Displaying items by tag: Ghana

Ghana: CBI Ghana and joint venture partner Heidelberg Materials have commissioned the ‘world’s largest’ calcined clay plant in Ghana, according to an announcement by the German producer. The plant has a capacity of 400,000t/yr of calcined clay and uses local raw materials to reduce reliance on imported clinker.

Hakan Gurdal, member of the managing board of Heidelberg Materials, said “Based on calcined clay technology, we can now extend our offering of innovative, high-quality cement products, while reducing CO₂ emissions and utilising the rich local resources. The project has created over 300 local jobs."

Ghana: CBI Ghana has invested US$100m in a new plant in Tema to produce limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) using local raw materials, to reduce reliance on imported clinker.

Commercial director of Supacem Kobby Adams said that the Ghana Standards Authority’s adoption of the GS PAS 5:2024 LC3 standard enabled the launch, following collaboration with local universities and international partners. According to Graphic Business news, the current clinker scarcity and its escalating prices stemmed from a 6% currency depreciation between December 2024 and February 2025 and the evolving global market uncertainties, including an increase in clinker export prices from the Mediterranean.

The project reportedly created over 160 direct jobs through local sourcing and infrastructure development in Tema and Torgome.

Ghana: Cement dealers have raised concerns over a growing shortage of brands including SOL Cement, Empire Cement and Dzata Cement, according to Citi Newsroom. Dealers have cited a scarcity of clinker and rising port charges behind recent supply disruptions and price increases. One cement retailer, Augustine Aduful, said that they paid for cement but have been left out of pocket for two weeks. Ghacem, in particular, has reportedly been facing a shortage, with customers having to switch to alternatives like Diamond Cement.

Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry CEO Emmanuel Cherry said that Ghana cannot continue to rely solely on clinker in cement production and that the country should begin to look for viable alternatives.

Another retailer, Isaac Frimpong, said “The clinker shortage is being caused by overseas supply issues. Even the recent price hikes are tied to external factors. We hope that with government intervention, the situation will stabilise.”

Ghana: At a recent stakeholder meeting, Minister for Trade, Agribusiness and Industry Elizabeth Ofosu-Adjare instructed the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) to shut down cement companies that produce substandard products, according to Adom Online.

“Close down companies that are defaulting with substandard products to stop production until they can prove they can consistently produce quality products,” Ofosu-Adjare said.

She added that price should not be used to justify poor quality cement and warned of the risks posed by substandard materials in public buildings like hotels. She pledged to conduct regular inspections of cement plants to enforce compliance.

The Cement Manufacturers Development Committee Regulation L.I. 2480 and the GSA Act 2022 allow the Minister and the GSA to revoke licences and halt the sale of non-compliant cement.

Ghana: Real estate companies say that the price of cement has continued to rise despite a new law intended to regulate them. A so-called legislative instrument (LI) was introduced in September 2024, according to CitiNewsroom. However, Samuel Amegayibor, the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association, said at a property forum, “Since the LI on cement was passed, so far as we the users of cement are concerned, we haven’t seen anything different. Prices have gone up even from the day it was launched, it has gone up further.”

Originally the proposed law required that cement manufacturers should seek government approval before setting prices. However, this clause was removed following lobbying by cement producers and others. The LI was eventually passed after 21 parliamentary sittings.

Energy has been the theme for a couple of cement news stories of note from Egypt this week. The first concerns the government’s impending plan to centralise distribution of mazut (heavy fuel oil) to cement plants to help them cope with ongoing power shortages. Earlier in the week Cemex signed a deal with the Assiut Governorate to operate a second municipal solid refuse processing unit in the country. The company’s first Regenera facility, in Mahala, started operations in May 2024. Another story from mid-September 2024, along the same theme, covered the inauguration of an 18MW waste heat recovery (WHR) unit at Heidelberg Materials Egypt's Helwan Cement plant.

The wider story is that the country has faced so-called load shedding, or power rationing, since mid-2023 due to falling gas production, rising energy demand and negative currency exchange effects making it harder to buy fuel imports. The power cuts were extended in duration in July 2024 due to a heat wave. The government then said in late September 2024 that it is making investments to prevent domestic power cuts in 2025.

