Displaying items by tag: HeidelbergCement

Germany: Ali Emir Adıgüzel has resigned as the chief executive officer (CEO) of HeidelbergCement trading subsidiary HC Trading. He will be succeeded by Hakan Gurdal, a member of HeidelbergCement’s management board.

In a statement on LinkedIn Adıgüzelthanked HeidelbergCement’s chairman Bernd Scheifele for his support over the last 15 years. He added that it was, normal to have differences of opinion regarding the performance evaluation, strategy and future steps in companies.

Born in Turkey, the 58-year old Adıgüzel graduated from Harvard Business School in the US and the Boğaziçi University Business Administration Department in Turkey. He started his career working in Saudi Arabia and has been the general manager of HC Trading since 1996. He became Trade Chairman for the Mediterranean, Middle East and International regions, which include Turkey in 2004 and was appointed CEO in 2016.

Indonesia: Indocement is aiming for 4% growth in sales year-on-year to around US$1.12bn in 2019 due to sluggish cement consumption. This compares to 5% growth in revenue in 2018. The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement expects demand to increase in the second half of 2019 following elections, according to the Jakarta Post newspaper. It predicts that cement consumption will be driven by government infrastructure projects and the construction of residential projects and buildings. It plans to spend up to US$70m towards setting up a quarry in West Java and completing new cement terminals.

The cement producer is also preparing to increase its thermal substitution rate with alternative fuels like refuse-derived fuel (RDF). This follows a 50% rise in production costs due to coal in 2018. In September 2018 to agreed to buy 500t of RDF from the West Java government.

Italy: Buzzi Unicem has purchased the Testi integrated cement plant at Greve and the Borgo San Dalmazzo and Arquata Scrivia grinding plants in Piedmont from HeidelbergCement’s subsidiaries. The enforceable agreement is expected to be completed by the end of July 2019. No value for the deal has been disclosed. Buzzi Unicem said it was making the acquisitions as part of its plan to strengthen its position in the national market.

Togo: HeidelbergCement is considering investments of up to Euro25m in its local subsidiaries including Cimtogo, Scantogo and Granutogo. Local director general of the company Eric Goulignac outlined the plans, including building and installing a new mill at Cimtogo’s cement grinding plant in Lomé and a photvoltaic (PV) solar energy plant, according to the All Africa news agency. The projects will be considered by the board of HeidelbergCement in the summer before a final decision is made.

The European Union’s (EU) verified CO₂ emissions figures were released earlier this week on 1 April 2019. The good news is that no cement plant is within the top 100 largest emitters. All the top spots are held by power plants, iron and steel producers and the odd airline. Indeed, out of all of the verified emissions, cement clinker or lime production only represents 7% of the total emissions. Of course this is too much if the region wants to meet its climate change commitments but it is worth remembering that other industries have a long way to go as well and they don’t necessarily face the intrinsic process challenges that clinker production has. If the general public or governments are serious about cutting CO₂ emissions then they might consider, for example, taking fewer flights with airlines before picking on the cement industry.

The EU emitted 117Mt of CO₂ from its clinker and lime producers in 2018, a 2.7% year-on-year decrease compared to 120Mt in 2017. This compares to 158Mt in 2008, giving a 26% drop in emissions over the decade to 2018. However, there are two warnings attached to this data. First, there are plants on this list that have closed between 2008 and 2018. Second, there are plants that provided no data in 2018, for example, all the plants in Bulgaria. Climate change think tank Sandbag helpfully pointed out in its analysis of the EU emissions data that industrial emissions have barely decreased since 2012. The implication here being that the drop from 2008 to 2012 was mainly due to the economic recession. Sandbag also made the assertion that 96% of the cement industry’s emissions were covered by free allocations in the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) thereby de-incentivising sector willingness to decarbonise.

By country the emissions in 2018 from cement and lime roughly correspond with production capacity, although this comes with the caveat that emissions link to actual production not potential capacity. So, Germany leads followed by Spain, Italy, Poland and France. Of these Poland is a slight outlier, as will be seen below.

Table 1: Top 10 CO₂ emitting plants in the European Union in 2018. Source: European Commission.

Poland leads the count in the top 10 EU CO₂ emitting cement plants in 2018 with five plants. Greece follows with two plants. This list is deceptive as all of these plants are large ones with production capacities of 2Mt/yr and above. As it contains many of the largest plants in the EU no wonder the emissions are the highest. It is also worth considering that there are far larger plants outside of the EU.

In summary, as most readers will already know, the cement industry is a significant minority CO₂ emitter in the EU. Countries with larger cement sectors emit more CO₂ as do larger plants. So far, so obvious. Emissions are down since 2008 but this mostly seems to have stalled since 2012, bar a blip in 2017. The change though has been the rising carbon price in the EU ETS in 2018. Coincidentally the carbon price has been fairly low and stable since 2012. If the mechanism is working properly then changes should start to appear in 2019. Already in 2018 a few European cement producers announced plant closures and blamed the carbon price. Watch this space.

The Global Future Cement Conference & Exhibition on low and zero CO2 cement production will take place in Brussels, Belgium on 22 - 23 May 2019

Italy: Colacem says has purchased Cemitaly's Spoleto cement plant in Perugia. No value for the transaction has been disclosed, according to the Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper. Colacem said that it was confident that the cement sector will have a ‘significant’ role in the future. HeidelbergCement’s subsidiary Italcementi acquired Cementir and the Spoleto plant in 2017. In February 2019 unions at the plant were told that the cement producer was selling it to the newly-created company Spoleto Cementir.

Morocco: Ciments du Maroc’s turnover fell slightly to Euro371m in 2018. Its net profit grew by 3.4% year-on-year to Euro96m in 2018 from Euro92.8m in 2017. Its cement sales volumes fell by 2.7% in 2018 compared to a drop in local cement consumption of 3.7%. The board of the cement producer said that it was continuing its development plan at Nador in the south of the country.

Tanzania: Twiga Cement’s revenue rose by 30% year-on-year to US$151m in 2018 from US$116m in 2017. Its net profit grew by 60% to US$24.6m from US$15.4m. Its cement sales volumes increased by 9%. The subsidiary of Germany’s HeidelbergCement said that the local cement market saw continued growth in 2018 and that, despite production overcapacity, it maintained its ‘market leadership.’

Germany: HeidelbergCement expects increasing sales volumes for its cement, aggregate and ready-mix concrete products in 2019. It plans to raise its prices to regain margins it lost in 2018. The building materials producer also intends to continue the cost cutting programme it started in November 2018. It said that energy cost inflation, improvements in Indonesia, Europe and North America, and new state infrastructure projects should result in a ‘solid result improvement.’

“In view of our strong positioning in raw material reserves and production sites in attractive locations, the unique vertical integration, our excellent product portfolio, and our industry-leading margin management, we believe we are well equipped for the opportunities and challenges of 2019,” said Bernd Scheifele, chairman of the managing board of HeidelbergCement. He added that the group will continue the digitalisation process of its entire value chain in order to further improve operational excellence.

Italy: The Legislative Assembly of Umbria has approved a motion to preserve Cemitaly’s Spoleto cement plant. Guidelines presented by various political parties have also called on the Ministry of Economic Development to help cordinate the relaunch of the plant, according to the La Nazione newspaper. HeidelbergCement’s subsidiary Italcementi acquired Cementir and the Spoleto plant in 2017. In February 2019 unions at the unit were told that the cement producer was selling the plant to the newly created company Spoleto Cementir.