Displaying items by tag: LafargeHolcim

Italy/Switzerland/Turkey: Turboden has released information on its latest waste heat recovery (WHR) projects using its ORC turbogenerator for cement plants in Turkey, Switzerland and Italy.

In Turkey CTP Team and CTN Group have signed an order with Turboden for the supply of a 7MW ORC WHR unit with air cooled condenser to be installed in Çimko Çemento Narli’s plant. Turboden says that since the plant is located in an area where there is no water available for the cooling system, the ORC technology offer advantages over steam technology.

In Switzerland CadCime SA and LafargeHolcim have ordered a 1.3MW WHR unit that recovers heat from the existing pressurised water circuit, used for the district heating network. The order is the third from LafargeHolcim for an ORC unit from Turboden.

In Italy a 2MW WHR plant with direct heat exchange is being installed at Cementi Rossi’s plant. Start-up is schedule for the second quarter of 2018. This project received an award from the European Commission under the framework of Horizon 2020, whose main objective is to develop new solutions to recover waste heat in energy intensive industries such as cement, glass, steelmaking and petrochemical and transform it into electric energy.

France: Sherpa and the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) have argued that Lafarge should be indicted for complicity in crimes against humanity. The non-government organisations (NGO) have made the argument for the accusation in a memorandum to investigative judges examining Lafarge Syria’s conduct. Despite the indictment of several Lafarge executives the NGOs want to the charges to apply to Lafarge itself as a company. The cement producer allegedly paid extremist groups to keep a cement plant operational after the outbreak of war in the country.

“Companies have the means to fuel armed conflicts by doing business with regimes or armed groups who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. The fight against multinationals’ impunity will necessarily imply holding them to account, in particular in countries where parent companies operate and control their subsidiaries’ activities worldwide. Access to justice for thousands of victims of armed conflicts depends on it,” said Sandra Cossart, director of Sherpa.

Uganda: Local cement producers are facing challenges meeting the specification required for cement being used by the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project. Project coordinator Kasingye Kyamugambi said at a procurement conference in Kampala that the project was facing issues with cement, reinforcement steel and sand, according to the Daily Monitor newspaper. Hima Cement is producing one specific product for the project following discussions with the SGR. However, the railway needs eight different types of cement.

Kyamugambi has called for legal cover for the infrastructure project to bypass local product sourcing laws. He has asked that new legislation be introduced to cover projects with a lifecycle of over a century.

The SGR is being built by China’s China Harbour Engineering Company. The project is intended to link up to Kenya’s railway project at Tororo with proposed links to Rwanda and South Sudan. The Democratic Republic of Congo has also expressed interested in the line.

France: Jacob Waerness, the former security chief at Lafarge Syria, has been arrested in Paris. He was taken into custody in early May 2018 while transferring between planes at the Charles de Gaulle airport, according to Le Monde newspaper. He was arrested on charges of financing terrorism. Waerness worked as the head of security for Lafarge in Syria from 2011 to 2013. He published a book about his experiences in 2016.

Switzerland/Uganda: LafargeHolcim has been criticised by two Swiss non-governmental groups (NGO) over alleged child labour issues in Uganda. The Protestant Church group Bread For All the Catholic Lenten Fund have accused the multinational of delaying compensation to alleged child labour victims, according to the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. LafargeHolcim has denied the accusations. The NGOs have published video statements by children testifying that they previously worked for suppliers to Hima Cement, a local subsidiary of LafargeHolcim.

A report published in 2016 claimed that around 150 Ugandan children had worked for 10 years in quarries that supplied Hima Cement with pozzolana. Both Hima Cement and its parent company denied the claims. Later, Hima Cement subsequently announced that it would stop buying raw materials from small-scale miners and only source them from mechanised quarries that employ adults. At the same time LafargeHolcim commissioned an investigation that concluded that there was no evidence that children had worked for Hima Cement or for any of its other suppliers.

Along with most of the other multinational cement producers the weather and a shorter reporting period has given LafargeHolcim an easy target to blame its first quarter troubles on. Cement and overall sales both grew by over 3% year-on-year on a like-for-like basis but its earnings have fallen.

The problem appears to have arisen from falling earnings in Europe and its Middle East African regions. The decline in Europe was pinned on the weather, less working days and a disproportionate impact of maintenance shutdowns despite positive market trends in most countries. However, in Middle East Africa the finger was pointed squarely at ‘challenging’ conditions in key markets. If the trends from late 2017 continued then the hotspots causing LafargeHolcim trouble were likely to be Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria. That reliance on key markets is contrasted in Asia Pacific where markets in Indian and China have provided sufficient sales and profit growth to overcome problems in South East Asia. HeidelbergCement, its nearest multinational competitor with first quarter results out today, seemed to cope better with increased sales volumes of cement driven particularly by Indonesia and India.

