Displaying items by tag: Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia: Saudi cement producer Najran Cement has announced that it has shut down production line one for scheduled maintenance, which will take 25 days to complete. Najran Cement said that the shutdown will cost US$1.3m.

The company recently announced it was ready for trial operations at its third production line. The new production line will have a capacity of 6500t/day.

Saudi Arabia: The Saudi Port Authority (SPA) has said that cement shipments have been arriving since King Abdullah decree for the country to import 10Mt was issued in April 2013. About 350,000t of cement have been shipped from the UAE and Egypt through various Saudi ports.

"Shipments have come through Dammam, Jeddah and Jazan ports, some through Yanbu and some others are scheduled to arrive through Jubail and Dammam ports," said Musaid Al-Darees, press spokesman for the SPA. Al-Darees added that incoming shipments from the UAE will help face the continuing cement crisis. Around 90% of cement comes from Al-Batha Port, which is witnessing a lot of incoming shipments from the UAE. Shipments from Egypt form only 10% of total imports coming through Jeddah Islamic Port.

Saudi Arabia: Al Jouf Cement, which operates in the east of Saudi Arabia, announced on 17 June 2013 that it has been forced to stop cement production until 30 June 2013 for unscheduled maintenance work to be carried out. Al Jouf said that the maintenance would cost around US$1.6m and would be reflected in its second quarter results for 2013.

Saudi Arabia: China's Sinoma, which is building a cement plant in Tahamah, Saudi Arabia, has ordered a LM 56.4 raw mill from Germany's Loesche GmbH. The vertical roller mill will have a production rate of 400t/hr and a mill motor with a capacity of 4000kW. In addition to the mill, Loesche will also deliver a metal detector, magnetic separator, slide gates and rotary valves.

The delivery of the hardware is planned for October and December 2013.

Saudi Arabia: A second clinker line and a new power plant are being planned by Tabuk Cement in Saudi Arabia. The new 5000t/day cement production line will be designed, built and installed by Chinese company CDI, after winning the contract in a deal worth US$141m. Caterpillar is to provide a 30MW power plant, while Veolia won a US$9.5m contract to provide a new water treatment plant capable of processing 1500m3/day.

A combination of bank loans and the company's own resources will be the base for finance of this project, which is anticipated to be commissioned in the third quarter of 2015. If this is achieved, the total duration of the project would be just 26 months. Full commercial production is anticipated to start in the fourth quarter of 2015.

A cement shortage has been faced by Saudi Arabia in recent months. In April 2013 King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz issued an order to import 10Mt of cement into the country. At the same time, a Royal Directive called for new cement plants to be built in the Kingdom in order to make up the shortfall. Meanwhile, Eastern Province Cement Co. and Najran Cement have announced expansion plans and City Cement Company is currently trialling its new third production line.

Saudi Arabia: Saudi cement producer Southern Province Cement (SPC), the nation's largest cement firm by market value, posted a US$71.6m net profit for the first quarter of 2013, down from US$75.8m a year ago. Without providing exact figures, the company attributed the decrease to lower cement prices.

The cement manufacturer registered an operating profit of US$72.7m for the first three months of 2013, down from US$76.8m in the first quarter of 2012.

Saudi Arabia: Hail Cement has booked a US$3.7m net loss for the first quarter of 2013, more than double the loss of US$1.7m suffered in the first quarter of 2012. Without providing any exact figures, the company attributed the loss to higher expenses related to launching production, coupled with higher salary costs due to the growing number of employees.

Hail Cement, established in 2010, is yet to start commercial production. According to the current plans, this is expected by the end of the second quarter of 2013. In February 2013 Hail Cement said that its rotary cement kiln had started trial production and that the trial operations were expected to take three months.

Saudi Arabia: Commercial ports in Saudi Arabia are ready to process more cement and clinker, according to a Ports Authority (PA) spokesman quoted by Arab News. The move supports a command issued by the King of the country in April 2013 that ordered 10Mt of cement to cope with local shortage.

The PA has set up 17 docking stations for handling and storage of cement and clinker. Jeddah, Dammam and Jubail have four stations each. Yanbu, Dhuba and Jazan are equipped with one site each. The authority has agreed with Saudi Arabia-based Southern Province Cement Company to import cement and clinker through the Jazan Port, as well as with Yanbu Cement Company for clinker imports. All the ports are required to support the cement companies in providing enough space for storage and loading.

Saudi Arabia: Najran Cement has said in a bourse filing that it has awarded a contract to Chinese firm CEIC, for the installation and maintenance of a third production line. The new production line will have a cement production capacity of 7000t/day and is expected to start trial operations in the third quarter of 2013. No financial details were made available.

Chinese and Iranian companies have released information on two new projects in Iraq. Chinese cement equipment provider Sinoma has signed a contract with the Faruk Investment Group to build a cement clinker production line and the Islamic Republic News Agency has reported Iran's intention to build a 2Mt/yr plant.

Sinoma's project seems targeted at the domestic market. It is based at Sulaymaniyah, at one of Faruk Group's two plants that it runs with Lafarge near the northern Kurdish city. Lafarge also runs a third plant in Kerbala that announced the arrangement of a US$70m loan for renovations in January 2013. Lafarge holds a cement production capacity of 6.5Mt/yr, 20% of Iraq's total installed capacity of 32.5Mt/yr. Although, following years of neglect installed capacity and actual cement produced can vary significantly. Faruk Group's decision to choose Sinoma marks a move away from the German firm ThyssenKruppPolysius whom they have used previously. The new line will be Sinoma's seventh in Iraq through its Nanjing subsidiary.

Meanwhile, the Iranian project carries more international motives because the clinker for the plant will come exclusively from Iran. The build is based in the southern Muthanna province and is being overseen by the Iranian Azar-Abadegan Khoy cement plant. As reported in late January 2013, clinker stocks rose in Iran due to a decline in cement demand in the country. Iraq is one of the countries Iran has been able to export cement to during the 2012 – 2013 Persian year. In this context expanding into Iraq makes a lot of sense to combat potential Iranian overcapacity.

In addition all the products made at this plant will carry Iranian branding. Given that this plant is in southern Iraq relatively near to the Saudi border this will complicate any plans to sell stock across the border. As we report this week in Global Cement Weekly, Saudi cement producers have been asked to build reserves of cement to manage the shortage better.

Both projects reveal some of the issues facing Iraq's cement industry, specifically Iraq's redevelopment and the pressures it faces lying between massive demand for cement in Saudi Arabia and overcapacity in Iran. After years of low capacity utilisation rates, Iraq is predicted to hit a production capacity of 22Mt/yr by the end of 2014 with demand expected to reach 35Mt/yr.

For more information on the Iraqi cement industry read Global Cement Magazine's article.