Displaying items by tag: Results

Pakistan: DG Khan Cement recorded a 22% year-on-year rise in earnings in the first quarter of the 2025 financial year, to US$2.88m. This came despite a 7% drop in sales, to US$54.9m, and a 12% drop in cement sales volumes, to 1.18Mt.

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement has published its nine-month trading update for 2024, showing a drop in sales of 2% year-on-year in nine months up to 30 September 2024, to US$63m. Sales volumes remained level year-on-year at 1.34Mt. Regulatory News Service has reported that Steppe Cement attributed medium-term increases in production and the stabilisation of costs to capacity expansions and other capital expenditure investments since 2022. Nine-month domestic cement consumption was 9.1Mt, in line with nine-month 2023 levels. Imports accounted for 319,000t (4%) of total consumption. Meanwhile, exports totalled 720,000t.

Regarding results for the third quarter of 2024, CEO Javier del Ser Perez said "We recovered both volumes and pricing in the third quarter of 2024, following a price adjustment in the second quarter. While competition remains strong, our plant has continued to enhance its capacity and productivity, enabling us to offset the impact of past inflation. We remain focused on driving higher volumes and cash generation.”

Oman: Oman Cement has reported a net profit after tax of US$23.1m for the first nine months of 2024. This represented a 20.2% rise compared to the US$19.2m that the company made in the first nine months of 2023. Oman Cement’s revenue for the first nine months of 2024 was US$136.4m, a 2.9% fall compared to the US$140.5m it recorded in the same period of 2023.

Pakistan: Dewan Cement reported a profit after tax of US$329,000 for the quarter ending June 2024, marking a 47% year-on-year decline compared to US$619,000 earned in the same period in 2023. Despite a significant improvement in gross margins, the company recorded a net loss of US$1.83m for the full financial year 2024, slightly less than the US$2.11m loss in the financial year 2023. Quarterly sales rose by 3.4% to US$19.14m, with gross profit increasing significantly by 106.5% to US$1.06m in the quarter.

Czech Republic: According to its annual report, Cement Hranice recorded a 29% year-on-year increase in net profit to US$38.5m in 2023, up from US$29.8m in 2022. Sales rose by 5.5% to US$104.1m, despite a reduction in cement sales volumes. The company managed to increase revenues through higher product prices, necessitated by rising energy costs, according to chair of the board Roman Michalčík.

Kazakhstan: Steppe Cement has reported a loss of US$4.4m in the first half of 2024 compared to a profit of US$61,000 in 2023. The company, which operates two cement production facilities in Kazakhstan, saw its revenue fall by 7% to US$34.4m, down from US$36.9m, reportedly due to a 4% reduction in sales volume and higher electricity and maintenance costs.

Tunisia: Carthage Cement has released its interim financial statements for the first half of 2024, revealing a net profit of US$11.7m, up by 48% from US$7.9m in the same period of 2023. The company's half-yearly revenues rose from US$70.8m in June 2023 to US$71.5m in June 2024. Operating profit grew by 17% to reach US$18.7m.

France: Hoffmann Green Cement Technologies has announced its financial results for the first half of 2024, showing a marked improvement with revenue reaching €3.3m, a 95.7% year-on-year increase from 2023. Despite a net loss of €5.2m, the company's earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) improved significantly, increasing by €0.6m year-on-year. The company’s cement sales were up 6.7% year-on-year to 7833t. The outlook for the remaining period of 2024 is a breakeven EBITDA and sales of €130m.

Co-founders Julien Blanchard and David Hoffmann said "The first half of 2024 was marked by Hoffmann Green's ongoing business development, highlighted by the signing of significant new partnerships with industry leaders. In response to the ongoing slowdown in France's new housing construction sector, the company has diversified its focus toward high-value markets, including renewable energy, waste treatment and B2C retail. The doubling of our revenue, coupled with tight cost control, has led to a significant improvement in EBITDA, which is on track to reach breakeven in 2024. In light of these strong commercial and financial achievements, we reaffirm all of our short- and medium-term financial guidance."

Pakistan: Maple Leaf Cement has reported a consolidated profit after tax of US$5.6m for the quarter ending June 2024, with sales revenue increasing by 5% to US$56.4m from US$53.8m year-on-year. The cost of sales dropped by 10%, boosting the gross profit by 44% year-on-year to US$21.7m.

It won’t be a surprise to most readers that the Chinese cement industry continued to struggle in the first half of 2024. The China Cement Association (CCA) summarised the situation as a "continuous decline in demand, low price fluctuations and continuous losses in the industry." Cement output fell year-on-year and four of the six large cement companies featured in this article reported falls in revenue. The CCA estimated that the sector as a whole lost about US$140m in the first half of the year.

Graph 1: Cement output in China, 2019 to first half of 2024. Source: National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics of China shows that cement output fell by 13% to 855Mt in the first half of 2024 from 980Mt in the same period in 2023. That’s a fall of more than 100Mt and around the annual cement production capacity of the US! Analysis by the CCA reckons that the first half of 2024 saw the lowest cement production since 2011. It blamed the situation on the failure of the real estate market to stabilise and a slowdown in infrastructure investment. Geographically the areas with the biggest declines were the Northeast, Northwest and Central and South regions. Those provinces with the smallest declines were Tibet, Jiangsu, Yunnan and Hebei. However, the CCA was keen to point out that staggered production, through initiatives such as peak shifting, took place in the second quarter of 2024, the producers’ cement inventory fell and cement prices rallied somewhat in June 2024.

Graph 2: Sales revenue from selected Chinese cement producers. Source: Company financial reports. Note: For CNBM Basic building materials segment revenue shown only.

CNBM says that it is the largest cement producer in the world. However, Anhui Conch appears to have sold more cement and clinker than CNBM did… in the first half of 2024 at least. Anhui Conch sold 126Mt of cement and clinker, a drop of 3% year-on-year, compared to 114Mt by CNBM, a drop of 20%. Anhui Conch’s sales revenue and net profit fell by 30% to US$6.4bn and 48% to US$490m respectively. The sales revenue from CNBM’s Basic Building Materials segment, its division that manufactures cement, deceased by 31% to US$5.73bn. Tangshan Jidong and CRC reported similar situations to their larger peers with declines in revenue and profit.

Huaxin Cement and Taiwan Cement both managed to raise revenue, but this was mostly due to their businesses outside of China. Huaxin Cement increased its operating income by 3% to US$2.3bn, with sales volumes of cement falling at home but growing abroad. Indeed, its domestic operating income fell by 32% to US$716m, a similar rate of decline to the other companies featured here. By comparison, the operating income from its overseas cement business rose by 55% to US$502m. Combined with a boost in aggregate sales volumes, this helped to stabilise the company’s financial performance. Taiwan Cement, meanwhile, completed its acquisition of Cimpor Portugal in March 2024 giving it a majority stake in OYAK’s cement business in Türkiye. Subsequently, its revenue in the second quarter of 2024 shot up year-on-year.

CNBM hit the nail on the head in its half-year report when it said: “The overcapacity has not been fundamentally resolved.” China is a big country with lots of regional variation but when cement plants stopped manufacturing cement in the second quarter of 2024 the price improved. Funny that should happen! The government is slowly making adjustments to the real estate market and other mechanisms, including the China national emissions trading system, are due to be applied to cement plants soon. Yet, until that overcapacity is addressed or unless some market fundamentals change then expect to see more of the same in China in the near future.