiles and several finished product storage and distribution silos at the site. Clinker will be unloaded from ships and delivered to the site via covered belt conveyors from Lascelles Wharf. The facility will operate 24-hours per day.

The EPA added that Boral Cement undertook community consultation prior to the submission of the application and during the public submission period.

Spain: Cementos Molins is moving its registered address from the town of Sant Vicenc dels Horts in Catalonia, to Madrid. Sources quoted by the Expansión newspaper say it is due to the legal uncertainty in Catalonia. The company will continue to operate its cement plant in Sant Vicenc dels Horts but the publicly traded company and the group's holding, through which it channels its foreign investments, will be moved.

The Catalan regional government approved an independence referendum held in early October 2017. The central Spanish government rules it illegal and has moved to impose direct rule on the region.

Saudi Arabia: The Arabian Cement Company (ACC) says that the construction of new cement mills at its Rabigh plant has been delayed to the third quarter of 2018 from the fourth quarter of 2017. The delay has been blamed on, “…the contractor's failure to comply with the timetable.” The second-phase of the project, to build a new clinker production line, is under review. The cement mill order was placed with China National Building Material (CNBM) in 2015.

Ghana: George Dawson-Ahmoah, the chairman of the Cement Manufacturers Association of Ghana (CMAG), says that Nigeria is dumping cement in his country. He cited instances of imports of bagged cement from Nigeria, under the guise of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS), as disturbing pricing in the market, in an interview with the Business and Financial Times newspaper. Although Dawson-Ahmoah defended the ECOWAS scheme he raised issues such as evidence of dumping and export subsidies as being a threat to local cement producers.

Speaking at an annual industry association meeting he alleged that cement imports from Nigeria are being sold in the country for less than its value in the originating country in violation of World Trade Organisation rules. He also criticised the local Export Expansion Grant subsidy.

China: China National Building Materials’ (CNDM) operating revenue rose by 26% year-on-year to US$13.3bn for the first nine months of 2017 from US$10.6bn in the same period in 2016. Its net profit more than doubled to US$588m from US$175m. CNBM and China National Materials Company (Sinoma) formerly entered into a merger agreement in September 2017.

China: China Resources Cement has more than doubled its profit so far in 2017 by increasing its prices. Its turnover rose by 16.4% year-on-year to US$2.61bn in the first nine months of 2017 from US$2.24bn in the same period in 2016. Its profit tripled to US$337m from US$102m. At the same time its average selling price for cement rose by 21.5%.

Cement sales volumes fell by 9% to 52.2Mt from 57Mt but clinker volumes rose to 6.16Mt from 2.94Mt. By region cement sales volumes fell in most areas, with the exception of Hainan.

Nigeria/South Africa: Onne van der Weijde, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Dangote Cement, has said that his company still interested in buying South Africa’s PPC for the ‘right’ price. Weijde made the comments on an analysts call about the cement producer’s nine-month results, according to Reuters. He added that the South African company was a good fit for Dangote Cement.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement’s domestic cement sales volumes fell by 11.8% year-on-year to 2.8Mt in the third quarter of 2017 compared to 3.1Mt in the same period in 2016. The company has blamed the fall on the country’s economic recession that ended in the second quarter of 2017.

Overall the group’s sales dropped by 10.1% to 16.5Mt in the first nine months of the year for all regions, despite strong growth outside of Nigeria. Despite this, its revenue rose by 36.5% to US$1.67bn from US$1.23bn in both Nigeria and the rest of Africa for the first three months of 2017. Earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose similarly.

“Dangote Cement has continued to perform strongly in 2017 with revenues up nearly 37%, despite a fall in volumes. In our key operations in Nigeria we have significantly improved our fuel mix and this has helped increase margins across the group. It is especially good for Nigeria because most of the coal we are using is mined in our own country,” said chief executive officer Onne van der Weijde. He added that the cement producer’s other African operations were performing ‘strongly’ with sales growth in Cameroon, Ethiopia and Senegal. It started operations at its 1.5Mt/yr Mfila cement plant in Republic of Congo in late September 2017.

Kenya: Quantum Global has sold its stake in Savannah Cement following approval by the Kenyan Competition Commission. This follows the sale of its stake in Seruji, the Mauritius-based firm that owns a 60% stake in Savannah Cement, according to the Standard newspaper. Quantum Global’s departure gives entrepreneur Benson Ndeta more control over Savannah Cement, which will now own Seruji. Ndeta also holds a stake in Savannah Heights, the other shareholder in Savannah.

Private equity firm Quantum Global has held the asset since 2015 through its US$1.1bn Infrastructure Fund. Savannah Cement started operating in 2012 and it runs a 1.5Mt/yr grinding plant at Athi-River near Nairobi.

Angola: Fabrica de Cimento do Kwanza Sul plant may be forced to shutdown on 1 November 2017 due to a lack of Light Fuel Oil (LFO). The plant’s operational director Edmundo Ferreira has blamed the situation on rising fuel prices, according to the Angola News Agency. The company’s management is currently neogotiating with its fuel supplier, which it says has raised the price by 260%. The plant has a workforce of 140 employees.