Displaying items by tag: Southern Province

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement expects to sign a contract for construction of a planned 10,000t/day new line at its Jazan cement plant in early 2023. Mist News has reported that the company commenced tendering for technical and financial offers for the project in May 2022.

When commissioned, Southern Province Cement plans for the new line to replace the plant’s older existing lines.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement's first-half 2022 sales were US$150m, down by 42% year-on-year from US$193m. Increased operating costs diminished the company's net profit by 42% from US$68.4m to US$39.9m.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement Company (SPCC) registered revenues of US$76.4m in the second quarter of 2021, a year-on-year fall of 15.3% compared to US$90.2m a year earlier. SPCC’s revenue was impacted by a 10.9% year-on-year fall in cement sales volumes, which came to 1.4Mt/yr for the quarter. SPCC’s gross and operating profits fell by 27.2% and 28.3% respectively year-on-year. The fall in profitability was at the back of lower volume and the resulting fall in operating leverage.

Cement volumes across the whole of Saudi Arabia fell grew by 21.3% year-on-year, while the Southern region saw sales fall by 5.1% year-on-year. Thus, SPCC underperformed relative to its peers by this metric.

Market Analyst Al Rajhi Capital said “Going forward, we expect cement volumes of SPCC to remain under pressure in the third quarter of 2021 on the back of lower construction activity due to uncertainties relating to the new building permit norms and shortage in labour.”

Saudi Arabia: In a report on 17 Saudi cement companies including itself, Yamama Cement recorded a year-on-year increase of 24% in sales volumes to 4.27Mt in November 2019 from 3.45Mt the previous November. The volume produced was 4.30Mt, up by 22% from 3.54Mt in November 2018. Mubasher has reported that the country has 1.22Mt of cement in inventory, 3.8% more than the 1.18Mt it held at the end of November 2018. Southern Province Cement Company (SPCC) led the month’s sales, with 0.61Mt.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement’s sales fell by 16.5% year-on-year to US$237m in 2018 from US$283m in 2017. Its net profit after Zakat and tax nearly halved to US$52m from US$98.7m. The company blamed the fall in sales and profit on lowering prices, despite higher sales volumes.

The cement producer has also announced renewal of its export licence from the Ministry of Trade and Investment. It will export up to 1Mt of clinker and 0.5Mt of cement for a year from 13 February 2019.

Saudi Arabia/Yemen: Southern Province Cement has signed a deal to sell 20,000t of cement to Yemen. The deal will last for three months. It started in early December 2018 with the export of a 7000t consignment. It follows a similar agreement that Tabuk Cement agreed in late November 2018 to export products to Yemen.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement’s sales fell by 9.6% year-on-year to US$73m in the first quarter of 2018 from US$80.8m in the same period in 2017. Its net profit fell by 2.9% to US$27.2m from US$28m. It blamed the falling sales and profit on decreased demand.

Saudi Arabia: Southern Province Cement has commenced trial operation at the second production line of its Bishah cement plant. The trial operation will continue until the plant reaches a contractual design capacity of 5000t/day of clinker. Once the trial is complete the plant's production capacity from its three lines will reach 33,000t/day of clinker. The company noted in a statement that there are neither expected costs nor financial impact for this trial operation. The date of full operation will be announced later.

Saudi Arabia: Saudi cement producer Southern Province Cement (SPC) has signed a US$190.1m contract for the installation of a second production line at its plant in Bisha.

The contract will be executed over a period of 20 months. SPC said it will use a combination of Islamic financing and its own funds to finance the project.

In May 2012 the Saudi firm signed a US$188.5m turnkey contract with China's Sinoma for a third production line at SPC's plant in Tuhama. The project is expected to take 24 months to complete.

Demand for cement is so intense in Saudi Arabia that certain producers have reported production line shutdowns in dedicated stock market statements. Notably, industry newcomer Hail Cement reported a scheduled shutdown for late October/early November 2013, Al Jouf Cement reported unscheduled shutdowns in October and June 2013 and Najran Cement reported scheduled maintenance in July 2013. Even a short delay to cement production is a newsworthy event for both investors and analysts.

Saudi cement producers have risen to the infrastructure challenges of the country's Ninth Development Plan, increasing cement production by 6% year-on-year to 42.7Mt for the first nine months of 2013. In this febrile environment, the king ordered 10Mt of cement imports in April 2013 followed by government demands for producers to build up a two-month 'strategic' inventory reserve. Unsurprisingly, as we report this week, exports of cement from Saudi Arabia have fallen by 55% for the first nine months of 2013.

At the time of Global Cement's feature on Saudi Arabia in December 2012 only two of the country's cement producers had an inventory of joint clinker and cement stock meeting the government's stockpiling request. For the first nine months of 2013 the situation remains the same although the overall inventory has increased by 18% year-on-year to 10.3Mt. This compares to the end of 2012 where inventories fell year-on-year by 14% to 7Mt.

Unsurprisingly again, the Kingdom's major cement producers have seen balance sheets bulge so far in 2013. Yamama Cement reported a 12% year-on-year rise in net profit to US$145m for the first half of 2013 on the back of local demand. Saudi Cement Company reported a 5% year-on-year rise in its net profits to US$173m and Southern Province Cement saw a 4% year-on-year rise in its net profits to US$150m for the same period. Yanbu Cement saw its net profit rise by 29% year-on-year to US$176m for the first nine months of 2013.

With more large government infrastructure contracts pending, analysts expect the Saudi cement market to remain heated. Although as NCB Capital pointed out in September 2013, uncertainties over fuel supplies for coming cement plant expansions provide uncertainty to the situation. Nobody wants a repeat of the Yanbu - Aramco spat over fuel supplies that occurred in 2011. Irony would barely describe the situation if a Saudi Arabian cement boom was dented by a lack of fuel in one of the countries with the biggest oil reserves in the world.

Global Cement will be at stand T9 at the 18th Arab-International Cement Conference and Exhibition in Jordan from 11 – 13 November 2013