Displaying items by tag: Italy

Italy: Buzzi Unicem’s 1.3Mt/yr Vernasca plant in Piacenza will receive a Cleanker Project pilot system for carbon capture and storage (CCS). The installation is EU-funded as part of Horizon 2020, a seven-year research and innovation framework programme, and its success will be closely monitored for possible implementation at other cement plants in the EU and beyond.

Italy: In the nine months to 30 September 2019, Buzzi Unicem’s net sales rose by 13.4% year-on-year to Euro2.42bn from Euro2.14bn. Cement volumes rose 5.7% to 22.1Mt from 20.9Mt in the corresponding period of 2018. The company said that “Growth was continually mitigated by weakened manufacturing activity due to reduced investments and political and economic uncertainty.”

Italy: The Italian cement industry decreased its overall CO2 emissions by 8.9% in 2018 compared to 2017, in part by replacing a higher proportion of fossil fuels with alternative fuels and biomass fuels. The proportion of alternative fuels used increased to 19.7% in 2018 compared to 17.3% in 2019, according to Federbeton. This translates to 387,000t of alternative fuels.

Netherlands: Cementir Holding has moved its registered office to the Netherlands. The building materials producer approved the decision in late June 2019. The transfer will not affect the company’s listing on the Italian Stock Exchange or its tax residence, which will remain in Italy. At the time chairman Francesco Caltagirone, Jr said that the decision to move the company’s headquarters was a, “purely technical choice that in no way disregards our group's deep Italian roots.”

Cementir Holding is a multinational manufacturer of grey and white cement, ready-mixed concrete, aggregates and concrete products, exporting to over 70 countries worldwide. It is a global leader in white cement and the group employs approximately 3100 people in 18 countries. The group sold its principal Italian business, Cementir Italia, and its shares in related companies to Italcementi in early 2018.

Italy: The 0.4Mt/yr integrated cement plant at Travesio, which has been out of operation since early 2016, has not been purchased by w+p Zement, a subsidiary of Weitersdorfer, the Austrian cement and construction materials group. Diego Franz, the mayor of Travesio, has expressed the hope that Buzzi Unicem will now oversee the decommissioning of the plant itself.

Russia: Buzzi Unicem has formed its total 8.1Mt/yr Russian operations into a limited liability company called SLK Cement. The name combines the first letters of the names of cities where its plants are located, namely Sukhoi Log and Korkino. Andrey Immoreev, chief executive officer (CEO) of Dyckerhoff Cement in Russia, said that the rebranding ‘emphasises the importance of the Russian market in the company’s plans.’ Buzzi Unicem continues to trade as Dyckerhoff in its Central and Eastern European production areas.

One of the summer news stories in the UK has been the drama surrounding the near-failure of dam near Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire. Concrete slabs on an overflow spillway fell away after a period of heavy rain leading to fears that the dam could fail inundating the area. Around 1500 local residents were evacuated for about a week as a precaution until the reservoir’s water level could be pumped down low enough for inspection.

No one was hurt in the incident but it has raised questions about the maintenance and renewal of infrastructure and how this fits with changing weather patterns caused by anthropogenic climate change. A sadder example of this is the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in Genoa, Italy in August 2018 that killed 43 people. This was later blamed on decaying steel rods in the structure. There have been similar debates in the US with President Donald Trump’s on-going attempts to push through a US$2tn infrastructure bill to repair the country’s structures. Although, predictably, it is floundering on the question of who is actually going to pay for it all.

In the UK, for example, cement production hit a high of over 15Mt in the late 1980s before declining to a low of 7.6Mt in 2009 and eventually climbing to above 9Mt/yr since 2015. A big cause of that decline was the 2008 financial crash and the subsequent government austerity policies. Yet, even with this taken into account, production was at around 11Mt/yr in the 2000s. How much, if any, of this production capacity gap of at least 4Mt between the late 1980s and the 2000s might be needed to maintain the country’s infrastructure? Southern Mediterranean countries like Spain and Italy offer even starker examples. Italy’s cement production fell to 19.3Mt in 2017 from nearly 40Mt in 2001. Spain’s production hit a high of around 50Mt/yr in 2007 with apparent production (local consumption and exports) falling to around 20Mt in 2018. Much of these declines are due to loss of export markets but the same basic questions remain about how much capacity will be required in the future to maintain and repair existing structures in developed nations. This could be imported but the usual constraints about moving heavy building materials around inland mean than at least some of this cement will need to manufactured locally.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimated in 2010 that the world would need 50Bnt of cement between 2015 and 2030. The global cement industry was already producing around 3.5Bnt/yr in 2015 according to the Global Cement Directory 2015 giving it overcapacity even then towards the estimated target. Global production capacity is just under 4Bnt/yr today. Estimates for the cost of global infrastructure requirements in this period range from US$1Tnr/yr to US$6Tnr/yr. The majority of this will go towards new infrastructure in developing countries but a minority portion will be required for maintenance. One study by the Brookings Institution and the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate estimated that developed countries would need around US$2Tn/yr for their infrastructure bills.

A study by management consultants McKinsey & Company in late 2017 reckoned that there was a worldwide US$55Tn spending gap between then and 2035 for infrastructure spending. It estimated that countries like the UK, Germany and the US needed to increase their annual spending on infrastructure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.5%. Although Italy only needed to improve by 0.2%. Looking at the change in infrastructure investment rates suggests that the European Union (EU) actually started to improve its investment from 2013 to 2015 by 0.2% but that the US did not.

All of this goes to show that the show is definitely not over for building materials producers in developed countries. These industries may be mature but they should not be complacent. Roads need patching up, bridges need replacing and all sorts of other infrastructure projects are required even in places that have them already.

Russia: Italy’s Bedeschi has set up a new subsidiary in Moscow. The company is working on a project for OTEKO at its dry bulk terminal at the port of Taman on the Black Sea. It consists of the supply of a fully automated coal export terminal with a total aggregated capacity of more than 50,000t/hr on six loading lines. The supply includes bucket wheel stacker-reclaimers, several kilometres of conveyors and shiploaders. The system allows the blending of different types of coal. The new company in Russia joins existing subsidiaries in the US, Morocco, India and the UAE.

Italy: Buzzi Unicem sales revenue grew by 13.6% year-on-year to Euro1.52bn in the first half of 2019 from Euro$1.34bn in the same period in 2019. Its net profit rose by 27% to Euro135m from Euro123m. Its cement sales volumes increased by 7.1% to 13.9Mt from 12.9Mt but ready-mixed concrete sales fell slightly to 5.8Mm³.

The building materials producer said that ‘lively’ activity levels in the US had driven its sales so far in 2019. This was mainly caused by falling imports in the face of weak domestic demand and ‘considerable production and logistical difficulties’ in June 2019 caused by flooding of the Mississippi river. A slight recovery in Italy was also noted with growing cement sales volumes and strengthening prices. Elsewhere, growth was recorded in most territories apart from Luxembourg, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Italy: Giampiero Pesenti, the former chairman of Italcementi, has died at the age of 88. The grandson of one the brothers who created the company in 1906, he took a degree in mechanical engineering from the Polytechnic University of Milan and then started working for Italcementi in 1958. He became chief operating officer and chief executive officer (CEO) before becoming its chairman, according to Reuters. He was known informally at Italcementi as ‘Engineer Giampiero.’ Notably, the Italian cement producer purchased Ciments Francais in 1992, under his leadership, greatly increasing its size. Italcementi was purchased by Germany’s HeidelbergCement in 2016.