Displaying items by tag: Republic Cement

Philippines: Republic Cement has lunched its first Fast Laboratory On Wheels (FLOW), a mobile laboratory dedicated to providing technical support to construction and building industry players. The mini-truck, which has a pull-canopy converted into a laboratory, carries equipment and apparatus that can perform tests on concrete, aggregates and cement.

“The growing demand for quality construction solution is a primary motivation for Republic Cement’s move to establish its first mobile laboratory,” said Republic Cement president and chief executive officer (CEO) Nabil Francis. FLOW is intended to support the country’s rapid infrastructure development, under the government’s ‘Build, Build, Build’ program.

The mobile laboratory can be transformed into a demonstration area where technical training may be conducted. It can also be despatched quickly to a specific site to provide analysis within hours. FLOW will be deployed in the greater Metro Manila area and regions in Luzon such as Calabarzon and Central Luzon from June 2019.

Philippines: Republic Cement has held a rally assembling over one thousand construction workers at its Norzagaray Plant to aim for five million safe man hours. The cement producer has reached 4.5 million man hours at its expansion projects at Bulacan, Batangas and Iligan. This includes no lost-time injuries or fatalities.

“Safety is not a punishment. It’s not a punishment to wear your helmet, boots, or harness. It’s a gift of life - the life of your fellow workers and of your family,” said
Roy Ruedas, Project Lead at Aboitiz Construction.

Philippines: Republic Cement has launched Kapit-Balay Masonry Cement. The type S high-strength masonry cement product is intended for plastering, brick or block laying and block filling. The product is being produced at the company’s Danao plant in Debu.

Philippines: Republic Cement plans to install bag filters on its clinker conveyors, cement mills and packaging lines at its Batangas and Teresa plants in 2019 to replace electrostatic precipitators. It follows the installation of kiln bag filters, according to the Business Mirror newspaper. Following the upgrade it reduced its dust emissions by 75% to 20mg/Nm³, below the national limit of 150mg/Nm³. The cement producer is also considering building concrete roads at its unit to further reduce dust emissions.

The cement industry in the Philippines has been generating a lot of ‘steam’ in the past three months. Some of this has now come to a head in the last few weeks with the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) decision to impose tariffs on imported cement and the Philippine Competition Commission’s (PCC) on-going investigation into alleged-anti-competitive behaviour. Then, there was the unnamed sourced quoted by Bloomberg this week that LafargeHolcim was seriously thinking about selling up in the country.

Resistance to imported cement has been building for a while as local producers and importers have repeatedly clashed in the media. The latest thread of this story started in September 2018 when the DTI started an investigation into imports. A review by the department found that imports grew by 70% year-on-year in 2014, 4391% in 2015, 549% in 2016 and 72% in 2017. However, the market share of imports grew from 0.02% in 2013 to 15% in 2017. This was followed by various organisations taking sides. The Philippine Constructors Association, Laban Konsyumer (a consumer group), the Philippine Cement Importers Association and others came out on the side of the importers, warning of the risk to prices and consumers if duties were implemented.

It didn’t stop the DTI though. It imposed a provisional safeguard duty of US$0.16/bag on imported cement, around 4% of the cost of a 40kg bag. The PCC then said that it was going to consider the new tariff as part of its on-going investigation. Its probe started in 2017 following allegations that the Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines (CEMAP), LafargeHolcim Philippines and Republic Cement and Building Materials had violated the Philippines Competition Act by engaging in anti-competitive agreements.

Amid all of this, LafargeHolcim popped up earlier this week with a news story that it was actively trying to find the ‘right’ price for its local subsidiary, Holcim Philippines. The ‘right’ price at the moment being something around US$2.5bn for four integrated plants and associated assets. That’s around US$225/t of production capacity using the total of 8.4Mt/yr in the Global Cement Directory 2019 and considering LafargeHolcim’s 75% share in the subsidiary. This is about what you’d expect, but it is certainly higher than the US$120/t LafargeHolcim has officially accepted for its divestment of its Indonesian operations.