Graphs 1: First quarter cement sales volumes and sales revenue for LafarageHolcim, 2015 – 2018. Source: Company reports. 

The graph above doesn’t seem to show the benefits the merger between Lafarge and Holcim promised back in 2015. Remember though that LafargeHolcim has been steadily reducing in size. Like-for-like sales generally show a much better situation.

In the latest results chief executive Jan Jenisch was keen to move on and focus on the group’s reorganisation plan, Strategy 2022. It has targeted net sales growth of 3 – 5% and recurring earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of at least 5%. Both look achievable based on previous quarterly and annual reports although the switch to recurring EBITDA from operating EBITDA makes it harder compare the first quarter of 2018 with the one in 2017.

The other notable change in recent months has been the decision by Thomas Schmidheiny to leave the board of LafargeHolcim. He has been named as the group’s honorary chairman and he will remain as a major shareholder of the group. During the negotiations to merge Lafarge and Holcim in 2015, Schmidheiny held out to get a better deal leading to Lafarge’s Bruno Lafont losing out on the chief executive role. Instead, that position went to Lafarge’s Eric Olsen who was succeeded by Jenisch in October 2017. Lafont and Olsen have since been enveloped by the French legal investigation into Lafarge Syria’s conduct during the Syrian Civil War.

How much of a difference Schmidheiny’s departure from the board of LafargeHolcim will make remains to be seen. However, the sense that Jan Jenisch is making changes to the group is palpable with changes made to its corporate structure in December 2017 followed by the introduction of the wider Strategy 2022 initiative. With the bad weather hopefully ended for the year all eyes will be on the half-year results.

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim has blamed falling earnings in the first quarter of 2018 on poor weather in North America and Europe. Its recurring earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 7.7% on a like-for-like basis year-on-year to Euro587m from Euro678m in the same period in 2017. Its net sales rose by 3.1% to Euro4.89bn and its cement sales volumes rose by 3.2% to 47.7Mt on a like-for-like basis.

By region cement sales volumes fell on a like-for-like basis in Europe, Middle East Africa and North America. LafargeHolcim said that cement volumes were down slightly in its Middle East Africa region due to a mixed outlook in the region with ‘challenging’ conditions in key markets. In Asia Pacific it said that China and India drove its growth in sales and profits but that there was continued pressure in South East Asia.

“Though the quarter was affected by several headwinds, we expect the strength of our portfolio and the benefits of our new strategy to become increasingly visible over the full year. That makes us confident we will deliver on our 2018 targets,” said Jan Jenisch, Group Chief Executive Officer of LafargeHolcim. He added that the group was conducting its Strategy 2022 reorganisation plan.

Spain: LafargeHolcim Spain has appointed Alberto del Valle as its director of Human Resources and Communications. Del Valle, an industrial engineer trained at the Charles III University of Madrid, holds over 15 years of experience in the construction industry. In 2008 he became the Director of Compensation and Benefits for Holcim Spain, before later becoming the Compensation and Benefits Manager Europe Region for LafargeHolcim in 2014 and the Career and Talent Manager Europe and Trading at LafargeHolcim Europe in 2016. His latest position also sees him become a member of the management committee of LafargeHolcim Spain.

France: The French government reportedly asked the US not to target Lafarge Syria’s Jalabiya cement plant during military operations in 2014. Emails seen and reported upon by Reuters suggest that France's Syria envoy, Franck Gellet, asked the French Foreign Ministry to protect the cement plant while it was in Islamic State controlled territory. The request to ‘not to do anything about this site without checking with us first’ was then passed to US officials. Neither the French Foreign Ministry nor LafargeHolcim commented on the emails when asked by Reuters.

LafargeHolcim is being investigated in France over claims that Lafarge Syria had paid extremist groups to keep a cement plant operational after the outbreak of war in Syria. Six former Lafarge executives have been charged so far with financing a terrorist organisation.

Morocco: China’s CBMI has signed a contract with LafargeHolcim to build a cement grinding plant near Agadir. The deal for the SSS 13 & 14 Grinding Plant EPC Contract was signed on 21 March 2018 at the LafargeHolcim Technology Centre in Lyon, France. Once operational the plant will be run by LafargeHolcim Maroc.