
Displaying items by tag: RAK Cement Company
RAK White Cement's sales rise as profit drops in 2022
06 February 2023UAE: RAK White Cement recorded consolidated sales of US$67.4m in 2022, up by 3.3% year-on-year from US$65.3m in 2021. The producer recorded a 36% year-on-year profit drop to US$5.74m from US$8.95m.
During the third quarter of the year, RAK White Cement secured the approval of its board of directors to delist its shares from the Boursa Kuwait stock exchange.
UAE: UltraTech Cement subsidiary UltraTech Cement Middle East Investments has newly acquired 29% of the equity share capital of RAK White Cement. The acquisition brings its total stake in the producer to 30%.
A&K International Investment sells 29% of RAK Cement
12 December 2019UAE: A&K International Investment has divested itself of 29% of total shares from its stake in RAK Cement to an undisclosed buyer. RAK Cement’s profit fell by 79% year-on-year to US$0.39m in the first half of 2019 from US$1.88m. Its intended purchase of an integrated cement plant and quarry in the UAE was abandoned in September 2019.
UAE: Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Cement’s sales fell by 20% year-on-year to US$25.4m in the first half of 2019 from US$31.7m in the same period in 2018. Its profit dropped by 79% to US$0.39m from US$1.88m. Its cost of sales decreased to US$234m from US$29.1m.
UAE: The shareholders of RAK Cement have approved the conditional of the Newtec cement plant and Al-Banna quarry in Fujairah. The purchase was originally announced in late February 2019. It planned to buy the assets for around US$123m.
UAE: RAK Cement has postponed its acquisition of Newtech cement and the Al banna quarry due to incomplete financing. It previously announced the purchase in late February 2019. It planned to buy the assets for around US$123m.
Update on the UAE
27 February 2019The UAE is having a moment. Over the last week Fujairah Natural Resources, a new entrant to cement, said it is going to build a clinker plant at Habbab in Fujairah. It’s also looking likely that Raysut Cement might buy UAE-based Fujairah Cement Company’s shares in Sohar Cement in Oman. Then, Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Cement announced that it had purchased the Newtech cement plant. What’s happening here?
The last couple of years have been tough ones for Emirati cement producers, which have been fighting falling sales and beleaguered profits. The largest producer, Arkan Building Materials - a group majority controlled by the Abu Dhabi government, reported flat sales growth for the first nine months of 2018. It blamed this on falling sales of clinker due to imports from Iran and a tough pricing environment. Its profits were hit by rising clinker production costs due to its reliance on imported limestone from Oman whilst it resolves problems with its own local quarry. Arkan had closed its Emirates Cement plant in Al Ain following revenue and profit falls in 2016. This story thread reached its end earlier in February 2019 when Arkan sold the closed plant for around US$14m. National Cement reported a similar experience in its nine months results, with growing revenue but sales sapped by mounting costs.
Data from Riyad Capital in early-2018 suggested that the UAE only consumes about half of its own cement production. The rest is exported to the Middle East and North African region, particularly Oman and Egypt, and African countries. The country has 14 integrated cement plants with a production capacity of 31.4Mt/yr and eight grinding plants with a capacity of 10.4Mt/yr. These are owned by a mixture of local companies and multinationals.
The European producers still have a presence through LafargeHolcim’s Lafarge Emirates plant in Fujairah and a grinding plant run by Cemex. Although how long LafargeHolcim will remain seems uncertain given a report by Bloomberg earlier in February 2019 suggesting that the group is seriously looking at exiting the Middle East and Africa. Oman’s Raysut Cement holds a plant too via its Pioneer Cement subsidiary but the majority of the foreign-owned plants are Indian. Their presence has been steadily growing.
Aditya Birla/UltraTech Cement, JK Cement and Shree Cement all run plants in the UAE and JSW Cement said in mid-2018 that it was going to build a 1Mt/yr integrated plant in Fujairah. UltraTech Cement renamed its grinding plant UltraTech Nathdwara Cement in December 2018. This plant was formerly a Binani Cement plant and part of the rancorous bidding war between UltraTech Cement and Dalmia Bharat.
The background to all of this has been a country that is very willing to spend big on infrastructure projects when the need arises. Forbes reckoned, for example, that the UAE had awarded US$20.7bn on infrastructure projects in 2018 in the first nine months of 2018. Impending projects like the Expo 2020 are still generating construction activity and longer ones like Dubai Metro are in progress. However, the country is in a dynamic place geographically between the two-major economic and cement-producing powerhouses of Saudi Arabia and Iran. For the cement industry this explains the prominence of the grinding sector and the growing interest from Indian companies looking to expand overseas. For the new project and acquisition this week it’s looking more like local variation in the market at this stage. In this context though the fourth quarter results from local producers will make interesting reading to see if anything bigger is going on.
RAK Cement buys Newtech plant and quarry for US$123m
26 February 2019UAE: Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Cement has purchased the Newtech cement plant and the Al Banna quarry from Mohammed Ali Omar Saleh Al Buraiki for around US$123m. RAK Cement operates an integrated plant at Ras Al Khaimah.
RAK Cement repurchases 321,500 shares
19 August 2015UAE: Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Cement has bought back nearly 321,500 of its shares on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, at prices between US$0.24 – 0.25/share. The number of repurchased shares has reached 9.187 million, while the number of remaining shares amounts 46.7 million. RAK Cement posted net earnings of US$667,002 for the first six months of 2015, compared with US$857,574 a year earlier.
RAK Cement Company launches US$18m expansion
09 July 2013UAE: The Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Cement Company has launched a US$18m expansion of its second kiln at its cement plant in Khor Khwair in Ras Al Khaimah. Sheikh Ahmed bin Humaid bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, chairman of the board of the RAK Cement Company launched the new expansion. Also in attendance was Yasser bin Ahmed bin Humaid Al Qasimi, director-general of the Union Cement Company, along with a number of senior officials.