Displaying items by tag: Spain

Spain: The Málaga government has approved adjustments to HeidelbergCement subsidiary FYM’s special plan for its La Araña cement plant. The La Opinión de Málaga newspaper has reported that the plan incorporates the findings of new environmental and landscape studies enabling an enlargement of the area of operations. The approval’s effect will depend on the outcome of an on-going court case by a local interest group against the plan.

Spain: Mexico-based Cemex subsidiary Cemex España has announced plans to resume activity at its Lloseta cement plant in Majorca at a limited production level. The UltimaHora newspaper has reported that the company will employ the staff who stayed on for maintenance purposes from the plant’s January 2019 closure. After suspending activity at the plant the company had until mid-April 2021 to inform the local government of its plans for the site.

Cemex is in the process of establishing a green hydrogen plant at Lloseta with a Euro10m EU grant. It said, "We do not rule out that in the future the cement plant may adapt and become an industrial benchmark in the use of green hydrogen for the production of cement with a low carbon footprint."

Chile: Melón’s new 0.25Mt/yr grinding plant that it is building at Punta Arenas is scheduled to start operation by the end of the first half of 2021. The unit is forecast to produce around 80,000t of cement in its 12 months, according to the La Prensa Austral newspaper. It has had an investment of US$30m and will create around 50 jobs. Spain-based Cemengal was previously reported as the supplier of the mill. It is intended to supply the Magallanes Region including Tierra del Fuego. The cement producer is also considering doubling the production capacity of the grinding plant to 0.5Mt/yr if the market supports it.

Spain: Cemex is supplying cement to the site of the upcoming Santolea Canyon dam in Aragon. The 59m-high structure will hold a 105hm³ reservoir, which will provide water to 2000 surrounding farms. Concrete pouring began at the site in March 2020 and is scheduled to reach completion in mid-2021.

Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia regional president Sergio Menendez said, "We are very proud of our participation in the construction of the Santolea Canyon dam, a key project requiring materials and solutions of the highest technical and environmental specifications. The new Santolea dam will greatly contribute to support sustainable growth in the region”.

News has been dripping out slowly over the last few months about which assets HeidelbergCement is planning to divest. This week reporting from Bloomberg suggested that the German-based building materials producer might be seriously considering selling one or more integrated plants in Spain. The idea is reportedly part of a wider review of its portfolio in the country with the possible inclusion of cement plants at San Sebastian and Bilbao at a future date also. A proposed price of Euro300m for the national business was put forward by the sources to the reporters but it is unclear how many cement plants that figure includes.

HeidelbergCement announced in July 2020 that it had reduced the value of its total assets by Euro3.4bn following a review. It blamed this on reduced demand for building materials due to the coronavirus pandemic and the devaluation of its Hanson subsidiary in the UK, in part related to the UK’s exit from the European Union. A divestment plan followed at its Capital Markets Day event in September 2020 when it said it was simplifying its country portfolio and prioritising the strongest market positions. To this end it said it was setting up a watch list of underperforming assets to keep an eye on.

Over the next few months a number of corporate reorganisations and actual confirmed divestments occurred as well as plenty of speculation. HeidelbergCement-controlled Suez Cement started to acquire a 100% stake in its own subsidiary, Tourah Portland Cement, in September 2020. Suez Cement then sold its majority stake in Kuwait-based Hilal Cement in late January 2021. This week HeidelbergCement Bangladesh informed the local stock exchange that it is planning to amalgamate its subsidiary Emirates Cement.

Signs that European reviews had taken place could be seen later in the autumn of 2020. In November 2020 the Italian press picked up on rumours that HeidelbergCement was planning to move subsidiary Italcementi’s research centre from Bergamo, Lombardy, to Heidelberg in Baden Württemberg. Whether this was ever a serious proposition or not, this appeared to have been avoided in early February 2021 when an Italian union said it had agreed with Italcementi to keep the research centre in Italy as well as a preserving jobs generally. Meanwhile, also in November 2020, France-based subsidiary Ciments Calcia announced a major upgrade at its integrated Airvault cement plant but along with the conversion of two other integrated plants into a grinding unit and a terminal respectively, and changes at the French headquarters at Guervill.

