Displaying items by tag: Joint Venture

Malaysia: The Sarawak Economic Development Corporation (SEDC) and Bintulu Development Authority (BDA) are planning to set up a joint-venture tasked with imported cement into Sarawak due to shortages and high prices. The company intends to import 0.5 – 1Mt/yr of cement from Siam Cement Group (SCG) in Thailand, according to the Star newspaper. Representatives of the SEDC and BDA recently visited SCG in Bangkok.

Cement prices in Sarawk are reportedly 15% higher than in mainland Malaysia and 4% higher than neighbouring Sabah. Supply and pricing issues have adversely affected infrastructure projects in the state. Maintenance at CMS Cement’s integrated Mambong plant south of Kuching and delays in delivering raw materials to its grinding plant at Kuching grinding plant caused further disruptions to cement supplies in late 2022.

China: Tangshan Jidong Cement and Xinjiang Tianshan Cement have announced the planned launch of a new joint venture in the cement industry. Reuters News has reported that the new cement producer will have registered capital of US$129m.

Tangshan Jidong Cement and Xinjiang Tianshan Cements' headquarters lie 3000km apart, in Beijing, Hebei Province, and Ürümqi, Xinjiang Province, respectively.

China: Gansu Shangfeng Cement has announced plans for the establishment of a new building materials digital intelligence research company. Local press has reported that the company will function as a joint venture of a Gansu Shangfeng Cement subsidiary and another company. Gansu Shangfeng Cement says that the new venture will have registered capital of US$70.3m.

Thailand: Siam Cement Group (SCG) recorded revenues of US$11.8bn during the first nine months of 2022, up by 15% year-on-year from US$10.2bn in the corresponding period of 2021. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) declined by 26% to US$1.37bn from US$1.86bn.

SCG recorded nine-month costs growth of 15%, to US$3.29bn from US$2.85bn. The Bangkok Post newspaper has reported that the group says that its monthly energy costs have risen by 50% since the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war. As such, it is currently focusing its investments on three ‘key’ business areas with smaller energy consumptions than cement. These are smart living, renewable energy and logistics.

SCG renewables subsidiary SCG Cleanergy aims to more than double its renewable power generation capacity to 500MW before 2026 and further increase it to 5GW before 2028. This will consist of wind farms and roof-mounted and floating solar power plants. Meanwhile, SCG Logistics Management secured approval to merge with JWD InfoLogistics on 26 October 2022.

Brazil: Germany-based INFORM has established a joint venture with its partner Portia LAC in São Paulo. The new company called INFORM PORTIA will take over sales, consulting and support for INFORM software products in Brazil.

Andreas Meyer, the chief executive officer of INFORM, said “With this joint venture, we are expanding our presence in South America to meet the growing demand for software solutions to optimise business processes.” He added, “This joint venture is an important building block in our global network. We strive to maintain a relationship with our customers based on partnership and trust. However, this is much more successful if you also have a local presence.” In addition to its headquarters in Aachen in Germany and new joint venture in Brazil, INFORM is represented by five other INFORM related companies in the US, Chile, Australia, Singapore, and Portugal respectively.

China: Anhui Conch Cement and Xinjiang Tianshan Cement plan to launch a joint venture. Reuters News has reported that the companies will inject the joint venture with registered capital of US$297m.

Libya: The state-owned Ahlia Cement Company has launched a tender for the upgrade and restart of its lime plant at Souq Al-Khamis. It wants to run the restart as a joint-venture, according to the Libya Herald newspaper. The tender is for the renovation, operation and the marketing of the lime factory output for a renewable 10-year period. Al-Ahlia has invited interested parties to arrange for a site visit and collect the specifications sheet. The deadline for receiving tenders is 14 July 2022.

Spain: LafargeHolcim España has announced the launch of a joint venture called ECCO2 with Carbon Clean and Sistemas de Calor. The joint venture will develop carbon capture technology for use at the producer’s Carboneras cement plant in Almería. It will then seek to market captured CO₂ from the plant for use as a gas in local agricultural greenhouses. When commissioned in early 2023, the carbon capture system will have the capacity to capture 10% of the Carboneras plant’s CO2 emissions.

India: SCG International India has announced the launch of a joint venture with autoclaved aerated concrete block producer Bigbloc Construction. The joint venture will produce and sell lightweight concrete panels. It expects to commission a new 2.6Mm³/yr concrete panel plant in Gujarat in 2022. Bigbloc Construction holds the majority 52% stake in the venture.

Colombia: Cementos Argos and Saint-Gobain have launched a joint venture in the area of lightweight construction materials. The new business will supply the Colombian market with mortar and ‘a wide range’ of other products. Cementos Argos says that the venture will combine Saint-Gobain’s global mortars technology and know-how with its own strong leadership and local presence to accelerate the evolution of the construction market towards a sustainable future. It added that the undertaking aims to strengthen both parties’ leadership and regional growth. They expect to conclude the deal in early 2022.