Displaying items by tag: Russia

Russia: Heavy machine producer Uralmash has signed a contract with Holcim Russia to supply a 4kh13,5 mill frame with covers and liners for its Schurovsky plant. A total of approximately 130t of equipment will be manufactured for delivery by January 2014.

This is a third set of frames that will be manufactured for this plant by Uralmash. The first two were delivered in 2010 and 2011. Holcim Russia has been conducting an upgrade of this plant since 2007. A new production line began operation in 2011.

Russia: Eurocement Group has announced that it will invest Euro203.9m on the upgrade of its affiliate company Mikhailovskcement, which is located in the Ryazan Region in the west of Russia.

Eurocement said that the upgrade will see the plant's capacity rise to 3.6Mt/yr from 1.9Mt/yr via the addition of a new dry-process cement kiln line. The plant currently has four wet process kilns. A time-scale for completion of the upgrade was not given.

Russia: Eurocement Group intends that its Podgorensky cement plant will fight imports from Turkey and Iran. The Russian cement producer's plant in the Voronezh Region in the south of the country will help to replace 80% of imports from these countries, said Eurocement president Mikhail Skorokhod in a press conference reported upon by the Moscow Times.

"If you look at the southern ports, you'll see that the amount of incoming cement has fallen sharply," said Skorokhod. "That is because the Podgorensky plant came into being." He added that the customers agreed to switch to the more expensive Eurocement products after the company convinced them of their higher quality.

Imports accounted for almost 8% of the 65.2Mt of cement that the Russian market consumed in 2012, an increase from 5% in 2011. Skorokhod said Iran's state-owned companies were able to offer lower prices because they receive subsidies from a government that is under US-led trade restrictions. Eurocement may also turn to the World Trade Organization for an antidumping investigation.

Russia: Eurocement Group has reported that it has produced more than 11.5Mt of cement in the first six months of 2013, a year-on-year rise of 5%, in its 16 cement plants in Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Cement shipments have increased by 7% in the period.

The Russian-based cement producer announced plans to upgrade all of its production facilities to make cement using a dry-process by 2018. Currently only 25% of its plants use the dry process. Eurocement also plans to increase its annual cement production capacity by 4Mt/yr.

According to Russian newspaper Kommersant, half of Russia's regions are not meeting housing construction targets due to a lack of building materials. The country needs more than 20 new cement factories, according the government, but companies are refusing to build new plants due to a lack of potential returns on investment. Eurocement responded to the claims by saying that it is cheaper to modernise existing plants.

Russia: The State Corporation Bank for Development and Foreign Economic Affairs (Vnesheconombank) has agreed with HSBC Bank to extend additional credit facilities worth up to Euro25.2m for the construction of a cement plant in the Kaluga region by the Kaluga Cement Plant company. Credit facilities are to be extended for a total period of up to eight and a half years against insurance coverage of Denmark's Export Insurance Agency, EksportKreditFonden. This project will help to develop production facilities and create new jobs.

Russia: The Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has rejected a claim against Pikalyovsky Cement over an application submitted by BaselCement-Pikalyovo. The FAS dismissed the claim because it saw no violations of the law.

BaselCement-Pikalyovo, located in Pikalyovo in the Leningrad region, halted production in 2009 due to a shortage of raw materials. The situation then was settled by the then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin when a supplies treaty was signed.

In January 2013 BaselCement-Pikalyovo applied to the FAS with a claim accusing Pikalyovsky Cement of breaking the antimonopoly law. Allegedly Pikalyovsky Cement had imposed low prices on BaselCement-Pikalyovo for the supply of nepheline slime. BaselCement-Pikalyovo later said that Pikalyovsky Cement revoked its order for nepheline in January 2013 and that this threatened to halt the operations at BaselCement-Pikalyovo since the cement producer is its sole customer.

Russia: HeidelbergCement has increased its holding in the Russian cement company CJSC Construction Materials from 51% to 100%. The German cement producer did not disclose the cost of the acquisition.

"The purchasing of the remaining 49% in CJSC is another good example of our strategy of low risk bolt-on acquisitions," said Bernd Scheifele, chairman of the Managing Board of HeidelbergCement.

CJSC Construction Material, located in Sterlitamak in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, has a cement production capacity of 1.8Mt/yr using a dry production process. It employs 760 people. HeidelbergCement acquired a 51% stake in the Russian cement company in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Nepal: The Nepalese Ministry of Industry intends to petition the Russian government for a US$11.5m grant to upgrade equipment at the Udayapur Cement Factory, the country's largest state-owned cement plant.

"The loan that we are looking for from the Russian government is solely to replace machine equipment parts," said Uma Kanta Jha, secretary of Ministry of Industry. Previously the ministry asked the Russian government for a grant for the Janakpur Cigarette Factory.

Key problems besetting the Udayapur Cement include a lack of raw materials, ageing machinery, overstaffing and mounting debts. The Nepalese government's procurement policy has been blamed for making it difficult to source raw materials from India, such as coal. Currently the factory has 549 permanent staff on its payroll. The plant incurred a loss of US$10.2m in 2010 - 2011 and has a cumulative loss of US$205m. The company last released audited financial results in 2004 - 2005.

Russia: Former President and CEO of SibCem Andrey Muraviev has been nominated for the holding company's board of directors. SibCem shareholders hoped that their decision would help the Russian cement producer to recover its market share and financial performance.

Muraviev is a US-educated Russian entrepreneur, who ran SibCem since 2004 and led the company as its president for its first four years until 2008. During these years, the company brought under its umbrella all the cement assets it controls, stepped up investment in innovative technologies and made an initial public offering.

SibCem was Russia's second largest cement producer by mid-2008. Muraviev quit as CEO in August 2008 over disagreements with SibCem's Chairman Oleg Sharykin. Muraviev is currently President of Parus Capital, a Russia-dedicated investment fund which is a member of the Investor Rights Protection Association.

"I believe SibCem is now one of the most undervalued cement companies the world. I see the main reasons for this in its low transparency and poor corporate governance, lack of new assets and inefficient personnel management," commented Muraviev on his possible return to Sibir Cement. Since Muraviev left in 2008 the company has had its entire top management team and all its directors replaced. SibCem's annual revenues also declined by 75%.

Russia: Eurocement has announced the completion of its 3Mt/yr Podgorensky cement plant in the Voronezh Region. The Russian cement producer invested Euro424m in the project that it expects to make back within 12 years. Construction took three years with completion in December 2012. The plant has generated 1000 jobs for local residents. Equipment for the plant was supplied by FLSmidth.

Commissioning and start-up work has been conducted on the plant's production facilities since the start of 2013. When the Podgorensky cement plant reaches its full operational capacity, the portion of Eurocement Group's total cement output produced by dry production will increase from 13% to 25%.