Displaying items by tag: OYAK

Portugal: Proença de Carvalho has resigned as the president of Cimpor. Three independent directors of the cement producer have also resigned, according to the Jornal de Negócios. The departures follow OYAK Cement’s acquisition of Cimpor’s assets in Portugal and Cape Verde from Brazil’s InterCement.

The long expected move by a Chinese cement producer outside of East Asia took a step closer this week with the news that Taiwan Cement is negotiating with OYAK Cement over a joint venture in Turkey. Taiwan Cement says it is prepared to invest up to US$1.1bn in the subsidiary that will operate OYAK Cement’s business in Turkey. In its press release Taiwan Cement said, bluntly, that government peak production limits and market saturation in China had forced it to expand internationally.

This isn’t Taiwan Cement’s first flirtation with a Turkish cement producer. Back in June 2018 local press reported that it had signed a memorandum of understanding and a confidentiality clause with Sanko Holding about potential investment. However, the timing is curious this time because almost simultaneously Brazil’s InterCement announced that it was selling its operations in Portugal and Cape Verde to OYAK Cement. This sale alone deserves more attention given that it is the third by a Brazilian producer since September 2018 but that’s a discussion for another week. Back on OYAK Cement, whilst nothing is certain at this stage, a pledge of US$1.1bn from a foreign investor would certainly come in handy helping to raise the money at the Turkish company.

Whoever, if anybody, Taiwan Cement ends up pairing up with, the level of the investment suggests a multi-plant move. Indeed, the suggested OYAK Cement deal involves a 40% share in 13 integrated cement plants in Turkey with a production capacity of around 12Mt/yr or a 16% local market share. This isn’t far off the regular international price of US$200/t for integrated production capacity.

For a Chinese company to choose Turkey is resonant historically because it is towards the western end of the Silk Road. Marco Polo, for example, travelled from Venice to China via the territory of modern-day Turkey. The modern day version, the Belt and Road Initiative, seeks to evoke this trade route as China attempts to expand internationally.

Pertinent to the cement industry, both China and Turkey are both major exporters. Turkey is the bigger exporter by proportion of production, at 10% in 2017. Both countries were in the top five exporters to the US in 2017 with 2Mt from China and 1.4Mt from Turkey. The commonly accepted wisdom is that the Chinese industry faces major hurdles to exporting its overcapacity. Yet its production base is so large, 15 times larger than Turkey’s, that the little clinker and cement it has the infrastructure to export is still significant. It’s interesting that a major Chinese producer seeking to overcome structural and market obstacles to its expansion at home is targeting a major exporting nation. Typically, when a foreign cement producer buys local companies, one strategy is to use the new assets to ‘naturalise’ its clinker imports as ‘local’ product. Given Turkey’s already large export market this seems unlikely in this case.

The highly public nature of Taiwan Cement’s latest attempt to strike it lucky in Turkey smacks of bolstering investor confidence as much as closing the deal. Normally, this kind of thing gets announced once everything has been agreed, possibly bar the regulatory approval. Putting some money up front may make Taiwan Cement seem serious but OYAK Cement also stands to benefit from its acquisition of the former-Cimpor assets in Portugal and Cape Verde, since it gives it a toehold within the European Union (EU). This one could go either way.

Taiwan/Turkey: Taiwan Cement plans to spend up to US$1.1bn on setting up a new joint venture with Turkey’s OYAK Cement. Through a new subsidiary, Dutch TCC Holdings, it intends to create a new business that will be 60% owned by OYAK Cement and 40% by Taiwan Cement. It will hold talks with OYAK Cement and if an agreement is reached the new company will operate OYAK Cement’s business in Turkey giving Taiwan Cement its first presence outside of Asia.

OYAK Cement is owned by Ordu Yardimlasma Kurumu (OYAK), the pension fund of the Turkish Armed Forces. It operates 13 integrated cement plants in Turkey with a production capacity of around 12Mt/yr. It holds a 16% market share. The plans with Taiwan Cement follow OYAK Cement’s purchase of InterCement’s operations in Portugal and Cape Verde.

Taiwan Cement hopes to gain access to the local market and the wider Mediterranean region. It said that, although it holds a production capacity of 75Mt/yr in the Greater China Region, government peak production limits and market saturation had forced it to expand internationally.

Brazil/Portugal/Cape Verde/Turkey: Brazil’s InterCement has sold its operations in Portugal and Cape Verde to Turkey’s OYAK Cement for an undisclosed amount. The sale includes three integrated cement plants and two mills, with a total cement production capacity of 9.1Mt/yr, 46 concrete units, two dry mortar units, 17 quarries and a cement bagging plant. The completion of the agreement is dependent on regulatory approval.

InterCement, part of Camargo Corrêa group, purchased a majority stake in Portugal’s Cimpor in 2012, including assets in Portugal and Cape Verde. It says it will allocate a portion of the net proceeds from the sale to reduce its debts. Following completion of the transaction the Brazilian building materials company intends to focus its cement business in South America and Africa. In these regions it holds 39Mt/yr of installed production capacity at 35 cement plants.

