Displaying items by tag: Mexico
Elementia’s sales boosted by Mexican cement business in 2017
28 February 2018Mexico: Elementia’s sales benefitted from its Mexican cement business in 2017. Its net sales rose by 35% year-on-year to US$1.37bn in 2017 from US$1.02bn in 2016. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 24% to US$236m from US$191m.
Highlights of the company’s year included integrating Giant Cement’s assets into the company, the start-up and allocation of additional volume from the cement plant in Tula, Mexico and the expansion of the cement division in Costa Rica through the installation of a grinding plant that is expected to start operations towards the end of the first half of 2018.
Elementia’s Mexican cement division sales rose by 44% to US$236m from US$164m. However, the sales of its US division fell by 7% to US$231m from US$249m. The company blamed this on the year being a ‘transitional’ period where it conducted regular maintenance works that interrupted production.
Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua sales soar in 2017 due to US acquisition
16 February 2018Mexico: Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua’s (GCC) sales grew by 23.6% year-on-year to US$925m in 2017 from US$749m in 2016. The group attributed this to strong demand in both the US and Mexico, as well as the integration of the operations acquired in Texas and New Mexico at the end of 2016. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBIDA) rose by 32.3% to US$250m from US$189m.
In the US sales rose by 29.8% year-on-year to US$180m in the fourth quarter of 2017, representing 76% of the group’s consolidated net sales. The growth reflected higher cement sales volumes in the states of Texas, South Dakota, Minnesota, New Mexico and Colorado. Fourth quarter sales volumes also benefitted from favourable weather conditions throughout GCC’s area of operations. The most dynamic segments in the regions where GCC operates were oil well drilling, residential real estate and public-sector construction. For the year as a whole, excluding the operations acquired in 2016, cement volumes increased 2.1% in 2017.
In Mexico sales rose by 22.6% to US$58.4m in the fourth quarter of 2017. This was attributed to rising cement prices with growth in the mining and self construction sectors and the final stages of several industrial projects. For the year as a whole sales rose by 11.4%.
Cemex earnings drop in 2017 due to US market
09 February 2018Mexico: Cemex’s operating earnings have fallen in 2017 due to a lower contribution from the US and South America despite growth in Mexico and Europe. Its operating earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) fell by 7% year-on-year to US$2.57bn in 2017 from US$2.75bn in 2016. Its net sales grew by 2% to US$13.7bn from US$13.4bn and its cement sales volumes remained stable at 68.5Mt. The cement producer also reported an unexpected loss in net income of US$105m in the fourth quarter of the year, which it blamed on taxes on other costs.
“Although 2017 was a challenging year… We had important headwinds during the year: underperformance in Colombia, Egypt and the Philippines as well as increased energy costs, mainly in Mexico. As we have done in the past, we focused on the variables we control to dampen these headwinds and we continued to deliver solid results,” said Fernando A Gonzalez, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cemex.
Tula plant temporarily closed
07 February 2018Mexico: Cruz Azul has been forced to partially close its cement plant in Tula, Hidalgo due to a lack of an active environmental clearance certificate. Personnel from the Federal Attorney for Environmental Protection made an inspection of the facilities at the cement plant. When verifying the documentation, they found that it lacked the current authorisation issued by the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. In this situation, the temporary partial closure of the plant was imposed as a safety measure.
Cruz Azul orders two mills from Fives
20 December 2017Mexico: The Cooperativa La Cruz Azul has ordered two raw meal grinding mills from France’s Fives. The first grinding unit, with a capacity of 280t/hr of raw meal, will be dedicated to the new clinker line no. 10 project to be installed at the Cruz Azul Hidalgo plant. The second one, with a capacity of 300t/hr of raw meal, will be installed in the Oaxaca Lagunas plant, as part of the new clinker line no. 5 project. Each grinding plant will be fitted with one FCB Horomill 4000mm grinding mill and one FCB TSV Classifier 6500mm. The deal, including the engineering, supply, construction and commissioning of the mills, was agreed in November 2017.
