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More details from HeidelbergCement this week on its divestment strategy. It has sold its half-share in Ciment Québec in Canada and a minority share in a company in Syria. A closed cement plant in Egypt is being sold and it is working on divesting its business in Ukraine. Altogether these four sales will generate Euro150m for the group. Chairman Bernd Scheifele said that the company expects to rake in Euro500m from asset sales in 2018. It has a target of Euro1.5bn by the end of 2020.

In purely cement terms that is something like seven integrated plants. So the usual game follows of considering what assets HeidelbergCement might consider selling. The group offered a few clues in a presentation that Scheifele was due to give earlier this week at the Commerzbank German Investment Seminar in New York.

First of all the producer said that it was hopeful for 2019 due to limited energy cost inflation, better weather in the US, the Indonesian market turning, general margin improvement actions and sustained price rises in Europe. It then said that its divestments would focus on three main categories: non-core business, weak market positions and idle assets. The first covers sectors outside of the trio of cement, aggregates and ready-mix concrete. Things like white cement plants or sand lime brick production. Countries or areas it identified it had already executed divestments in included Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Syria and Quebec in Canada. Idle assets included depleted quarries and land.

The first obvious candidate for divestment could be the company’s two majority owned integrated plants in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These might be considered targets due to the political instability in the country. However, this is balanced by the potential long-term gains once that country stabilises. Alternatively, some of the plants in Italy seem like a target. The company had seven integrated plants, eight grinding plants and one terminal in 2018.

The presentation also pointed out the sharp rise in European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) CO₂ emissions allowances, from around Euro5/t in 2017 to up to Euro20/t by the end of 2018. In late 2018 Cementa, a subsidiary of HeidelbergCement in Sweden, said it was considering closing Degerhamn plant due to mounting environmental costs. The group reckons it can fight a high carbon price through consolidation, capacity closure, higher utilisation, limited exports and pricing. It also pointed out that it is a technology leader in carbon reduction projects. It will be interesting to see how environmental costs play into HeidelbergCement’s divestment decisions.

Finally, a tweet by Sasja Beslik, the head of sustainable finance at Nordea, flagged up a few cement companies as being the worst companies for increasing CO₂ emissions between 2011 and 2016. HeidelbergCement was 19th on the list after LafargeHolcim and CRH. Sure, cement production makes CO₂ but it’s far from clear whether the data from MSCI took into account that each of these companies had expanded heavily during this time. In HeidelbergCement’s case it bought Italcementi in 2016. Cement companies aren’t perfect but sometimes there’s just no justice.

Mexico: Cemex has made a number of changes to the organisation of its senior level positions with effect from 1 February 2019.

Juan Romero Torres, currently president of Cemex Mexico, has been appointed Executive Vice President of Global Commercial Development. This new role aims to build on the progress that Cemex says it has achieved in its Customer Centricity strategy, providing it with a formal structure that will allow new opportunities to add value to customers and markets. Ricardo Naya Barba, current president of Cemex Colombia, has been appointed president of Cemex Mexico.

Jaime Gerardo Elizondo Chapa, currently president of Cemex Europe, has been appointed Executive Vice President of Global Supply Chain Development. This new role aims to grow Cemex´s Supply Chain capabilities to gain additional efficiencies in end-to-end operations. Sergio Mauricio Menendez Medina, currently Distribution Channel Vice President for Cemex Mexico, has been appointed president of Cemex Europe.

Zimbabwe: Lafarge Zimbabwe has appointed Siame Kaulule as its chief executive officer (CEO). Kaulule succeeds Amal Naiel, who has spent five years in the post. Kaulule, a Zambian citizen, joins the company from LafargeHolcim in the UK where he was general manager for retail and has previously served as executive in other European and African markets for the company, according to the Business Report newspaper. He has previously worked as the regional marketing director for the southern Africa cluster including Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.

