Displaying items by tag: Germany

Germany: Data from the German Cement Works Association (VDZ) shows that cement consumption rose slightly to 29Mt in 2018. Imports were 1.5Mt and exports rose by 1.5% year-on-year to 6.3Mt. The association says that this shows the industry is in a stable phase that is expected to continue in 2019 and 2020.

"There has been an upward trend in the German cement market for four years now, thanks in particular to the positive development in the apartment block sector," said VDZ president Christian Knell. He added that annual growth in consumption had slowed but that this was ‘hardly surprising’ given the ‘tight’ capacities along the construction value chain.

Germany/Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has dropped a bid for BASF Construction Chemicals due to pricing issues, according to sources quoted by Bloomberg. The heavy building materials producer was also concerned about the length of the sale process and issues concerning integrating it into the group.

Philippines: Cemex Philippines has ordered a MVR type mill for cement raw material grinding from Germany’s Gebr. Pfeiffer for a plant in Antipolo. The order also includes a MPS mill to grind coal. Gebr. Pfeiffer said that the order was received through a Chinese general contractor. No value for the order or timescale was disclosed.

No overarching theme this week but rather four changes of note in different markets. The first is Lehigh Hanson’s agreement to buy the integrated Bath plant in Pennsylvania, US, from Giant Cement, a subsidiary of Mexico’s Elementia. Lehigh Hanson, a subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement, plans to pay US$151m for the 1.1Mt/yr unit giving it a cost of US$137/t of cement capacity. That’s a similar price that Elementia paid when it acquired Giant Cement in 2016. The Mexican conglomerate paid US$220m for a 55% stake in 2016 for three cement plants with a combined production capacity of 2.8Mt/yr or US$143/t.

The purchase by HeidelbergCement draws a line following problems selling its business activities in Ukraine. The group blamed a drop in profit in the first half of 2019 on this. Since then though it has been linked to a takeover of UltraTech’s stake in Emirates Cement, the owner of the 0.5Mt/yr Emirates grinding plant in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Buying a cement plant in North America, its second most lucrative region after Western and Southern Europe, looks set to be a wise investment.

The timing here is interesting given that Elementia, the building materials company partly-owned by ‘Mexico’s richest man,’ Carlos Slim, has been steadily expanding in recent years. As stated above it only acquired Giant Cement in 2016. However, its net sales and earnings fell in the second quarter of 2019 caused by a market contraction in Mexico affecting all of its businesses. Sales from its cement businesses in the US and Central America grew but they fell by 6% at home in Mexico. Elementia said that proceeds from the sale of the Bath plant will be used for debt repayment and ‘general’ corporate purposes. Notably, Ricardo Naya Barba, the president of Cemex Mexico, has also described the local market as ‘difficult’ this week, in comments reported upon by local media.

Meanwhile in Africa, China’s Huaxin Cement purchased Maweni Limestone from Athi River Mining (ARM) Cement in Tanzania as part of the latter’s on-going administration process. Local press reported the transaction as costing US$116m and subject to regulatory approval. This one’s interesting because it shows a major Chinese cement producer buying related assets outside of China. This is likely part of the country’s Belt and Road Initiative to develop industry and infrastructure around the world and to give its overproducing industries new markets. Perhaps the surprise here is that Huaxin Cement hasn’t gone after the rest of Kenya’s ARM Cement… yet.

The other African news story of note this week was the confirmation that Singapore’s International Cement Group (ICG)’s intended purchase of Schwenk Namibia had failed. This deal was announced in March 2019 but it later ran into trouble when the Singapore Exchange blocked the proposed acquisition in June 2019 on the grounds that ICG didn’t appear to have the money to pay for it.

Lastly, Yamama Cement announced that it wants to sell its Production Lines 1-5, which have a daily clinker production capacity of 5600t/day. The producer previously temporarily shut down the lines in 2017 and it has been planning to build a new cement plant. Since then though it has faced shrinking sales and profits in the tough Saudi Arabian market.

The takeaway from all of this is that, despite the doom and gloom of a world producing too much clinker, some cement companies are targeting growth in specific territories. Sometimes these schemes succeed, as in the case of HeidelbergCement and Huaxin Cement, and sometimes they don’t, as ICG has found out. Heavy building materials like cement are costly to move around so a plant or assets in the right place at the right time can make a fortune.

Germany: ThyssenKrupp has appointed Martina Merz as its chief executive officer (CEO). The current chairwoman of the supervisory board will be delegated to the group executive board for a maximum period of 12 months after which she will return to the supervisory board. Guido Kerkhoff, the current CEO, has agreed to leave the post by mutual agreement.

In addition, the supervisory board has appointed Klaus Keysberg to the executive board of ThyssenKrupp where he will be responsible for the materials businesses on the group executive board. He has held various positions at ThyssenKrupp since 1996 and has been CEO of the Business Area Materials Services since the beginning of 2019. He will continue to hold this position until a successor is appointed.

Siegfried Russwurm will succeed Martina Merz as the head of the supervisory board. The former Siemens executive board member has been a member of the supervisory board since April 2019.

Kyrgyzstan: Kant Cement has upgraded its packing equipment at its integrated plant. Russia’s Vselug supplied a Turbo K8 filling machine and Germany’s Berg provided compressors, according to Cement and its Applications magazine. The company plans to sell at 60% of its products in 25kg and 50kg following the upgrade.

The plant has also been installing general upgrades at the site, including a new combination burner from Austria’s Unitherm Cemcon in 2018. It is also planning to upgrade an electrical distribution substation by the end of 2019 to reduce interuptions to production.

Germany/US: HeidelbergCement has purchased Giant Resource Recovery’s 1.2Mt/yr integrated Keystone cement plant in Bath, Pennsylvania for US$151m. HeidelbergCement CEO Bernd Scheifele has called the cement plant, which has 90 years’ experience as a supplier to the Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey markets, ‘an excellent strategic addition’ to the company’s North American market presence.

Egypt: Siemens has submitted an integrated survey of the digitalisation potential of various industries in four zones to the Ministry of Industry (MoI) with a view to improving the competitiveness of the country’s products. Daily News Egypt has reported that the Germany-based technology company has already signed contracts for the supply of digital efficiency solutions with El Ameria Cement and Lafarge Egypt. It is also negotiating with Misr Beni Suef for the installation of thermal emission measuring units at its 3.5Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Beni Suef, Maadi.

Germany: Klaus Eichas of KE Consulting has taken over the role of consultant to KIMA Process Control’s Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia region sales and engineering team. KIMA provides real-time measurement solutions for various applications in the cement industry, including fill level in ball mills.

Germany: Six apprentices from Holcim South Germany’s 1.1Mt/yr integrated Dotternhausern cement plant have completed an assignment of real-world application to their plant, at a training workshop in Albstadt. The Schwarzwälder Zeitung has reported that Holcim South Germany required a means of stirring cement used for event demonstrations. The apprentices’ ‘eyecatching’ solution incorporates a filler neck at the top and an outlet at the bottom, is 100% leak-proof and was built entirely from parts constructed at the Albstadt workshop.