Displaying items by tag: Pakistan
Naheed Memon appointed chairperson of Thatta Cement
02 October 2019Pakistan: Thatta Cement has appointed Naheed Memon as the chairperson of its board of directors. She succeeds Khawaja Muhammad Salman Younis, who left the role on 23 September 2019.
Pakistan: Thatta Cement has blamed a fall in profit on rising input costs and negative currency effects. Its profit dropped by 40% year-on-year to US$1.36m in the financial year to 30 June 2019 from US$2.27m in the same period in 2018. Sales and distribution costs more than tripled to US$1.4m. Its net sales grew by 22% to US$22m from US$18m. Total cement and clinker despatches increased by 34% to 0.56Mt from 0.42Mt.
South Africa imports 293% more cement year-on-year in July
24 September 2019South Africa: South Africa imported 0.1Mt of cement in July 2019, 293% more than in July 2018. The Algeria Press Service has reported the value of July 2019’s imports as US$4.85m. This represents a decrease from the June 2019 figure of US$6.73 of 28%. Vietnam continues to be the main contributor to the June and Julyimport figures, with Pakistan notably absent in both months. In the record seven months to 31 July 2019, South Africa imported 0.6Mt of cement at a total cost of US$29.6m.
Njobo Lekula, managing director of PPC, has stated that cement prices are ‘critically’ low for domestic producers, whose 18Mt/yr capacity faces a domestic demand of 13Mt/yr. In August 2019, South Africa’s major cement producers applied to South Africa’s International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) for a tightening of cement standards, which may take the form of a blanket tariff on imports.
Attock Cement commences operation of Iraqi grinding plant
03 September 2019Iraq: Pakistan’s Attock Cement has begun commercial operation of its Basra grinding plant. The 0.9Mt/yr unit was commissioned in April 2019.
Pakistan: Fauji Cement has installed a 12.5MW solar power plant at its Jhang Bahtar plant, near Islamabad. Business Recorder reports that Fauji’s is the world’s largest solar power station devoted to a cement plant, with 37,905 panels delivering an estimated annual total of 19,750MWh of energy.
Fauji has additionally installed two waste heat recovery plants of 12 and 9MW and two large reservoirs for water recycling and rainwater harvesting. Fauji is leading Pakistans’s Clean and Green initiative, having planted 25,000 trees and donated a further 40,000 plants to local government and nearby villages.
Power Cement shuts down old production lines
20 August 2019Pakistan: Power Cement has shutdown the older production lines at its integrated Nooriabad plant due to falling demand and prices. Chairman Nasim Beg said that the old lines were shut because they were ‘inefficient’ and not competitive under present conditions, according to Bloomberg. The plant had a production capacity of around 3150t/day from its older lines. In July 2019 it completed the installation of a new 2.46Mt/yr clinker line supplied by Denmark’s FLSmidth.
South African cement sector calling for import probe
14 August 2019South Africa: The South African cement industry is calling on the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) to probe a flood of imports into the country. South Africa, which has six cement producers and more than 30% over-capacity, has become a net importer of cement. Imports have increased by 139% since 2016, according to The Concrete Institute’s (ITC) managing director Brian Perrie.
Perrie said in an interview that TCI, representing AfriSam, Dangote Cement South Africa, Lafarge Industries South Africa, Natal Portland Cement and PPC were approaching ITAC to investigate whether the industry required protection from an 18-month surge in imports.
He said that imported cement was undercutting South African prices by as much as 45%, while local producers also had to meet the requirements of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), meet black empowerment and other social requirements and, at the same time, protect thousands of jobs in the domestic industry. Also, the recent carbon tax translated into a 2% increase in selling prices, putting the local industry at a further price disadvantage. “Trade remedy protection is required," said Perrie, pointing out that producers did not want a ‘ban’ on imports, rather some form of protection to ‘level the playing field.’
South Africa instituted anti-dumping duties of 17 – 70% against importers from Pakistan in 2015. Imports duly fell in 2016 but rose again in 2017 and 2018, mainly from Vietnam and China. Perrie said that 350,441t of cement arrived in the second quarter of 2019 alone, the most since the third quarter of 2015. Most came in through Durban (260,909t), an 85% increase on the first quarter.
Pakistan cement exports fall in second quarter of 2019
05 August 2019Pakistan: Data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics shows that cement exports fell by 2.5% year-on-year to 1.16Mt in the second quarter of 2019 from 1.22Mt in the same period in 2018. After a strong first quarter exports remained high in April 2019 before starting to decline in May and June. Overall, exports rose by 22.8% year-on-year to 2.7Mt in the first half of 2019.
Lucky Cement fights growing costs with export sales
30 July 2019Pakistan: Lucky Cement has counteracted mounting costs with increased export sales. Its gross sales rose slightly to US$420m in its financial year to 30 June 2019. Its profit after tax fell by 14% year-on-year to US$65.2m from US$75.8m from the same period in 2018. Its cost of sales grew by 11% to US$190m from US$211m. Its cement sales volumes fell by 1.8% to 7.67Mt. However, its export sales increased by 60.9% to 1.82Mt.
The cement producer said that the first shipment of machinery from China’s Sinoma to its new 1.2Mt/yr integrated plant project at Samawah in Iraq. A power plant has also been ordered from Finland’s Wärtsilä. Commercial production at the site is planned for mid-2020.
Annual Pakistan cement exports grow by 40% to 6.41Mt
23 July 2019Pakistan: Data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics shows that cement exports grew by 40% year-on-year to 6.41Mt in the financial year to the end of June 2019 from 4.56Mt in the same period in 2018. The value of the exports rose by 22% to US$272m from US$223m.