Mexico: Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua’s (GCC) cement sales volumes increased by 18.2% year-on-year to nearly 4Mt in the first 11 months of 2017 due to high US cement sales in October and November. The US generates around 75% of GCC’s revenues.
October and November US cement sales volumes rose by 31.2% compared to the same period of 2016. Overall, for the first 11 months of the year, US cement volumes increased by 28.8% from 2016. The increase reflects strong demand and GCC’s acquisitions in Texas and New Mexico in late 2016. October and November sales volumes in Mexico also grew by 10.2%, rebounding from decreases earlier in the year. However, for the first 11 months, Mexico’s cement volumes fell by 1.6%.
“GCC reached record cement sales volumes as a result of strong demand and high level of backlog in our core markets, especially West Texas, Colorado, South Dakota, and the state of Chihuahua. In addition, builders and contractors enjoyed favourable weather in October and November, which offset the effect of some weather and project-related delays in the third quarter. As a result, we are confident that GCC will significantly exceed our US volume outlook for the year and, as a result, also surpass our earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) growth target,” said GCC´s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Enrique Escalante.
Cemex launches digital customer integration platform
07 November 2017Mexico: Cemex has launched Cemex Go, a digital customer integration platform. The system will be used in real time to manage order placement, live tracking of shipments and invoices and payments for the company’s main products, including bagged and bulk cement.
“Cemex Go creates an experience for our customers that is superior to anything that has been provided in the past and is the only platform of its kind currently offered in our industry,” said Fernando A Gonzalez, chief executive officer (CEO) of Cemex.
The platform is intended to reduce customers’ administrative burden and to allow them to work at anytime and anywhere on multiple devices. It also plans to use the core activities of Cemex’s open innovation and venture capital unit, Cemex Ventures, to help further build the project. The initiative is being supported by Cemex’s long-term partners, IBM and Neoris.
In November 2017, Cemex Go will start to roll out in the US and Mexico. Further worldwide deployment will follow in 2018.
Cemex grows profit in third quarter of 2017
26 October 2017Mexico: Cemex has increased its profit in the third quarter of 2017 due to growing sales and low costs. Its net profit rose by 1% year-on-year to US$289m in the third quarter of 2017 from US$286m in the same period in 2016, according to Dow Jones. Sales increased by 2% to U$3.5bn due to higher cement sales volumes in several markets and higher prices in Mexico and the US.
The group’s overall cement sales volumes remained unchanged at 17.5Mt. Sales by volume fell in Mexico due to earthquakes, bad weather and lower government spending on infrastructure. Cement sales volumes in the US rose on a like-for-like basis.
Mexico: Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua’s (GCC) sales revenue and earnings have benefitted from the integration of operations that it acquired in Texas and New Mexico in late 2016, favorable pricing environments in both the US and Mexico and the company’s growth strategy. Its net sales rose by 24.3% year-on-year to US$666m in the first nine months of 2017, from US$536m in the same period of 2016. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased by 25.1% to US$172m from US$137m.
"We continue to be on track in terms of executing our business strategy. Our EBITDA margin in Mexico reached 40.8%, the highest in the last decade, and our US margins reached 25.3%, the second highest since the Great Recession. We have completed the initial integration of the Odessa, Texas plant and other operations in Texas and New Mexico acquired last November. In addition, the expansion of the South Dakota plant is proceeding on schedule and GCC is continuing to make improvements in all our operations," said Enrique Escalante, the chief executive officer (CEO) of GCC.
Cruz Azul confirms US$300m upgrade plan
13 October 2017Mexico: Cruz Azul has confirmed that it plans to spend US$300m on upgrades at two of its cement plants over the next 28 months. Previously the plan was announced in late 2016. Guillermo Álvarez Cuevas told the El Economista newspaper that the cement producer intends to carry out work to increase production capacity at its Hildalgo and Oaxaca plants.