Displaying items by tag: Slag cement

Further shifts in the South Korean cement industry this week as Ssangyong Cement purchased Daehan Cement. Private equity firm Hahn & Company owns both producers so this looked like a realignment exercise. Yet it follows a corporate version of pass-the-parcel within the local cement industry. Hyundai Cement was acquired by Hanil Cement in the first half of 2017, Halla Cement was bought by investment firms from LafargeHolcim in mid-2016 and Tongyang Cement was bought by Sampyo Group in 2015.

Ssangyong Cement’s purchase is seen in the local media as an attempt to reaffirm its market dominance. Before the Hyundai Cement auction, Ssangyong Cement was the market leader with a cement production capacity of 15Mt/yr and a market share of around 20%. Hanil Cement’s on-going purchase of Hyundai Cement will see it increase its production capacity from 7Mt/yr to over 15Mt/yr. Ssangyong Cement’s transaction for Daehan Cement puts it back in the lead again.

The local industry is notable for the high ratio of cement grinding plants to integrated plants. The Korean Cement Association (KCA) reported that the country had 12 integrated plants to 23 grinding plants in 2015. This compares to other developed countries in relatively remote places such as Australia and Chile that also have high numbers of grinding plants. South Korea doesn’t import that much clinker though. One difference is its prominent steel industry that has hovered around 70Mt/yr since 2014 and which puts it in the top ten of world producers. Subsequently, as POSCO’s Sunghee Han explained at the Global Slag Conference 2016, 13.9Mt of granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) was produced in 2015 and the majority of this ended up being used as supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) either to grind cement or to make concrete. The size of this slag market underlines the value of the Daehan Cement sale, as it is a major slag cement producer.

Other notable point about the local cement industry includes the presence of a few extremely large multi-kiln plants with production capacities in excess of 7Mt/yr. The country also has a relative scarcity of limestone. South Korea is the fifth biggest importer of limestone in the world at US$34m. It brings limestone in principally from the UAE, Japan, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Notably it also has one of the world’s longest single conveyors, with a length of 12.8km, connecting a quarry to Ssangyong Cement’s Donghae plant.

Graph 1: Cement production and consumption in South Korea, 2010 – 2015. Source: Korean Cement Association.

Unlike the European cement-producing nations that this column has covered in recent weeks, fundamental market structural changes do not appear to be driving the merger and acquisition activity in South Korea. As Graph 1 shows, production and consumption fell from 2010 onwards but has started to pick up since 2013. Instead, a general slowing of the economy from 2010 and a relaxation of the rules triggered merger and acquisition activity. Unsurprisingly then, perhaps, given the potential opportunities for market manipulation, that the Fair Trade Commission fined six of the seven major producers a total of US$168m in early 2016 for alleged price fixing. With the private equity firms widely expected to exit the market after a relative short time, the cement industry looks set to remain volatile for the next few years. Doubtless the market regulators will be watching very carefully indeed to see how it all plays out.

South Korea: Ssangyong Cement has purchased a 100% stake in Daehan Cement for US$232.8m. Ssangyong Cement has signed an agreement with Hahn & Company to buy the stake from the private equity firm, according to the Maeil Business Newspaper. Daehan Cement is the country’s largest slag cement producer. Ssangyong Cement’s purchase is expected to preserve the cement producer’s market lead against Hanil Cement which bought Hyundai Cement earlier in 2017.

UK: Ecocem Ireland has officially opened its import terminal at Sheerness. The company’s second terminal in the UK is set to supply the construction market in the southeast and London. The unit cost is Euro2.9m to build and it will be able to supply the market with 250,000t/yr of the company’s slag cement products.

It follows the opening of Ecocem’s terminal at Runcorn in early 2016 and it joins facilities in the Ireland, the Netherlands and France.

“Our second investment into the UK in a state of the art import facility demonstrates to the market the need for the low carbon cement alternative and the growing demand from the UK construction industry. We have already engaged in long term agreements with major concrete manufacturers in the UK and will continue to build momentum in the coming months,” said Micheál McKittrick, the managing director of Ecocem Ireland.