The cement stories mentioned above show some of the ways cement companies cut their energy costs. Two potential ways of doing this are to increase the use of alternative fuels (AF), such as municipal solid waste, or to install a WHR unit. Titan Cement, for example, reported AF thermal substitution rates of above 40% in Alexandria and above 30% in Beni Suef in the first half of 2024. The local press hasn’t reported power shortages amongst the country’s cement producers, but the plans to control the distribution of mazut suggest that either ‘something’ has happened or the government is trying to avoid ‘something.’ Readers may recall that producers have periodically faced step changes in power supplies over the years. In the mid-2010s, for example, lots of plants switched from heavy fuel oil and gas to coal. The energy price fluctuations following the start of the Russia - Ukraine war in 2022 then saw the price of coal rise.

However, what the foreign-owned producers have complained about in the first half of 2024 is the declining exchange rate of the Egyptian Pound. Cementir, Cemex and Titan Cement all noted this. However, Titan reckoned that International Monetary Fund and European Union investment had actually eased the economic situation in the first half of the year leading to an increase in the number of large construction projects.

One effect of the currency problems upon the cement market has been a focus on exports. At the start of September 2024 the Federation of Egyptian Industries said that national cement consumption in 2024 was expected to drop by 4% year-on-year to 45Mt. However, exports were projected to rise to 15Mt. The first and second most popular destinations so far in 2024 have been the Ivory Coast and Ghana. Yet, exports to Libya, the third biggest external market, may have had the biggest effect. These have been blamed for creating a shortage of trucks that was causing delays to the local construction sector. The round-journey from Egypt to Libya can take up to 12 days. This has left building sites bereft of raw material deliveries because all the trucks are elsewhere! Vicat acknowledged the growing importance of imports for its business in Egypt in its half-year report for 2024. It said that ‘sluggish’ domestic market conditions “were more than offset by growth in cement and clinker volumes for export to the Mediterranean and Africa regions.”

The wider picture of the cement sector in Egypt remains one of overcapacity with integrated capacity estimated above 70Mt/yr. The government introduced cement production quotas in mid-2021 and this stabilised prices (and profits). The recent state of the local economy may have strained this, but the latest round of external investment appears to have buoyed things for now. Although the effects of the Israeli military action in Lebanon may have unforeseen consequences upon neighbouring markets. In the meantime, cutting energy costs and growing exports offer two ways for producers to raise their profits.

Ghana: The Minister of Trade and Industry, Kobina Hammond, has directed cement manufacturers to secure licences or cease operations immediately, in compliance with the new Ghana Standards Authority's (GSA) Manufacture of Cement Regulation, 2023 (LI 2480). This regulation mandates re-registration and licensing of existing operations and bars unlicensed new plants. It came into law in 2024 and seeks to address consumer concerns over rising cement prices and promote quality assurance.

Director-General of the GSA, Alex Dodoo, stated that all current manufacturers are operating illegally without a licence. Dodoo said that none of the cement producers in the country had applied for a licence to operate in accordance with the law.

Ghana: Minister of Trade and Industry, Kobina Hammond, has assured Ghanaians that cement prices will remain fair and stable following a new regulatory law, according to the Pulse Ghana newspaper. The legislation is designed to oversee the industry and ensure a balanced market without imposing price caps. Hammond stated that the new law will protect consumers from unjustified price rises while also allowing cement producers to operate profitably.

He said "I am clear beyond argument that there is a certain amount of unfairness in the pricing of cement in the country and I am prepared to make sure that there is some sort of sanity. The document [Legislative Instrument] as we speak is in force.”

Nigeria: Dangote Cement has exported 14 shipments of clinker from Nigeria to Ghana and Cameroon as part of its strategy to boost foreign exchange inflows, reports Business Post Nigeria. The company reported that high demand for its products has ‘significantly’ increased its pan-African operations.

CEO Arvind Pathak said “This effort resulted in a 55% surge in our Nigerian exports, underscoring our commitment to fostering African self-sufficiency.”