Turkey: Oyak Aslan Çimento has awarded KHD Humboldt Wedag a contract for engineering and delivery of equipment to upgrade its cement grinding line at its plant in Darica-Kocaeli. The installation will be Oyak's seventh KHD roller press at the facility.

The contract to install a new Comflex grinding system will increase the capacity of cement grinding unit no. 1, by more than 100% and save approximately 20% energy. KHD's scope includes the engineering and delivery of mechanical and electrical equipment, as well as advisory supervision of erection and commissioning for the new Comflex SC20-3250. This will be KHD's fourth Comflex grinding unit and 15th roller press system with a V-Separator in Turkey.

The core equipment to be designed and delivered by KHD, as specified in this contract, includes a Comflex SC20-3250 clinker grinding system with:

• Roller Press RPZ 20-170/180 with Rolcox system for control and monitoring
• Cascade separator, type VS 620 as static classifier
• High efficiency separator Sepmaster, type SKS-VC 3250 as dynamic classifier
• System fan HKF 190/280

The new Comflex system will be integrated with the existing ball mill system. However, according to KHD, a primary reason Aslan Çimento chose KHD's Comflex for this project is it's ability to produce finished product without a ball mill unit. The commissioning of the new Comflex system is planned for 2016.

Turkey: Oyak Group, Turkey's military pension fund, has US$2bn in cash for acquisitions and may spend some of it on assets being divested by Lafarge and Holcim.

Oyak is interested in Holcim and Lafarge businesses in countries including Romania, Serbia and Hungary, according to Celal Caglar, Oyak's head of the cement and automotive unit. Holcim and Lafarge need to sell units to gain regulatory approval for their planned merger to form LafargeHolcim. In Europe, regulators have set a 15 December 2014 deadline to either approve the deal or open a deeper investigation.

"We are interested in bidding as Oyak or together with a European group," said Caglar. Oyak has US$2bn in cash for acquisitions and can leverage it more than five times if needed, he added. "We are closely following the sale process."

On 10 November 2014 Oyak completed the purchase of Turkey's Denizli Çimento from Ireland's CRH and Turkey's Eren Holding AS for between US$400m and US$450m, as part of Oyak's expansion plans. Oyak has a cement production capacity in Turkey of 20.1Mt/yr, or 19% of the country's market share, through its six plants, including Denizli. It has a clinker production capacity of 10.3Mt/yr, or 15% of Turkey's total. Oyak expects Turkey's cement market to grow by 5% in 2015 after an estimated 6% in 2014, helped by projects including highways, a road tunnel under the Bosporus, stadium constructions and new metro lines.

Turkey: The Oyak Group, which has various cement interests Turkey, is looking into acquisition opportunities in the cement sector. It is focusing on Europe (specifically the UK) and Africa, according to its cement group chairman Celalettin Caglar.

Caglar said that the group was also interested in acquisition opportunities that could arise from the merger of Holcim of Switzerland and France's Lafarge.

Lafarge has said two-thirds of divestments as a result of the deal with Holcim are expected to affect Western Europe, but there are also overlapping operations in India, China, Canada and Brazil.

Turkey: Bolu Cimento Sanayii AS, a member of the OYAK Group, has ordered three vertical roller mills from Gebr Pfeiffer SE for the new production line at its cement grinding plant in Kazan near Ankara. Installation of the mill will expand the existing plant into an integrated cement plant. Delivery of the mills is scheduled for mid-2014 and will boost the total number of Pfeiffer mills installed at OYAK Group cement plants to eight.

An MPS 4500 B with a drive power of 3150kW will be used for cement raw material grinding. The mill is guaranteed to produce 320t/hr at a product fineness of 12% residue on the 0.090mm screen.

Pet-coke and lignite will be ground in an MPS 225 BK vertical roller mill with a drive power of 400kW. The throughput rate of this mill when grinding pet-coke will be 20t/hr at a fineness of 3% residue on the 0.09mm screen and 35t/hr when processing lignite.

Bolu Cimento has also ordered an MPS 4500 BC mill with a drive power of 3300kW, which will yield 130t/hr of CEM I at a specific surface of 3900cm²/g acc. to Blaine.

Turkey: Turkish cement producer Aslan Çimento said its parent company Oyak has proposed to sell its 24.24% stake in Aslan Beton to Aslan for US$4.52m.

After the acquisition, Aslan Beton will become a wholly-owned unit of Aslan Çimento while Aslan Beton, As-san Insaat, Birtas Birlik Insaat and Marmara Madencilik will be merged under the control of Aslan Çimento, Aslan Çimento said in a bourse filing. The managing board of Aslan Çimento will now assess the proposed move.

Turkey: Turkey's Competition Authority said on 11 June 2013 that it had launched a probe into the local cement producers Çimsa Çimento and Oyak Adana Çimento on allegations of price setting.

The authority said that data gathered during a preliminary inquiry was sufficient to open an investigation into whether or not the two companies had violated competition regulations by setting prices for white cement.