Displaying items by tag: LafargeHolcim

Philippines: LafargeHolcim is considering selling its subsidiary Holcim Philippines. Sources quoted by Bloomberg said that the multinational building materials producer was trying to find the ‘right’ price for the business. Holcim Philippines has been valued at around US$2.5bn. It operates integrated cement plants at La Union, Bulacan, Misamis Oriental and Davao. As part part of its ongoing portfolio assessment scheme, LafargeHolcim announced that it was selling its business in Indonesia to Semen Indonesia for US$1.75bn in November 2018.

South Africa: The Competition Tribunal has resumed hearings into allegations of cartel-like behaviour by Natal Portland Cement (NPC), Pretoria Portland Cement Company (PPC), Lafarge Industries South Africa (Lafarge) and AfriSam Consortium (AfriSam). It follows a referral by the Competition Commission following an investigation in 2015 that examined collusive conduct between the cement companies between 2008 and 2012. At the time PPC was granted conditional leniency and AfriSam and Lafarge settled with the Commission.

Spain: LafargeHolcim España has restored land at a quarry near its Jerez de la Frontera cement plant in Cadiz. As part of biodiversity improvement project it has recovered 45 hectares of land and planted around 35,000 trees.

The Bangladeshi cement industry has been busy over the last month. Both Vietnam and Iran have marked up the country as a major destination for their exports. No change there, but Saudi Arabia has also started to join them as its producers have started announcing clinker export deals to the country. Alongside this there have also been production upgrades announced from MI Cement, Chhatak Cement and a Saudi-led partnership. Also, just before Christmas, Shah Cement inaugurated the world’s largest vertical roller mill (VRM) with a 8.1m grinding table, supplied by Denmark’s FLSmidth, at its Muktarpur plant in Munshiganj.

Md Shahidullah, vice president of the Bangladesh Cement Manufacturers Association (BCMA), described 2018 as a good year for the local industry to local media. Cement sales rose to 33Mt and consumption grew by 12% year-on-year.

The country has an integrated production capacity of 8.4Mt/yr from eight plants according to Global Cement Directory data. The main plants are Chhatak Cement and Lafarge Surma Cement. Locally produced clinker accounts for about 20% of the country’s needs, with the other 80% imported from abroad. Hence, the action is really with the grinding plants and the country has over 30 of them. A market report by EBL Securities in mid-2017 reckoned that local cement production capacity was 40Mt/yr but that actual production was around 32Mt in the 2016 - 2017 reporting year due to problems with power supplies and so on. Given the focus on grinding it’s interesting to note imports of clinker. These rose by 9% year-on-year to a value of US$518m in 2017 - 2018, the highest figure since 2014 - 2015. Not all of this may be consumption related since the local currency, the Taka, depreciated against the US dollar in 2017 and 2018.

Back in 2016 the market leaders were Shah Cement, LafargeHolcim Bangladesh, Bashundhara Group, Seven Rings Cement and HeidelbergCement. They accounted for about half of the market share. Of these LafargeHolcim Bangladesh saw its revenue nearly double year-on-year to US$101m from US$58m in the first half of 2018. Its profit did double to US$6.3m from US$2.7m. The company is a joint venture between LafargeHolcim, Spain’s Cementos Molins and other partners.

Bangladesh suits a grinding-based industry due to its high level of navigable waterways and low levels of limestone. In some respects though the country is a glimpse of what future cement markets might look like. Its lack of raw materials means it focuses on grinding and a clinker-rich world plays right into this. This creates an oversaturated market full of lots of companies due to the lower cost of setting up a grinding business or cement trading. In theory this should be great for end consumers and the general development of the country. After all Bangladesh has a high population, of 164 million, and a low gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, US$4561, and similarly low per capita consumption of cement. The downside though is that reliance on external raw materials. Any changes to exchange rates or material supply puts the entire industry at risk or puts prices in flux. In the meantime though the interest by Saudi exporters adds an interesting dynamic to a crowded market.

