Displaying items by tag: Shutdown

Cameroon: Luc Magloire, the Minister of Commerce, has written to Cimenteries du Cameroun (CIMENCAM) threatening to close its production facilities if it raises its prices without approval. In the letter the minister accused the subsidiary of LafargeHolcim of increasing its wholesale prices and of preparing to do so again without consent, according to the Ecofin Agency. Prices have reportedly risen by up to 8% in some places.

Friction occurred between the government and CIMENCAM in 2020 when LafargeHolcim renewed the term of Benoît Galichet as the chief executive officer of its local subsidiary. The government, a large minority shareholder of the company, opposed the decision. The government and the cement producer have also disagreed previously over the price of cement.

Ghana: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agents and police have raided China-based Empire Cement’s McCarthy Hills cement plant in Accra. The Ghana News Agency has reported that the facility had entered cement production without a licence. The authorities stopped operations at the site and dismissed the staff, including Chinese nationals. Previously, local residents had complained about potential environmental concerns at the site.

Trinidad and Tobago: Rock Hard Cement says it intends to raise the price of its imported cement in July 2021 due to increasing prices around the world and volatile shipping rates. It added that it expected prices to stabilise in 2022, according to the Trinidad Express newspaper. Cement shortages have been reported at retailers in the country. This has been attributed to local manufacturer Trinidad Cement stopping production in early May 2021 dye to government coronavirus-related health regulations.

Lebanon: Cimenterie Nationale has announced that it will dispatch its last batch of cement for the foreseeable future on 6 March 2021. The L’Orient-Le Jour newspaper has reported the cause for the stoppage as the exhaustion of stocks of raw materials. The Lebanese government suspended access by cement producers to their quarries in October 2020. The nation’s three cement companies are permitted only to produce cement using clinker or limestone from existing stockpiles.

The company currently has 700 employees. It said that 3500 other jobs depend indirectly on its activities.

Mexico: Nearly 500 cement and concrete plants in the northern Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León and Sonora have partly or fully suspended production due to an on-going regional shortage of natural gas. The El Financiero newspaper reports that plants run by Grupo Cementos Chihuahua (GCC), Cemex, Holcim and Cruz Azul operate in this region.

GCC said that a lack of electricity and natural gas had affected production at three of its plants in Chihuahua, Samalayuca and Juárez. Mexican Association of the Ready-mix Concrete Industry (AMIC) president Ana Laura Burciaga said that the situation has caused a 50% drop in the cement supply to concrete plants.

The cause of the shortage is reported to be the suspension of natural gas exports from Texas, US. Mexican steel and automotive manufacturers have also been affected.

Uruguay: Spain-based Cementos Molins and Brazil-based Votorantim Cimentos subsidiary Cementos Artigas plans to invest US$40m in upgrading its integrated Minas clinker plant with the addition of a vertical roller mill and new cement silos in order to consolidate its clinker production and grinding capacity at the site. The El Periodico newspaper has reported that, as a result, the producer will shut its Sayago grinding plant, leading to a net reduction in production costs of 40%.

Work will begin by early 2021 and the company will commission the new integrated production line in 2022. Cementos Molins chief executive officer (CEO) Julio Rodriguez said, “With this new investment we continue to develop our strategy, in which sustainability and respect for the environment are the first priority. At the same time, it is also a clear sign of our long-term commitment to the Uruguayan market where we have been present since 1991.”

Zimbabwe: The Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has ordered Lafarge Cement Zimbabwe to stop operations at its integrated Harare plant due to abnormal dust emissions. As part of the order the plant has been requested to notify local stakeholders and the community of any new developments or incident that may affect them, according to the NewsDay newspaper. It will also be required to report daily dust emissions readings to the EMA every two weeks.

The cement producer said it experienced an unexpected surge in dust emissions during a trial of using saw dust as an alternative fuel at the plant between July 30 and 1 August 2020. It added that immediate action was taken to control and contain the emissions and the incident was reported to EMA in line with regulatory requirements.

Under the current circumstances it’s not surprising to see how much Indian cement production fell in April 2020. Like many other countries, its lockdown measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak suppressed industrial output. Yet seeing an 86% year-on-year fall in the world’s second largest producer is shocking. Cement production declined to 4.1Mt from 29.2Mt. Further data shows, as part of the Indian government’s eight core industries, that steel and cement production suffered the most. Coal, crude oil, natural gas, petroleum refinery products, fertilisers and electricity generation all fell by far less.

