Displaying items by tag: GCW467

Argentina: Cement despatches fell by 30.6% year-on-year to 3.83Mt in the first half of 2020 from 5.51Mt in the same period in 2019. Data from the Asociación de Fabricantes de Cemento Portland (AFCP) shows that monthly despatches from the local market, exports and imports hit a low of 0.41Mt in April 2020, a 55% year-on-year drop, before starting to recover. Despatches were 0.80Mt in June 2020m , a 7% decline from 0.86Mt in June 2019. Local consumption has fallen by a similar proportion.

Nigeria: BUA Cement’s revenue grew by 12.7% year-on-year to US$261m in the first half of 2020 from US$232m in the same period of 2019. Its profit after tax rose by 13.7% to US$89.8m from US$78.9m. In comments reported by the Daily Independent newspaper, Yusuf Binji, the managing director of BUA Cement said that, “In a bid to further drive cost efficiencies and sustainability, we entered into strategic alliances for the supply of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the Kalambaina, Sokoto State and the management of our mining operations.”

The cement producer has a production capacity of 8Mt/yr. It plans to increase this to 11Mt/yr when it commissions a new 3Mt/yr plant in Sokoto State in 2021.

Nigeria: Dangote Cement has presented 82 brand new trucks to its distributors to improve product distribution logistics to other retailers. A ceremony was held at the Enugu assembly plant of Shacman Truck following a driver training session, according to the Punch newspaper. The cement producer said that the trucks were presented under its Truck Empowerment Scheme, where distributors pay for the trucks on a 50-month instalment basis.

Germany: The Westküste100 green hydrogen project has received funding approval from the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs. The plan is backed by an investment of Euro89m, with Euro30m of this total approved for the project’s launch in August 2020. The initiative intends to produce green hydrogen, transport it in the gas network, use it in industrial processes and to interlink different material cycles within the existing infrastructure. The consortium brings together ten partners: EDF Deutschland, Holcim Deutschland, OGE, Ørsted Deutschland, Raffinerie Heide, Heide’s municipal utility, Thüga and ThyssenKrupp Industrial Solutions, along with the Region Heide development agency and the Westküste University of Applied Sciences.

“An electrolysis plant with a capacity of 700MW - this is our vision and the next milestone in implementing the development targets laid down in the national hydrogen strategy by 2030,” said Jürgen Wollschläger, managing director of Raffinerie Heide and coordinator of the Westküste100 project.

The funding approval enables work to begin on the first phase of the project, which is set to run for five years. A newly formed joint venture, H2 Westküste, comprising EDF Deutschland, Ørsted and Raffinerie Heide, is to build a 30MW electrolyser which will produce green hydrogen from offshore wind energy and provide information on the operation, maintenance, control and grid compatibility of the equipment.

In a later stage of the project hydrogen from both electrolysis and CO₂ from a cement plant in Schleswig-Holstein will be used in the process. During the initial phase of the Westküste100 project preparations will be made for converting the Lägerdorf cement plant to an oxyfuel combustion process.

Thorsten Hahn, chief executive officer (CEO) and chairman of Holcim (Deutschland) said, “For us, as a manufacturer of building materials, the funding approval is a key milestone on the way to decarbonising cement production. Now all of us involved in Westküste100 must move forward quickly, decisively and dynamically in order to achieve our ultimate goal of cross-sectoral coupling on a large industrial scale in the coming years.”

Italy: Italcementi and Calcestruzzi have supplied specialists and products, including 67,000m³ of concrete, for the Genoa-San Giorgio Bridge. The new structure has been built to replace the Morandi Bridge that collapsed in mid-2018. Products from the integrated Calusco d'Adda cement plant, the Novi Ligure grinding plant and Calcestruzzi’s concrete plants in Genoa supported the project.

Germany/UK: Langley Holdings says that the order intake for its subsidiary Claudius Peters was behind target for the first half of 2020 and expected to remain so for the rest of the year due to the associated lead time. Due to market disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic the group has implemented short-time working and agreed “tariff reductions with the workforce” to reduce costs.

Overall, the group’s revenue rose by 3.4% year-on-year to Euro411m in the first half of 2020 from Euro397m in the same period in 2019. However, this was attributed to its acquisition of Marelli Motori in mid-2019. Its operating profit dropped by 81% to Euro3.84m from Euro20.5m.

“Although the 2020 result is not yet secure at this point, we do have reasonable visibility on the second half and my principal concern now is for 2021, although the extent to which Coronavirus impacts our businesses next year will not start to become apparent until the autumn. Currently all divisions are reporting delays to capital equipment order placements and I expect these delays to continue into next year. I hope to be proven wrong but any notion of a rapid recovery from the economic fallout from Coronavirus would in my view, be wishful thinking,” said Anthony J Langley, the chairman of Langley Holdings.

China: West China Cement says that its subsidiary Yaobai Special Cement has agreed to buy a 97.5% share of Kangding Paomashan Cement for US$105m. Kangding Paomashan Cement is currently building a 1.5Mt/yr cement production line in the northwest of Ganzi Prefecture of Tibet. The new plant is intended to benefit from its location when the Sichuan-Tibet Railway project fully opens in 2021.

India: Data from the Commerce and Industry Ministry shows that cement production fell by 85% year-on-year to 26.3Mt in the first six months of 2020 from 178Mt in the same period in 2019. Cement production in June 2020 fell by 7% year-on-year in June 2020 to 26.3Mt from 28.0Mt. India implemented a coronavirus-related lockdown that shut down industrial plants from late-March 2020 to early May 2020.

China: Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that cement output fell by 4.8% year-on-year to 1Bnt in the first half of 2020. Output from the building materials sector as a whole decreased by 2.2%, according to the Xinhua News Agency. Overall, the sector’s sales revenue and profits decreased by 4.8% to US$344bn and 8.2% to US$26.8bn respectively.

UK: Breedon Group says it has completed the acquisition of selected assets from Cemex. Following instructions from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) the assets will be operated as Pinnacle Construction Materials, a newly-created separate business led by its own management team and operating from its own offices. Pinnacle will offer a range of heavy building materials, including aggregates, asphalt, ready-mixed concrete, concrete products and cement, together with contracting services, from approximately 100 locations in England, Wales and Scotland.

The CMA is still investigating the acquisition and plans to announce its initial conclusions in late August 2020. Breedon Group expects to integrate Pinnacle into its UK business at a later date once this process is fully completed. Cemex agreed to sell Breedon Group some of its UK assets in January 2020. This included 49 ready-mix plants, 28 aggregate quarries and a cement terminal for Euro211m.