Displaying items by tag: Siam City Cement

Thailand: Siam City Cement has appointed Ramjan Sachdeva as its group chief financial officer. He succeeds Mark Anatol Schmidt in the role.

Prior to this he was the Group Head Internal Audit and Compliance for Siam City Cement in Thailand and the Group Commercial Director for mining company Vedanta in India. Earlier in his career he spent eight years working for Holcim in India in procurement and audit roles, as well as for Nestlé.

Sachdeva holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology in India and a master of business administration qualification from the University of Leicester in the UK.

Vietnam: Thailand-based Siam City Cement has launched construction of Mill 2 of its 1.3Mt/yr Thi Vai grinding plant in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province. Việt Nam News has reported that the company plans to invest US$35m in the project.

The Thi Vai grinding plant cost US$53m when built in 2003.

Sri Lanka: INSEE Cement and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) have signed a memorandum (MoU) of understanding to extend their global biodiversity management partnership until 2026. Projects include quarry restoration, wildlife rescue and release and field surveys of the Koggala and Aruwakkalu mangrove restoration sites and Unawatuna manmade coral reef.

INSEE Cement's environment and corporate social responsibility manager Rohan Lakmal said "Biodiversity is one of the fundamental pillars of INSEE's Sustainability Ambition 2030. Our partnership with IUCN enables INSEE Cement to meet our own ambitious sustainability targets, while also creating more awareness of the general decline in Sri Lanka's biodiversity, and the urgency to do our part to conserve our natural habitats."

Thailand/Sri Lanka: Siam City Cement has despatched US$111,000-worth of medical supplies and monetary donations to Sri Lanka as humanitarian aid amid the on-going financial crisis in the country. Year-on-year inflation was 61% in July 2022.

The Nation newspaper reported that the Thai government has donated a total of US$158,000-worth of supplies to the country. It said “The donations reflect the close and cordial ties as well as the goodwill between Thai and Sri Lankan people.”

Thailand: Siam City Cement recorded consolidated sales of US$363m in the first quarter of 2022, up by 21% year-on-year from first-quarter 2021 levels. The group’s net profit fell by 25% to US$23.2m from US$30.7m.

Thailand: Siam City Cement's (SCC) sales, volumes and earnings picked up in the second half of 2021 following the easing of Covid-19-related lockdown measures in Thailand and Vietnam. Price rises, especially outside of Thailand, also reportedly helped to compensate for higher raw material, energy and transportation costs.

The group’s full-year consolidated sales fell slightly to US$1.28bn in 2021 from US$1.29bn in 2020. Sales revenue from its cement division rose by 3% year-on-year to US$842m but dropped by 19% to US$166m from its concrete division. Its overall earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 6.8% to US$289m from US$310m. Net profit rose by 15.4% to US$131m from US$113m.

Sri Lanka: Siam City Cement subsidiary Insee Cement says that it is operating at full capacity utilisation across its network, which includes a 3.6Mt/yr-integrated cement plant. The Daily News (Sri Lanka) newspaper has reported that the producer is responding to a shortage in the country due to the partial suspension of imports. It said that it has been able to do this thanks to the uninterrupted supply of raw materials by its parent company.

Chief executive officer Gustavo Navarro said, "Our consumers can be assured as always of full-capacity production and supply of Insee Cement to the market. We trust that we can curtail any unnecessary pressure on the Consumer Affairs Authority and government regulators who have been pressed for price hikes and hope to quell any disruptions to market supply across Sri Lanka."

Thailand: Siam City Cement says that coronavirus-related public health measures reduced demand for cement towards the end of the second quarter of 2021. The group noted that the domestic market for cement ‘softened’ despite strong sales overseas in Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Its overall net sales fell by 3.6% year-on-year to US$616m in the first half of 2021 from US$639m in the same period in 2020. Its earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) dropped by 4.4% to US$142m from US$149m. It also reported reduced sales from its ready-mixed concrete and aggregate business lines due to the pandemic’s effects on construction markets and the related closures of construction worker camps.

Thailand: Siam City Cement has signed a new contract with US-based SAP Ariba for the further digitisation of its end-to-end procurement processes by using the latter’s software products. The producer first partnered with the company for “sourcing, contracts, catalogues, supplier information management and supplier collaboration” in 2016. Following the latest release in August 2020, SAP Ariba’s products support the Thai language, “making it easier for buyers and suppliers to communicate and transact over Ariba Network.”

Head of group procurement Benjamin Goodwin said, “From the beginning, we saw our procurement transformation as an opportunity to bring more value to the organisation and to our network of suppliers in Thailand and beyond. Our recent renewal of SAP Ariba solutions is a result of the successful partnership cultivated over the years, which set us up to achieve process efficiencies and cost savings from automation, standardization and improved collaboration with suppliers. We look forward to continuing our journey with SAP Ariba.”

Thailand: Profits have risen at Siam City Cement due to cost cutting initiatives and lower energy prices despite disruption caused by government-related coronavirus responses. It also mothballed a kiln at its Saraburi plant in May 2020 to, “optimise resources and capacities corresponding to demand contraction across the region.” The group’s net sales fell by 10.9% year-on-year to US$679m in the first half of 2020 from US$792m in the same period in 2019. Its net profit rose by 6.2% to US$59.2m from US$55.8m.