Displaying items by tag: Japan

Japan: Taiheiyo's sales revenue rose by 12% year-on-year to US$1.91bn for the first quarter of the 2012 - 2013 Japanese financial year that ended on 30 June 2013. In the quarter ending on 31 March 2012 it was US$1.70bn. The Japanese cement producer attributed the increase to rebuilding following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster, increased private sector construction investment in urban areas and favourable policies by the Japanese government.

The company returned to a net profit, making US$20.8m from a loss of US$54.8m in the same period as the prior year. For Taiheiyo's cement business sales of cement to external customers rose by 10% to US$1.20bn from US$1.09bn.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement has reported that its operating profit rose by 77% to US$38.5m in the first quarter of the 2012 - 2013 Japanese financial year that ended on 30 June 2013. In the quarter ending on 31 March 2012 it was US$21.8m. The Japanese cement producer noted that public-sector demand for cement was increasing due to reconstruction following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster and that private-sector demand had also increased in urban areas.

The company's sales revenue rose slightly in the first quarter of the 2012 – 2013 financial year to US$547m from US$539m. Net profit increased by 151% to US$25.8m from US$10.3m. Sales from the company's cement business in the quarter were US$440, a slight increase year-on-year.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement plans to invest US$12m to install waste heat recovery (WHR) systems at two of its cement plants. The company has decided to build WHR technology at its Tochigi plant and to a plant in Aomori Prefecture operated by a subsidiary. Previously Sumitomo Osaka installed WHR systems at its Ako plant in Hyogo Prefecture and at its Kochi Precture plant.

China: Sumitomo Osaka Cement intends to increase cement production by 80% in China's Yunnan Province by 2016. The Japanese cement producer has been making cement in Yunnan Province since 2007 in partnership with a local steelmaker and a Hong Kong construction materials company. That operation involves four plants, each run by a separate joint-venture firm.

With infrastructure investment still active in Yunnan, the plan is to build two more cement plants with a combined production capacity of 6.4Mt/yr. This will make the operation the province's largest, with a capacity of 14.6Mt/yr.

The first new plant will be built in December 2014 and the second in 2016. Sumitomo Osaka Cement will invest around US$42m for its share of the project.

Japan: Ube Industries Ltd has announced that it will develop a large limestone mine in Yamaguchi Prefecture in anticipation of a further recovery in domestic demand for cement in Japan. The company will likely invest US$84m in what would be its first mine development in 35 years. Production is slated to kick off around 2017. Ube plans to operate the mine, which has estimated reserves of some 300Mt, for about 40 years.

Of the company's three domestic cement plants, two mainstay facilities in Yamaguchi have been procuring limestone from a mine near the new site. This existing mine, which produces 8Mt/yr of limestone, has been dug as deep as 140m and has been in production since 1948. High costs from deep mining prompted the company to look for a new site.

After sinking at one point to as low as 40Mt/yr, half of 1990 levels, Japanese cement demand has recently rebounded due to the reconstruction of areas devastated by the March 2011 Earthquake and Tsunami disaster. This trend will likely continue for a while, as efforts to repair and update ageing infrastructure are expected to pick up while reconstruction projects go on.

The Japan Cement Association estimates domestic demand in the current year (to March 2014) will grow by 3.4% year-on-year to 46Mt. Taiheiyo Cement Corporation and other cement makers are also gearing up to boost domestic supplies by curbing exports and taking other measures.

Japan: UBE Industries plans to install a generator powered by waste heat at its cement plant in Kanda, Fukuoka Prefecture. The generator will meet about 40% of the plant's electric power consumption reducing production costs. The US$52.1m project will start providing power as early as the second half of 2015.

The Kanda plant currently produces 11% of its own electricity using a diesel generator. UBE's decision follows similar schemes at UBE's two other domestic cement plants in Japan. The company previously put off this upgrade because of a lull in domestic demand for cement. UBE is acting now because Kyushu Electric Power Co. is preparing for a rate increase in April 2013 that will impact upon production costs.