Graph 1: Change in Indian cement production year-on-year (%). Source: Office of the Economic Adviser.

By comparison in China monthly cement output only fell around 30% at the peak of its outbreak. The difference is that China implemented a graduated lockdown nationally, with the toughest measures applied in Wuhan, the place the outbreak was first identified. As we reported in April 2020 demand for cement in Wuhan had fallen by around 80% at the time its lockdown ended. Production and demand are different, but India’s experience feels similar except that it’s on a national scale. The last time the country had a dip in cement production recently was in late 2016 when the government introduced its demonetisation measures and dented cement production growth rate (and national productivity) in the process.

UltraTech Cement, Orient Cement, Ambuja Cement, India Cement, Dalmia Bharat, JK Lakshmi Cement, Shree Cement and others all suspended operations to varying degrees in the first phase of the lockdown in late March 2020. Operations of industrial plants in rural areas was then cleared to restart in mid-April 2020, although subject to local permissions and social distancing rules, as the country’s lockdown zones took shape. All of this started to show in company results towards the end of March 2020 as sales started to be hit. The worst is yet to filter through to balance sheets.

March 2020 was a particularly bad time for the government to shut down cement plants because it is normally the month when annual construction work peaks. Cement production usually hits a high around the same time. The monsoon season then follows, reducing demand, giving producers a poor time to restart business. Credit ratings agency Care Ratings has forecast that capacity utilisation will drop to 45% in the 2020 – 2021 financial year. This follows a rate of 65 – 70% over the last six years with the exception of 2019- 2020, which was dragged down to 61% due to lockdown effects. On top of this labour issues are also expected to be a major issue to the sector returning to normality. The mass movement of workers back to their homes made world-wide news as India started its lockdown. Now they have to move back and Care Ratings thinks this is unlikely to complete until after the monsoon season, by September 2020. Hence, it doesn’t expect a partial recovery until the autumn, nor a full recovery until January 2021 at the earliest.

Not everybody is quite as gloomy though. HM Bangur, the managing director at Shree Cement recently told the Business Standard newspaper that he was expecting a rebound following the resumption of production in May 2020. He also reported a capacity utilisation rate of 60% at his company, higher than Care Rating’s prediction above, and he noted a difference between demand in rural areas and smaller cities (higher) compared to bigger cities (lower).

India is now pushing forward with plans to further unlock its containment measures to focus on the economy. However, daily reported news cases of coronavirus surpassed 8000 for the first time on Sunday 31 May 2020. How well its more relaxed lockdown rules will work won’t be seen for a few weeks. While this plays out we’ll end with quote from HM Bangur that will resonate with cement producers everywhere: “sales are imperative.”

Australia/New Zealand/US: Ireland-based James Hardie has announced the planned closure of three of its fibre cement board plants. The Cooroy, Queensland plant in Australia, Summerville, South Carolina plant in the US and Penrose, Auckland plant in New Zealand will close permanently in mid-2020, resulting in a total of 375 job cuts. The NZ Herald newspaper has reported that the decision to shut the plants came about due to the impacts of the coronavirus outbreak on the global economic situation. James Hardie will now supply the New Zealand market from its Carole Park, Queensland and Rosehill, New South Wales plants. James Hardie also closed its Siglingen, Baden-Württemberg plant in Germany on a temporary basis, ‘in order to better match supply and demand in the European market.’

James Hardie revised its 2020 profit forecast to US$355m, down by 4.1% from US$370m.

Egypt: Suez Cement, a HeidelbergCement subsidiary has implemented of a 20% reduction in pay for members of the management committee and a 30% reduction in pay for the managing director in the second quarter of 2020. The cuts are intended as a ‘cost-saving measure’ in line with the company’s aim to reduce expenses. Suez Cement said, “During the last few years the Egyptian cement industry has been going through very challenging times caused by oversupply and a sustained decrease in the demand, and Suez Cement Group has posted negative results. The COVID-19 crisis has complicated market conditions, affecting demand and increasing our costs. Moreover, it has affected our main shareholder, HeidelbergCement. In many countries it has suffered complete shutdowns and it is currently enduring complications in most of the countries that is present.”

Suez Cement continues to employ all staff.