Displaying items by tag: Intercement

Argentina: Brazilian cement producer Camargo Corrêa is in talks to sell a 40% stake in Loma Negra. The company is exploring a potential sale with an unspecified number of bidders, according to Reuters and Brazil Journal. The proceeds of any successful sale will be used to reduce the debts of InterCement, the holding company that Camargo Corrêa uses to manage assets it purchased from Cimpor. Loma Nega is the largest cement producer in Argentina.

Argentina: Loma Negra, a subsidiary of Brazil’s Intercement, is to spend US$17.5m towards upgrading the baghouse at its Catamarca cement plant in Catamarca province. Work is scheduled to start in September 2016 and continue for 12 months, according to the El Cronista newspaper.

Brazil: InterCement’s sales have fallen by 28% year-on-year to Euro454m for the first quarter of 2016 from Euro637m in the same period in 2015. Its cement and clinker sales volumes fell by 11.2% to 6.03Mt from 6.79Mt. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 36.2% to Euro77.9m from Euro122m. The group blamed the falling sales on construction market contraction in Brazil and negative currency effects in certain territories.

The Brazilian-based cement producer reported sales volumes declines in most countries it operates in. Cement and clinker sales volumes fell by 17% to 2.27Mt in Brazil, by 34.8% to 0.73Mt/yr in Portugal and by 7.1% to 1.41Mt in Argentina. However, volumes rose by 26.3% to 0.37Mt in Mozambique and by 2.8% to 0.32Mt/yr in South Africa. Overall sales volumes declines were attributed to the political instability, economic problems in Brazil and decreased exports from Portugal to Algeria due to issues with import licences.

LafargeHolcim has officially opened a new cement line at its Barossa cement plant in Brail. It is unfortunate timing given that the Brazilian cement industry has not had an easy time of it of late. The wider economy in the country has been in recession since it was hit by falling commodity and oil prices and gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 3.8% in 2015. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted currently that the GDP will fall by a similar amount in 2016. Alongside this, the Petrobras corruption inquiry has enveloped construction companies and led to the suspension of president of Dilma Rousseff. The Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) reported that the national construction industry contracted by 7.6% in 2015.

Graph 1: Brazilian cement production from 2011 to 2015. Source: SNIC.

Graph 2: Brazilian cement production by quarter from 2015 to March 2016. Source: SNIC.

Graph 1 summarises, with National Union of the Cement Industry (SNIC) data, what happened to cement production in 2015. It fell by 9.6% to 64.4Mt in 2015 from 71.3Mt in 2014. Unfortunately, as Graph 2 shows, the downward production trend is accelerating into 2016. Production fell by 5.76% year-on-year to 15.6Mt in the first quarter of 2015 from 17.1Mt in the first quarter of 2014. Now, production has fallen by 11% to 13.9Mt in the first quarter of 2016. April 2016 figures also appear to be following the same trend.

Amidst these conditions Votorantim somehow managed to hold its cement business revenue up; increasing it by 6% to US$3.82bn in 2015. Despite this its cement sales volumes fell by 6% to 35Mt. As a result, Votorantim announced plans to temporarily shutdown kilns and plants and sell off selected concrete assets. Cimento Tupi reported that its cement and clinker sales volumes fell by 23% to 1631Mt in 2015 from 2119Mt in 2014. It blamed the fall of the ‘retraction’ of the cement market and a wide-scale maintenance campaign it had implemented on its kilns. Its revenue fell by 26% to US$98.8m from US$134m.

LafargeHolcim pulled no punches when it blamed challenging conditions in Brazil for dragging its financial results down globally in 2015. It didn’t release any specific figures for the country but it described its cement volumes as falling ‘significantly’ with competition and cost inflation adding to the chaos. This has gotten worse in the first quarter of 2016 with volumes further affected. Its cement sales volumes in Latin America fell by 10.7% year-on-year for the period principally due to Brazil. Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) has reported an 8% rise in production to 531,000t in the first quarter of 2016 and an 8% rise in sales volumes to 571,000t in the same period. This was partly achieved by the ramp-up of production at its new plant at Arcos in Minas Gerais.

In the wider cement supplier sector the knock-on from falling cement demand has hit refractory manufacturer Magnesita. Its revenue fell by 17% year-on-year to US$66.9m for the first quarter of 2016. This was due to falling steel production in various territories and the negative effects of the construction market in Brazil hurting its cement customers.