Australia: Adelaide Brighton has appointed Theresa Mlikota as its chief financial officer (CFO). She will start the role on 15 April 2019. Darryl Hughes will continue as Acting CFO until then.

Mlikota holds 30 years’ experience in the resources and construction sector. She is currently the CFO of mining services company Ausdill and previously held the role of CFO with Fulton Hogan, Thiess, Macmahon and Barminco. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a member of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA).

Nigeria/Senegal: Aumund Group will supply equipment for projects managed by China’s Sinoma for Dangote Cement projects in Nigeria and Senegal.

For Dangote’s Obajana Line 5 and Okpella 6000t/day plants, Aumund will supply three belt bucket elevators with a capacity of 660t/hr to convey raw meal and to feed raw meal to the preheater towers at 520t/hr. Three further Aumund belt bucket elevators with a capacity of 480t/hr will convey cement to the silos. An Aumund pan conveyor with a weighing scale mechanism and a capacity of 500t/hr, running from the coolers to the clinker silos, and three further Aumund pan conveyors under the clinker silo, round off this machinery package.

Schade Lagertechnik, a subsidiary of Aumund, will also supply equipment for these plants. This includes a stacker with a capacity of 3500t/hr for Obajana and another at 2160t/hr for Okpella, as well as a portal reclaimer to operate at 800t/hr in the limestone storage of each plant. Additional stockyard equipment completes the supply package.

For Dangote’s Apapa and Onne terminal projects, Aumund Beijing will supply a double bucket elevator to convey clinker to the silos at a capacity of 1200t/hr, and several other chain bucket elevators. Elevators to convey gypsum to the bunkers will have a capacity of 720t/hr at Apapa and 480t/hr at Onne. Two 1600 Series Samson material feeders with a handling capacity of 400t/hr of clinker, two Aumund telescopic chutes and two truck loaders for clinker will also be supplied to each terminal.

Aumund has also received an order to supply a belt bucket elevator with a capacity of 300t/hr to convey cement to the new silo at the Dangote Cement Senegal Expansion Project.

Greece: Titan Cement says that its turnover, earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) and net profit after taxes all grew year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2018. Overall, its second half results were better than in 2017. The growth mostly came from the US and South East Europe, but the company said that the situation in other regions has not shown any significant change. The cement producer made the announcement as it is undergoing a voluntary tender offer process.

Sweden: Cementa’s Skövde plant working on project to optimise its grinding process and reduce the clinker factor of the cement it produces. The project is looked at grinding limestone separately as opposed to grinding it with clinker and gypsum, which it currently does. The plant is using a mill it only uses occasionally to grind the limestone to the desired size. A full-scale trial was run in the autumn of 2018. Products from the trial are now being tested at a laboratory.

Thailand: Uttama Savanayana, the Industry Minister, has ordered agencies under the ministry’s control to set tighter dust emission standards for factories in Bangkok. He also intends to set up a working group to look at the issue, according to the Bangkok Post newspaper. Savanayana wants factories around the country, including cement plants, to be inspected. Legal action has been recommended for any sites that are exceeding the legal limits.

Brazil: Brennand Group plans to invest around US$190m toward building a new cement plant at Ponta Grossa in Paraná state. A provisional building license has been awarded and the company is now waiting on further licenses before construction work can begin according to aRede. The new plant will be build by Brennand Group’s subsidiary Mineracao Delta do Paraná and the plant will operate under the Companhia de Cimento do Paraná (CPR) name.

Funding for plant will come from Brennand Group’s sale of a 50% stake in a subsidiary to Italy’s Buzzi Unicem in 2018.

Argentina: Local cement despatches fell by 2.3% year-on-year to 11.8Mt in 2018 from 12.1Mt in 2017. Despatches in December 2018 fell by 17.9% to 0.82Mt from 1Mt in December 2017. Data from the Asociación de Fabricantes de Cemento Portland (AFCP) also showed that exports rose by 10% to 81,191t from 79,173t.