Japan: The major Japanese cement producer Taiheiyo Cement has released its financial results for the first half of the current fiscal year, which began on 1 April 2012. For the six months to 30 September 2012, the company took a revenue of US$4.43bn up from US$4.35bn in the same period of 2011. However, Taiheiyo went from a making a loss of US$42.3m in the six months to 30 September 2011 to a profit of US$6.7m. It did not provide an operating result for the 2011 period.

Looking forwards, the company has forecast revenues of US$9.2bn for the year ending 31 March 2012, with an operating profit of US$500.4m, a pretax profit of US$381.6m and a net profit of US$125.1m.

Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka's post-war reconstruction and floods have helped boost demand for cement in the country, according to Tokyo Cement. The Sri Lankan and Japanese joint venture said that much of the demand has come from the government's large scale infrastructure projects.

Total cement consumed in Sri Lanka during 2011 rose by 21.6% year-on-year to 4.58Mt. Local cement production in 2011 rose by 13.6% to 1.97Mt.

According to Tokyo Cement, the private sector has been mainly engaged in building housing and housing schemes as well as hotels. In its 2011-2012 annual report, Tokyo also pointed out that a surge in private credit had contributed towards higher demand for cement.

Japan: Sumitomo Osaka Cement has announced plans to lift sales of power generated in-house at its Tochigi Prefecture plant using wood biomass fuel. The current fuel mix is 85% wood chips and 15% coal, 20% more wood chips than previously.

The group's operating profit is expected to surge by 41% to US$144m in the fiscal year ending March 2013. Sumitomo Osaka Cement does not disclose power-related earnings, but the steady advance of power sales is expected to become a factor that boosts operating profit by US$12.5-25m.

The power generation facilities at the Tochigi plant were completed in February 2009 and went into full operation in April 2009. Current output is 25,000kw.

Sumitomo Osaka Cement suspended operations at one of the plant's two kilns in January 2012 as part of restructuring measures, giving it capacity to supply more of its leftover power. It aims to contribute to the power supply by selling the excess electricity, especially with Japan's nuclear plants remaining offline due to the aftermath of the Fukashima radiation leak following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster.

Japan/US: After a preliminary visit to the island of Pagan, part of the US's Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Japanese investors have announced that they are looking to lease roughly 2000 hectares of public land on the island to mine what they consider 'best quality' pozzolan for a period of 10-15 years and to recycle pre-treated tsunami debris that they plan to bring in from Japan. Pozzolan is a siliceous volcanic ash used to produce hydraulic cement.

However, some CNMI residents are already expressing opposition to what they describe as the 'desecration' of Pagan by turning it into a dumping ground. Others have expressed concerns that the eventual use of the island will go beyond pozzolan mining and tsunami debris recycling.

The Japanese investors, aware of these sentiments, are trying to quell public opposition to their project, saying that the tsunami debris will be pre-treated, non-toxic and non-radioactive. They added that Japanese and international laws prohibit the shipment of highly toxic materials from one country to another. They added that at least 80% of the tsunami debris would be recycled on Pagan and brought back to Japan and other destinations. The tsunami debris would come from the Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures, which are both north of Fukushima where the damaged nuclear power plant is located.

One of the Japanese visitors, Oku Shigeharu, who is chairman of Japan Southwest Islands Security Institute, said that depending on the results of further study of Pagan, the investors are interested in mining all pozzolan deposits on the island for a period of 10 to 15 years. He said they do not plan to lease the whole island but only about 2000 hectares of it, including the pozzolan mining area and a site where tsunami debris will be 'disposed of and recycled.' The investors were also keen to highlight that the CNMI will generate revenue from the multimillion-dollar land lease, from royalty fees as a result of pozzolan mining and through securing new jobs for local residents. "In my personal opinion, maybe pozzolan (mining) can help save the CNMI economy," said Shigeharu."There's at least 100Mt of pozzolan on Pagan," said Pagan (CNMI) Development Corp. chair Juan Demapan, citing a previous study.

The delegation said that it would return to CNMI in three weeks, bringing with them engineers, scientists and other experts to further study and assess Pagan.