Displaying items by tag: Pakistan

Pakistan: The Industries, Commerce and Investment department of the Government of Punjab has confirmed that it is banning the construction of new cement plants and the enlargement of existing plants. The decision follows approval by chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, according to the Nation newspaper. It is in response to a number of environmental issues allegedly caused by cement production in the province including damage to water tables and increased air pollution. Final confirmation of the ban came in response to the Supreme Court enforcing a similar ban near the Katas Raj Temples in the state.

Pakistan: Mian Saqib Nisar, the Chief Justice of Pakistan, has said that the Supreme Court will prevent the construction of any new cement plants or upgrades to existing plants near Katas Raj Temples in Punjab. However, he said that no existing plants in the area would be shut down, according to the Business Recorder newspaper. The investigation by the court had been taken in response to media reports that the pond at the Hindu heritage site was drying out due to water consumption by nearby cement plants. The local government has also been taking steps to stop new cement plants being built in parts of the province.

Pakistan: Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjb, has approved summary legislation banning the installation of new cement plants in the province on environmental grounds. The summary will be passed to standing committees on legislation for deliberation and recommendations, according to the Nation newspaper. The region has 12 cement plants, of which eight are located in the Salt Range of hills, where local residents have become increasingly intolerant of new industrial plants due to damage to underground water tables and increased air pollution.

The summary will also examine expansion plans by existing cement plants in the province and it has hired a consultancy, Artelia, to study the situation. The Supreme Court of Pakistan also being looking at the issue separately. However, the local cement industry is in an expansion mode as it copes with resident and public sector construction markets and large-scale infrastructure projects driven by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor initiative.

Pakistan: A new production line at Attock Cement’s Hub plant in Balochistan has started operation. The line has a cement production capacity of 1.2Mt/yr and it increases the company’s total production capacity to 3Mt/yr. The line was first announced in 2015 at a cost of US$120m. Loesche provided a cement mill for the project in 2017 under contract from the Hefei Cement Research & Design Institute.

Pakistan: Cement sales rose by 12% year-on-year to 22.2Mt in the last six months of 2017 from 19.8Mt in the same period in 2016. Data from the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers' Association (APCMA) shows that domestic consumption rose by 17.4 % to 19.8Mt from 16.9Mt, according to the Express Tribune newspaper. However, exports continued to decline in the period by 17.3% to 2.9Mt from 2.4Mt. Exports fell in most parts of the country, particularly in the south, despite increases from plants in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. The APCMA has blamed this on high industry costs, foreign imports and local legislation.

Pakistan: Lucky Cement has completed a new 1.3Mt/yr production line at its Karachi cement plant. Clinker production started on the new line on 12 December 2017. It has also implemented efficiency improvements at its Pezu plant that have increased its production capacity by 0.3Mt/yr. The cement producer now has a total cement production capacity of 9.35Mt/yr.

Pakistan: Cherat Packaging, a producer and supplier of packaging to the cement industry, and Austria’s Mondi have made over half-a-billion cement bags since 2002. The local bag manufacturer has a bag production capacity of 600m/yr. It holds country-specific exclusive rights to use Mondi’s brown sack kraft paper to produce cement bags and has bought only Mondi paper for its use in the last 15 years.

“The bags had to be suitable for rough handling and fast, dust-free filling, and we wanted to deliver further benefits, such as material and cost savings. Mondi’s Advantage Select paper was the perfect choice. The 80/85gsm variant has revolutionised paper bag sales in Asia as it has provided us as well as our customers with high quality, low cost solutions. It has allowed us to use two plies instead of three and to dispense with perforation, which has significantly reduced paper consumption and dust at our clients’ premises. The bags are lighter, yet stronger than the previous three-ply versions,” said Amer Faruque, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Cherat Packaging.

The company’s paper division has exclusive rights from Mondi for procurement of sack kraft paper in Pakistan and supplies two-ply 80/75gsm 50kg bag to Cherat Cement, a sister subsidiary within the Ghulam Faruque Group. In October 2017 Cherat Packaging commissioned a Windmuller & Holscher universal paper sack line.

Pakistan: According to the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) Pakistan’s cement exports continued to decline in October 2017. Exports fell by 14.6% month-on-month to 443,000t, due in part to higher domestic cement consumption. However the APCMA stated that falling exports were a concern while some Pakistani cement capacity remains idle.

The largest fall in exports was via sea, rather than overland exports to immediate neighbours. This was despite the northern part of the country, closest to India and Afghanistan, consuming 3.14Mt of cement. This is the first time that the region has consumed more than 3Mt in a single month. In October 2016 the north of Pakistan consumed 2.5Mt of cement. In the south, demand also increased from 0.52Mt in October 2016 to 0.63Mt in October 2017.

Pakistan: Rising coal prices are presenting a risk to the profit margins of cement manufactures in Pakistan. It is expected that this sustained rise in coal prices will increase the cost of cement production in the short-term.

Major contributory factors to the higher coal prices include China’s imposition to cut production to 276 days to reduce the supply glut since October 2016, while extra safety checks are resulting in tightened domestic coal supplies in the country. Moreover, tropical storms in the Atlantic basin and floods in Australia and Indonesia are giving rise to logistical issues with coal supply. Nuclear outages in France are driving extra competition for coal.
To add to the already worsened supply situation, South Africa`s National Union of Mine workers (NUM), which represents 70% of employees in the coal mining sector, started a strike on 19 November 2017 over unresolved wage disputes.

Pakistan: Pioneer Cement has signed a memorandum of understanding to buy Galadari Cement (Gulf). Galadari Cement has been building its plant at Hub Choki in Balochistan since 1998, according to the News International newspaper. The unit is 50% complete. No amount for the sale has been disclosed but it is estimated to be around US$66m.