Given the anonymous nature of the sources involved, it’s uncertain whether LafargeHolcim’s alleged intentions to sell in the Philippines is anything more than market scuttlebutt. What is more certain is that Holcim Philippines has had a tough time so far in 2018, reporting a 23% year-on-year drop in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) to US$64.8m in the first nine months of 2018 from US$83.9m in the same period in 2017. Sales have grown but this has been hit by the fuel, power and distribution costs as well as the depreciation of the Philippine Peso against the US Dollar. It also blamed imports for its problems. However, alongside all of this the company announced in December 2018 that it was spending US$300m towards increasing its production capacity by 30% to 13Mt/yr by 2020. This includes upgrades to its plants at Bulacan and Misamis Oriental with the installation of new kilns, mills and waste heat recovery systems.

The latest victory in the war between producers and importers seems to be on the side of the producers as the government steps in with protection for the industry. The Philippines’ economy is doing well with its gross domestic product (GDP) forecast to rise by 6.5% in 2019 by the World Bank. The trick for the government will be striking the balance between shielding industry from dumping and allowing the construction industry to keep on growing. Rumours about LafargeHolcim selling up are enticing but seem less likely than LafargeHolcim’s decision to exit Indonesia. Leaving would mean abandoning South-East Asia and exiting a country with a growing industry.

Philippines: Republic Cement Services plans to commission two cement grinding mills in 2019 at a cost of US$20m each. Once completed the company will have a cement production capacity of around 9Mt/yr, according to GMA News. President Nabil Francis also said that the company would need more clinker for the mills. This could either be sourced locally or from imports.

Philippines: The European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) has elected Nabil Francis as its new president. Francis is currently the head of Republic Cement and has been in post since mid-2017. He has worked for a variety of cement producers since 1998 including Ciments Calcia in Europe, Italcementi in Sri Lanka, India and Bulgaria, and HeidelbergCement in Morocco. The ECCP is a bilateral foreign chamber that promotes European interests in the Philippines and vice versa.

Philippines: Republic Cement has signed an agreement with its parent company Aboitiz Group to provide structural and mechanical upgrades to its plants at Bulacan and Cebu. The projects are scheduled to be completed by mid-2019, according to the Philippine Star newspaper. The cement producer is also considering increasing the clinker and cement production capacity at its plants at Teresa and Batangas, and increasing cement production at Iligan. The company is a joint venture run by Ireland’s CRH and local partner Aboitiz Group.

Philippines: Chief executives from Eagle Cement, Taiheiyo Cement Philippines, Republic Cement, Cemex Philippines and Mabuhay Filcement have opposed government plans for a minimum requirement of pre-shipment inspection for cement imports. Instead they have called for a rigorous testing procedure for all cement coming from abroad to ensure consumer safety, according to the Philippine Star newspaper. In a letter Paul Ang, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Eagle Cement asked the government to draw up revised rules and guidelines on the issue for the cement industry. He also requested that the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and other agencies combat technical smuggling of cement.

In separate letters to the DTI, Taiheiyo Cement Philippines president and CEO Satoshi Asabi, Mabuhay Filcement CEO Enrison Benedicto, incoming Republic Cement president Nabil Francis and Cemex Philippines president Ignacio Mijares also argued against pre-shipment inspection in favour of testing imports upon arrival in the country.

Philippines: Three of the Philippines' largest cement manufacturers have offered to waive their exemption from inspection procedures for cement imports, which are currently required only from companies that just import cement. They sent a joint letter to the Trade and Industry Secretary Ramon Lopez via Ernesto Ordonez, president of the Cement Manufacturers Association of the Philippines on 24 August 2017. In the letter, Taiheiyo Cement, Cemex and Republic Cement state that they are willing to undergo the same shipment inspection procedures as the traders. Ordonez said the offer was aimed at fostering industry harmony and ensuring adequate supply for the Duterte government's infrastructure push.

However, Atty Vic Dimagiba, president of consumer group Laban Konsyumer, said it was misleading for Ordonez to say that the cement firms have offered to waive their import shipment privilege because the Bureau of Product Standards of the DTI has already come up with a draft Department Administrative Order that will require all cement importers to undergo inspection procedures regardless of the company’s status. Existing legislation had come under fire as it allowed double standards.