Displaying items by tag: Halt

Moldova: The Rybnitsa cement plant has closed amid a cutoff of gas supply to the Transnistrian region, leaving half of its 650 employees at home with 66% of their pay, while the rest carry out equipment repairs and cleaning, according to IPN news.

Interim director Oksana Baka said “The plant had a plan to produce about 30,000t of cement during this period. This stock would have ensured our protection on the market, but now the situation is critical because our supplies are insufficient.” Contributions to the local budget will decrease if gas supplies are not restored by February 2025.

The plant is modernising its dust filtration system and preparing for resumption once gas supplies are restored. On 1 January 2025, Gazprom stopped supplying gas to the Transnistrian region, after gas transit through Ukraine ended. The region remains under a state of emergency until 8 February 2025.

North Korea: Production has reportedly been stopped for three months at the Seongho Lee cement plant near Pyongyang due to a lack of electricity. Sources quoted by South Korea based Daily NK online newspaper suggest that government power rationing has lowered the importance of the plant in comparison to other so-called ‘core’ industries.

The Korean Cement Association reported in 2011 that the plant had a production capacity of 0.95Mt and it uses a wet process production line. The site dates back to 1919 and the age of its equipment may have contributed to the decision to idle the plant.

Iran: Iran's cement plants have all stopped producing clinker for 30 days, as of 14 January 2015. Abdolreza Sheykhan, an official with Iran's Cement Producers Association, said that the country currently has 17Mt of clinker in store.

"We have stopped producing clinker in order to turn the current inventory to cement," said Sheykhan, adding that the country's need is only 10Mt until the end of the current Iranian calendar year on 20 March 2014. The Iranian oil ministry will pay US$7/t of cement to production plants to compensate for their loss. "Iran's current cement output is around 6.5Mt/month," said Sheykhan. "The country's need, however, is around 4.5 – 5Mt/month."

Iran exported nearly 9.25Mt of cement in the first eight months of the current Iranian year, which started on 21 March 2014. This is 8.5% lower compared to the same period in the previous year. Sheykhan had previously said that the insecurity in Iraq and reduction in the number of destination markets for Iran's cement are the major reasons behind the fall in exports.

"Azerbaijan was one of the major importers of Iran's cement, but the country has now reached self-sufficiency and reduced its imports from Iran," said Sheykhan. He named Russia and African countries as new markets for Iran's cement exports, adding that by taking the mentioned markets, Iran can increase its cement and clinker exports by 1.5Mt/yr.