India: UltraTech Cement has commissioned 0.3Mt/yr slag cement grinding mill at its grinding plant at Patliputra in Bihar. The new capacity is intended to meet demand for slag cement in eastern India. With the expansion of the plant the cement producer has a production capacity of 70.6Mt/yr.

India: Ambuja Cement has launched Ambuja Compocem, a composite cement made from fly ash and slag. The product is being produced at its Chhattisgarh plant and it has been introduced to markets in Bihar and Jharkland. It is being marketed to all market segments including individual house builders, real estate developers and infrastructure projects.

“With the launch of Ambuja Compocem, we have achieved a three pronged sustainability approach by conserving natural resources, creating a greener product and fulfilling customer needs for a superior performance product. We call this approach delivering true value,” said Ambuja Cement’s managing director and chief executive officer Ajay Kapur.

India: ACC’s net profit after tax has fallen by 9% year-on-year to US$32.7m in the first quarter of 2017 from US$36m in the same period in 2016. Its sales revenue grew by 8% to US$482m and its cement sales volumes grew by 4% to 6.6Mt. The cement producer blamed the fall in profit on higher costs of petcoke, coal, packing materials and freight, as well as a shortage of fly ash. ACC also reported that it launched two new products in 2017, including ACC High Performance Cement (HPC), a slag cement.

UAE: Renca, a technology start-up working with Dubai’s Future Accelerators programme, has developed a geopolymer cement from fly ash and ground granulated blast slag that can be used in 3D printing, according the National newspaper. The product’s advantage over Ordinary Portland Cement when used in additive manufacturing is that it can be used without additives making it cheaper.

The start-up is a joint venture between Andrey Dudnikov, a Russian businessmen, and Alex Reggiani, an Italian geologist and mineralogist. The company is working with the Dubai Municipality to develop its material for use in 3D printing projects in Dubai. The company is also looking to set up a plant for its product in the city.

UK: Breedon Group’s sales revenue and profits have been expanded by its acquisition of Hope Construction Materials in 2016. Its revenue rose by 43% year-on-year to Euro523m in 2016 from Euro367m in 2015. Its profit before tax rose by 50% to Euro53.9m from Euro36m. The group also attributed its success to its aggregate business.

“2016 was arguably the most eventful year in the group’s history. We completed our largest acquisition to date, invested a record amount in our business, began supplying our biggest ever contract and delivered an excellent financial performance – all against the background of an uncertain economic environment and challenging trading conditions in many of our markets,” said executive chairman Peter Tom.

The building materials company added cement production to its portfolio when it purchased Hope in mid-2016. It added a cement plant, five new quarries, a network of concrete plants and eight rail-linked distribution depots. In November 2016 it bought Sherburn Minerals, including two terminals in northeast England and eastern Scotland, that are used to import cement and ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS).

US: Orcem Americas, a subsidiary of Ireland’s Ecocem, has been refused planning permission to build a slag cement plant in Vallejo, California. The cement producer was hoping to build a US$50m grinding plant but it faced opposition from local residents on environmental grounds, according to the Irish Times. The issues for the planners was an anticipated increase in the number of trucks on local roads and pollution from the plant. Orcem Americas can now appeal the decision to Vallejo’s City Council if it chooses.

Bangladesh: Loesche has received an order to supply a 56.3+3 CS type vertical roller mill for the Aman Group’s Haria 2 cement plant at Narayangonj near Dhaka. The contractor for this order is the China National Heavy Machinery Corporation (CHMC). It follows a previous order by the Aman Group for a Loesche LM 56.3+3 CS mill that was supplied in 2014 for the Haria 1 line. The new mill was supplied in late 2016.

The roller mill for the Haria 2 line has a production capacity of 240t/hour for Portland and composite cement clinker with a fineness of 3200 Blaine or 175t/hour of ground-granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS) with a fineness of 4500 Blaine. It has a drive power of 5300kW. In addition to the mill, the scope of supply also specifies additional technical equipment for the grinding plant including a rotary feed, a two-way chute, a metal detector and a permanent magnet drum separator.