It is unsurprising that companies like LafargeHolcim commissioned new capacity in Brail a few years ago given the promise the market seemed to hold. Both the CSN project at Arcos and Holcim’s Barroso project were announced in 2012 near the height of the market. Both are also based in Minas Gerais, the country’s biggest cement producing state. Predicting both the drop in the international commodities markets and a local political crisis would have been hard to predict. All these producers can do now is sit back and wait out the situation with their efficiency gains until the construction rates pick up again. Hopefully the first quarter results for Brazil’s two leading cement producers, Votorantim and InterCement, will not be too depressing.

Portugal: Cimpor has appealed a judgement by the Supreme Administrative Court cancelling permits to burn alternative fuels at its Souselas cement plant. The North Central Administrative Court cancelled the environmental licences, originally granted by the former Environment Minister Nunes Correia, in March 2016.

Paraguay: Matias Cardarelli has been appointed the director of Yguazu Cementos, a joint-venture between Intercement and Concret Mix. Yguazu Cementos has a 0.4Mt/yr cement grinding plant with in Villa Hayes. Previously, Cardarelli worked for Ford Motors and Zurich Financial Services. He joined Intercement in Argentina in 2008.

Portugal: Cimpor has reported a loss of Euro71.2m in 2015 down from a net profit of Euro27.2m in 2014. Sales fell by 4.3% to Euro2.49bn from Euro2.60bn. Cement and clinker sales volumes fell by 6% to 28.1Mt from 30Mt. Like its parent company InterCement, the cement producer attributed the loss to an economic downturn in Brazil and unfavourable exchange rates.

Brazil: InterCement made a loss of Euro43.7m in 2015. In 2014 it made a profit of Euro50.1m. Its revenue fell by 4% to Euro2.49bn from Euro2.6bn. It attributed the loss to an economic downturn in Brazil and unfavourable exchange rates.

“This was undoubtedly a challenging year for InterCement, particularly due to the macroeconomic situation in Brazil, which accounts for about 35% of the cement production, the largest contribution within the company. The scenario was even more complex, as coupled with the economic downturn in the largest market where it operates, InterCement faced average unfavourable exchange rates,” said CEO Ricardo Fonseca de Mendonça Lima in a statement.

He added that the company’s decrease in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) margin remained high in the international cement market at 20.8%. EBITDA fell by 18.2% to Euro518m in 2015. The cement producer reported that overall cement and clinker sales fell by 6.1% to 28.1Mt in 2015 from 30Mt in 2014.

By region, InterCement has temporarily suspended it grinding plants at Jacarei and Suape and its clinker kiln at João Pessoa in Brazil to cut costs. By contrast its plants in Argentina were working a full capacity in 2016. Co-processing developments were noted in Egypt and Portugal. The Alhandra cement plant in Portugal was the first unit in the company to beat a 50% co-processing monthly rate. A production decline was reported in Cape Verde and operational difficulties in Mozambique led to a kiln stoppage.

Brazil: Intercement's Cimpor, part of the Camargo Corrêa group, has announced that its US$145m project to build a plant in Itaiacoca, Parana, is suspended. The decision was made due to the ongoing economic crisis in Brazil. The Ponta Grossa plant had been announced in 2011 and was set to have an initial production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr of cement and create 1000 jobs. The company has not disclosed any details about a new timetable for the project, but has confirmed that it is still in plans for expansion in the coming years.

Brazil: InterCement has sold two quarries, Guarulhos and Barueri, in São Paulo state to Polimix Concreto for US$25m. The sale includes the properties, assets and exploration rights of both quarries.

The quarry sales follows a sale of a 16% stake in Yguazu Cementos (Paraguay) for US$35m that was announced on 21 December 2015. In that sale InterCement retained a 51% stake in Yguazu Cementos to retain control of the subsidiary. The remaining share capital share capital was held by InterCement's Paraguayan partner Concret Mix.

Together both sales form part of a set of initiatives to strengthen InterCement's capital structure and increase its profitability. As part of its announcement the company highlighted the stoppage of underused plants, the divestment of concrete units in Brazil, the sale of non-strategic assets, pricing reviews and reduction of costs and expenses.