Displaying items by tag: Pakistan

Pakistan: Lucky Cement’s net sales rose by 5.7% to US$434m for the financial year that ended on 30 June 2017 from US$428m in the same period in 2016. Its cement sales volumes rose by 3.1% to 7.15Mt from 6.93Mt and its profit after tax rose by 5.8% to US$130m from US$123m. No reason for the good performance was presented in its financial results statement but that it said it was confident in the domestic market due to both resident and public sector construction markets and large scale infrastructure projects driven by the China-Pakistan Ecumenic Corridor initiative.

The cement producer also provided an update on new and on-going expansion projects. Its expansion plans at the Karachi Plant to add a 1.25Mt/yr production line are expected to reach commercial operations in December 2017. It is also in the process of obtaining approvals and authorisations from the state government of Punjab to build a new 2.3Mt/yr plant.

Pakistan: Loesche has provided an LM 56.3+3 CS vertical roller mill for cement grinding to Attock Cement Pakistan Ltd (ACPL). The new mill will be used in the new line three of the cement plant in Hub Chowki in Pakistan, in the Lasbela/Baluchistan district, 20km north of Karachi. The mills will grind OPC cement with a fineness of 3300 Blaine at a capacity of 200t/hr or 2800 Blaine at a capacity of 240t/hr.

Alongside the delivery of the mill, the Loesche mandate also includes the monitoring and assembly as well as the commissioning, which is due to take place in mid-2017. The Chinese company Hefei Cement Research & Design Institute, with which Loesche has successfully delivered mills on a regular basis, will act as Loesche’s contractor and will assume overall responsibility for the new cement line.

Pakistan: DG Khan Cement’s new plant at Hub in Balochistan will officially start production by December 2017. The 9000t/day plant is scheduled to complete civil engineering work by September 2017 and then start commissioning by the end of the year, according Shajar Capital in a reported covered by the Express Tribune newspaper. The new plant is expected to support infrastructure development near Gwadar and support residential schemes in Balochistan and Sindh.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement has appointed Muhammad Irfan Husain Chawala as its Chief Finance Officer and director of finance. He succeeds Muhammad Faisal. Previously Chawala was the company secretary of the cement producer. Faisal Mahmood will succeed him in this role.

Pakistan: Gharibwal Cement has started commercial operation of a 20MW waste heat recovery unit at its Jehuml plant in Punjab. According to its website it will generate 12MW from the waste hot gases of the cement production process and 8MW from a coal-fired system. The plant has a clinker production capacity of 6700t/day.

Pakistan: Cement exports have continued to decline year-on-year for the fourth consecutive month in May 2017, registering a fall of 44.6% according to the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA). The decline follows a 45.7% year-on-year fall in exports in February 2017, a 60.4% year-on-year fall in March 2017 and a 50.8% year-on-year fall in April 2017.

However domestic sales were up by 10.9% year-on-year for May 2017, reaching 3.4Mt, as compared to 3.1Mt in May 2016. Total dispatches during May 2017 were 3.7Mt, as compared to 3.6Mt in May 2016, an increase of 2.4%.

So far in Pakistan’s fiscal year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June, domestic cement consumption has increased by a healthy 10.8% to 37.6Mt against 35.5Mt for 1 July 2015 to 31 May 2016. Over the same period exports have declined by 21.3% to 4.3Mt. A year earlier the figure was 5.5Mt. Exports to Afghanistan more than halved from 206,000t in May 2016 to 97,000t in May 2017. Exports to India also declined, from 135,000t in May 2016 to 114,000t in May 2017.

Industry experts have appealed to the government to take steps to boost housing, as the sector is currently dependent on infrastructure projects. They said that sustained growth in housing construction is essential to absorb the additional capacities that will come online in the next two years.

India: Members of the Cement Manufacturers Association (CMA) have met with Nitin Gadkari, the Minister for Road, Transport and Highways, to discuss price concerns around the country’s road building campaign. Local producers stand accused of increasing prices despite no rise in input costs amidst a national plan to build more roads, according to the Hindu newspaper. Producers dismissed these concerns, saying that price were lower than they had been in 2015. Instead they bashed discrepancies in export taxes between India and Pakistan.

Delegates from the cement producers at the meeting included N Srinivasan, managing director of India Cements, HM Bangur, managing director of Shree Cement, KK Maheshwari, managing director of UltraTech Cement, Ajay Kapur, managing director of Ambuja Cement, Mahendra Singhi, Group chief executive officer and wholetime director of Dalmia Cement, Ujjwal Batria, country chief executive officer and managing director of Nuvoco Vistas Corp and Aparna Dutt Sharma, Secretary General of the CMA.

Pakistan: Power Cement has ordered a 7700t/day production line from FLSmidth for its plant at Nooriabad. The new line will be the third production at the site run by Arif Habib Group. The engineering, procurement and supply contract includes a complete range of equipment from crushing to packing and cement loading. No value for the order has been disclosed.

The order includes an ATOX 55 vertical mill for raw grinding, an ATOX 25 vertical mill for coal grinding, an EV 250x250 Hammer Impact Crusher, stacker and reclaimer systems for storage, a ROTAX-2 rotary kiln with low NO_x ILC calciner, a JETFLEX burner prepared for future refuse derived fuel (RDF) use, a FLSmidth Cross-Bar cooler and two OK 39-4 vertical mills for cement grinding. Commissioning for the project is scheduled for the end of 2018.

Pakistan: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has ruled out the option of using waste heat from cement plants as surplus energy for the national grid. The body had started investigating using waste energy from cement plants but decided that high-energy consumption at the plants minimised the possibility of any excess power.

Pakistan: Pakistan International Bulk Terminal (PIBT), the country’s first dry bulk unit for coal and cement, has started commercial operations with a consignment of coal in early May 2017. The US$285mn Muhammad Bin Qasim Port, which was built with support from the World Bank, will also be used to export cement and clinker, according to the Express Tribune newspaper. The terminal is capable of handling 12Mt/yr of cargo and has a storage yard spread over 62 acres. PIBT, under a 30-year build, operate and transfer agreement with the Port Qasim Authority, built its own jetty and is equipped with two coal ship unloading cranes and one cement and clinker loading crane.