A battle over cement pricing in Ghana reached a new stage this week when the Chamber of Cement Manufacturers (COCMAG) hit back at proposed government regulation. Frédéric Albrecht, the chair of the association, told a meeting that about 80% of local production costs linked to cement manufacture are related to the local currency exchange rate. So fixing the price would do little to address the main cause behind rises.

Albrecht was speaking at a stakeholders’ forum organised by the Ghana Chamber of Construction. The group was convened to discuss the government’s proposed Ghana Standards Authority (Pricing of Cement) Regulations 2024 that were formally presented in the country’s parliament in early July 2024. The association argues that the cement sector has not been consulted properly over the proposal and that introducing it could have negative consequences for the construction sector as a whole. It says that imported clinker is subject to numerous taxes and that the average price of cement has actually lagged behind the rate of inflation.

The government is dealing with an economic crisis that forced it to default on its external debts in 2022 and ask the International Monetary Fund for support. This has led to depreciation of the local currency and high inflation. Around the same time the authorities have also been attempting to regulate the cement sector more closely. In 2022 the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) took action against a brand of cement, Empire Cement, that appeared to be on sale without any of the required permits. Then in the autumn of 2023 the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) shut down Wan Heng Ghana’s grinding plant in Tema after the company failed to pay a major tax bill. Action by the GSA followed when it shut down three more plants in the Ashanti Region - Xin An Safe Cement Ghana, Kumasi Cement Ghana and Unicem Cement Ghana - for using inferior materials in cement production.

In April 2024 a nine-member committee was established to monitor and coordinate the local cement industry. Notably, cement producers have been required to register with the committee in order to secure a licence to manufacture cement. Kobina Tahir Hammond, the Trade and Indus¬try Minister, then said in late June 2024 that the government wanted to intervene in cement pricing to protect consumers from what he described as the ‘haphazard’ increment in cement prices by manufacturers. A legislative instrument doing just that was presented in parliament on 2 July 2024. Around the same time the GSA reportedly threatened to close down ‘several’ more cement plants for non-compliance.

The cement industry in Ghana is particularly vulnerable to currency exchange effects as it is dominated by grinding plants. One integrated cement plant, Savanna Diamond Cement, was launched in the north of the country in the mid 2010s. However, this compares to 14 licensed grinding plants in the country reported in the local media. This includes units run by Ciments de l’Afrique (CIMAF), Dangote Cement, Diamond Cement (WACEM) and Heidelberg Materials subsidiary Ghacem and its CBI Ghana joint-venture amongst others. This makes it one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa with the most grinding plants, along with places such as Mozambique and South Africa. When the Ministry of Trade and Industry started a consultation on regulating the cement sector in late 2023 it calculated that the country produced 7.2Mt of cement in 2021 and that the country had an overcapacity of 3.5Mt. This gives the country an estimated cement production capacity of just below 11Mt/yr.

Some sense of the growing costs that the cement sector in Ghana is facing can be seen in the Ghana Statistical Trade Report for 2023. Clinker was the country’s third biggest import by value at US$206m. It was only exceeded by diesel and other automotive oil products. The Ghana Statistical Service reported that most of the country’s imported clinker in 2023 came from Egypt, South Africa and its neighbours in West Africa. Both Dangote Cement and Heidelberg Materials flagged up the country’s economy as being hyperinflationary in their respective annual reports for 2023.

Argument and counter-argument over cement pricing is prevalent around the world especially in Africa. Fellow West African country Nigeria, for example, has endured plenty of very public dialogue and debate about the price of cement. In Ghana’s case it seems more likely than not that factors beyond the control of the local cement companies are driving the prices given the grinding-dominated nature of the sector with lots of different companies involved. Negative currency effects and inflation look more likely to be driving cement prices than anything else, although one should always be wary of the potential for cartel-like behaviour by cement producers. The economic crisis in Ghana certainly fits the bill for the conventional introduction of price controls on selected commodities but getting the fine tuning right could be difficult in practice. Fixed prices will reassure consumers in the short term provided supplies hold. Beyond this the actual causes of the high cement prices should emerge in time.