Displaying items by tag: GCW86

Kyrgyzstan: During the visit of Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister for Economy and Investment Tayirbek Sarpashev's to China, an agreement has been reached with Chinese investors to build a cement plant in Kemin.

The plant's capacity will be 1.8Mt/yr or 2500t/day. The construction period of the plant should take from one year to 18 months. Investments are expected of more than US$50m. It is planned that construction will begin in April 2012.

"It covers our volume and will lead to lower prices in the market and will substantially reduce the cost of construction in the north of Kyrgyzstan," said Sarpashev.

India: Four officials at Ambuja Cement have been arrested following an accident with five fatalities at the company's cement plant at Rawan in Chhattisgarh.

"Vice President of Ambuja Cement Sanjay Kumar Badopadhyay, DGM Production K Venkat Stayanarayan Murty, DGM Mechanical Rajendra Singh Kurmi and GM electrical Sanjay Kumar Mishra have been arrested in connection to the Ambuja cement factory (incident)," said a police officer to the Press Trust of India. They were booked under IPC sections 287 (negligence with machinery), 337 (endangering life or personal safety) and 304A (causing death by negligence).

Five workers were killed on 31 January 2013 when a fly ash container crashed into the mixing unit of the plant at Rawan village. A case has been registered against Ambuja Cement management and the labour department has ordered a halt to factory operations until an investigation into the incident has been completed.

Chief Minister Raman Singh has directed the factory management to provide compensation of US$18,800 to the kin of each victim and a job to one member of their families. A six-member panel headed by additional collector of Balodabazar district has also been formed to conduct magisterial probe into the incident, which has been asked to submit its report in one week.

India: Major Indian cement producer Jaiprakash Associates has informed the Supreme Court of India that it is unable to pay a US$18.8m fine imposed by the Himachal Pradesh High Court for setting up a captive thermal power plant without gaining the required environmental clearance.

The Jaypee group firm said that it is in 'great difficulty' and can't arrange funds to pay its second instalment of US$4.7m that is due on 31 March 2013. However, it said it had paid the first instalment of the same amount. A bench headed by chief justice Altamas Kabir agreed for an early hearing on 12 March 2013 even though the environment ministry and the state government opposed the plea, saying that there is no way for Jaiprakash Associates to avoid the US$18.8m fine.

On 4 May 2012 the High Court ordered the Jaiprakash Associates to dismantle its 60MW captive power plant within three months. It allowed the 1.75Mt/yr cement plant in Solan to stay. In November 2012 Jaiprakash Associates reported that its net profit for the six months to 30 September 2012 had dropped by nearly 40% to US$50.1m from US$81.3 in the same period in 2011.

Uganda: Hima Cement has decided to spend US$3.2m to upgrade its bag filter technology at its Kasese cement plant in western Uganda. The move follows a history of complaints from local communities over dust emissions. The upgrade will be installed at the factory's old production line, which plans to bring stack emissions in line with global standards. It is expected to be completed by May 2013.

"We are confident that this time round the problem of emissions will become a thing of the past since the same technology was installed at our Bamburi Cement factory in August 2012," said David Njoroge, Hima Cement general manager.

The upgrade is the second attempt that Hima Cement has made at its old line in Kasese. Previously an electrostatic precipitator (ESP) failed due to frequent power cuts. In 2011 Kasese's new production line, which uses bag filter technology, was opened to increase cement production capacity from 300,000t/yr to 850,000t/yr.

Ethiopia: The Development Bank of Ethiopia has withdrawn from a US$82.8m loan agreement made with Habesha Cement. In September 2011 the bank approved the loan which was expected to cover over 70% of the financing of the proposed cement factory.

The bank withdrew from the arrangement on the basis of its inability to disburse money at this time. In addition, it also pulled out of the loan commitments to five other companies citing similar reasons. According to sources, the bank has pledged to help the companies in their search for foreign financing.

In July 2012 PPC (Pretoria Portland Cement) and South Africa's Industrial Development Corporation (SAIDC) paid US$21m for nearly half of Habesha Cement. PPC acquired 27% of the Ethiopian cement factory by paying US$12m in cash and the state owned SAIDC paid US$9m for an additional 20%.

Russia: Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service has blocked concrete producer Sibirsky Cement from acquiring a 90% stake of Iskitimtsement's voting shares, the authority has said in a statement. According to the watchdog the purchase might hinder competition within the Siberian Federal District. The Federal Antimonopoly Service also prohibited Russkaya Tsementnaya Kompaniya from acquiring a 100% stake of Iskitimtsement's voting shares, on the grounds that the merger might trigger a price hike.

In October 2012 Iskitimtsement reported a rise in its output by 23.1% year-on-year to 1.12Mt for the first nine months of 2012. Later in the same month it announced that it expected to triple its net profit in 2012 to Euro19.7m. Established in 1934, Iskitimtsement is one of the leading cement producers in the Novosibirsk Region.

Brazil: The Portuguese cement production group Cimpor has announced the merger of two of its subsidiaries in Brazil, namely Cimpor Cimentos do Brasil and InterCement Brasil. Both companies are fully and indirectly owned by Cimpor, which itself is controlled by Brazil's Camargo Corrêa. The merger project received the green light of Cimpor's board of directors on 30 January 2013.

"The merger of these two companies in the Cimpor universe will make it possible to create joint value, promoting synergies, leading to improved operating efficiency and quality of services offered to the Brazilian market," said Cimpor said in a statement filed with the Portuguese market regulator.

The deal to merge the two subsidiaries comes after an asset swap between Cimpor, InterCement and Votorantim that took place in 2012.

Nigeria: Nigeria's Dangote Cement re-opened its Gboko cement plant on 31 January 2013. The plant, which represents 20% of Dangote's production in the country due to its 4Mt/yr cement capacity was shut by the company in early December 2012, citing a glut in the market caused by imported cement from Asia.

"Since the shutdown of the Gboko Cement Plant, the government has been engaging local cement manufacturers in discussions and trying to find solutions to the challenges facing the industry," said Dangote in a statement. It added that the decision to re-open followed a meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and the firm's chairman Aliko Dangote.

At the end of December 2012, Dangote Cement said that it expected its first quarter pre-tax profit to rise by 39% year-on-year to around US$267.8m. Dangote has expanded aggressively in recent years, supplying a construction boom in Africa's second-biggest economy and most populous nation. It plans to grow its Nigerian production to 29Mt/yr by 2015 and is also building cement plants across Africa, although cheap imports from Asia are seen as a threat to margins.

Ireland/UK: The Irish Times has reported that a rifle bullet was sent to the chief executive of the Ireland-based Lagan Group, Kevin Lagan, during the third week of January 2013 in what is thought to be a direct threat linked to Lagan's proposed merger with part of the Quinn Group, which is based in Northern Ireland in the UK.

The rifle bullet was contained within a cigar box, which had, 'Quinn...is this what you want?' written on it. It had apparently been sent from Northern Ireland.

Lagan said he was 'totally amazed' by the package. He said the group's proposed merger with Quinn Building Products posed no threat to jobs. "In fact it secures the future of both Quinn and ourselves going forward," he said. "This is clearly an attempt to intimidate myself and the Lagan Group at a time when we are engaged in discussions with Quinn on combining our cement and building products businesses."

Lagan said that the person or persons behind the 'crude intimidatory tactic' were obviously not interested in protecting jobs. "We will not be swayed from our determination to complete our discussions successfully," he added.

Seán Quinn lost control of the Quinn Group in April 2011 when a receiver was appointed by the former Anglo Irish Bank. There have since been a number of incidents believed to have been carried out by people angry about what has happened.