Mexico: Holcim Mexico plans to invest up to US$50m in 2019 as part of a project to improve plant efficiency and its Disensa distribution network. The subsidiary of LafargeHolcim said it wants to implement improvements at both its cement and ready-mix concrete plants, according to Reuters. It has a particular focus on reducing emissions. On the distribution side the building materials company said that its distribution business is a part of its long-term plan for Latin America.

Zimbabwe: Lafarge Zimbabwe has appointed Siame Kaulule as its chief executive officer (CEO). Kaulule succeeds Amal Naiel, who has spent five years in the post. Kaulule, a Zambian citizen, joins the company from LafargeHolcim in the UK where he was general manager for retail and has previously served as executive in other European and African markets for the company, according to the Business Report newspaper. He has previously worked as the regional marketing director for the southern Africa cluster including Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.

Sweden: LafargeHolcim has been named by Sasja Beslik, the head of sustainable finance at Nordea, as the second worst company for increasing CO₂ emissions in the five years between 2011 and 2016. Other cement companies in the list that Beslik published via his Twitter account include CRH, HeidelbergCement and Shree Cement. The list, entitled ‘The CO₂ Culprits Top 100’, was assembled using data from financial services company MSCI.

Netherlands: LafargeHolcim has been awarded a contract for the renovation of the Afsluitdijk, a sea defence infrastructure projects. The building materials company will use its Holcim Basalton Quattroblock concrete product to cover around 700,000m² of the 32km long dam. In addition, LafargeHolcim has developed a logistics plan where materials are delivered by sea to avoid additional traffic on the dam. The total construction costs for the project is around Euro550m.

To support the project, LafargeHolcim is also investing in the expansion of its Dutch concrete products plant that is part of its Solutions & Products segment. When completed later in 2019, the expanded plant will be able to produce 1000t/day of concrete Quattroblocks for customers in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.

The Afsluitdijk upgrade is intended to enable the dyke to withstand a one in 10,000 year storm as well as provide protection against rising sea water levels. The project is led by the Levvel consortium comprising BAM, Van Oord and Rebel. Construction started at the end of 2018 and it is scheduled for completion in 2023.

Nigeria: Lafarge Africa’s Nigerian operations have won the inaugural Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Awards of LafargeHolcim for the Middle East and Africa. The country won the overall award after beating 35 other countries in two of the four award categories, according to the Vanguard newspaper. It won gold for its CSR initiatives in the Education and Employment category ahead of Egypt (silver) and Kenya (bronze). Nigeria also won gold in the Shelter and Infrastructure category ahead of Morocco (silver) and Cote d’Ivoire (bronze).

Lafarge Africa runs its ‘Easy Home’ initiative in Nigeria, to help individuals build decent houses on a low budget. In 2016 over 30,000 people benefited from the initiative. In 2017, Lafarge Africa created the Cement Professionals Training Program, to help young people in the fields of technology, engineering, cement manufacturing, instrumentation and automation. The company made investments in social investment programs and initiatives in 2017 in its host communities across the country, directly impacting more than 450,000 beneficiaries. Lafarge Africa also complements the local government’s efforts to improve primary school education through the Lafarge Africa National Literacy Competition.

UK: Lafarge Cement, part of the Aggregate Industries business, has introduced Rapid Set Cement to its packed product range. It is an Ordinary Portland Cement containing calcium aluminate for rapid hardening. The product is designed for use in screeds and renders to prepare wall and floor surfaces prior to installing most tile types. It’s suitable for dry and wet installations, including swimming pools, and can be pumped for fast application. It is available in 25kg paper bags and is a quality-assured BS EN 197-1 CEM II, cement carrying CE marking.

“This new product follows significant investment over the last 18 months in expanding our portfolio of packed cement products. All of our products are designed to offer a solution to everyday problems faced by the trade. Rapid Set Cement ensures a strong, durable high quality finish in a fraction of the time compared with standard cement,” said Jamie Stratford, National Sales Manager at Lafarge Cement.