Just before Christmas the bigger speculations started to appear in the press, with a story suggesting that HeidelbergCement was considering selling assets in California, US, with a target price of US$1.5bn for three integrated plants and associated concrete and aggregate units. That story is particularly beguiling given Cemex’s decision this month to reopen a kiln in Mexico to supply cement to the southwest US to meet shortages (See GCW 493)! Incidentally, readers should also note the story this week about a shortage of natural gas exports from Texas, US, that has caused cement plants in northern Mexico to shut down. This week, as mentioned at the start, has seen Spain added to the list of places that HeidelbergCement might be considering selling up in. The Spanish market like Italy has been rationalising heavily over the last decade particularly as export markets have dwindled. Oficemen, the Spanish cement association, reported that domestic cement consumption fell by 10% year-on-year to 13.3Mt in 2020 from 14.7Mt in 2019. On top of this Oficemen has repeatedly warned of the threat that CO₂ emissions prices pose for its members’ exports.

Group chairman Dominik von Achten told Reuters this month that the company plans to sell the first of the five assets in early-to-mid 2021. Of course he wouldn’t say where, except for adding that the company would stay in ‘rock solid’ markets like Northern Europe. Indonesia has been seen as a candidate for disposal by analysts, likely due to local production overcapacity levels and LafargeHolcim’s own departure in Indonesia 2018. All Von Achten would say on the matter was that Indonesia was an ‘important’ market for the group. Whether it’s seen as important for reducing company debt or building value remains to be seen. HeidelbergCement hasn’t exactly been shy about saying what they are doing over the last half year or so but they are only going so far and they won’t comment on speculation. So in the meantime we must wait to find out more.

Mexico: Cemex plans to start using hydrogen as part of its fuel mix at its cement plants around the world in 2021. The estimated cost of the roll-out is US$40m. The company says it completed the deployment of its hydrogen technology across all of its cement plants in Europe in 2020 following trials at the Alicante Cement Plant in Spain in mid- 2019.

Global operations, technical and energy vice-president Roberto Ponguta said, “The fast adoption of this new hydrogen-based technology is a clear example of Cemex's innovation efforts and its strong commitment to decarbonise the cement production process.” He added, "We continue to identify and deploy existing technologies which have a high potential to contribute to our sustainability goals, and hydrogen is a key lever.”

Spain: Germany-based HeidelbergCement is reviewing its Spanish assets, which includes three integrated cement plants and related businesses. It is considered ‘likely’ it will sell its plant in Malaga and it might sell its other plants at San Sebastian and Bilbao also, according to Bloomberg. The company’s assets in the country have been valued at around Euro300m by one source quoted by Bloomberg. Group chairman Dominik von Achten told Reuters earlier in February 2021 that the company completed a review of its business and identified five assets to sell.

Europe: Cemex commissioned seven new bolt-on investments across Europe in January 2021. The company says that all of the investments are aligned to its key priorities of climate action, sustainable construction and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) growth. They include advances in fossil fuel reduction, lower CO₂ footprint products, circular economy investments and products that demonstrate life cycle CO₂ and energy consumption advantages for buildings. It made various changes at its cement plants, for example the installation of a new alternative fuel (AF) system in the Czech Republic. In France and the UK, it made circular economy and recycling improvements, and shifted to lower-CO₂ cement production in Croatia and lightweight concrete production in Spain. Additionally, it made efficiency upgrades to sites in Spain and the UK.

Europe, Middle East and Africa regional president Sergio Menendez said, “We have made a strong start to our 2021 ambitions to both grow our business and improve our climate impact. In 2020, we achieved our ambition of a 35% reduction in our CO₂ emissions compared to our 1990 baseline in Europe. We are also the first company in our sector to align our Europe operations to the EU aspiration to reduce CO₂ emissions by at least 55% by 2030. These investments represent further advances towards this 2030 target, as well as to deliver net zero CO₂ concrete globally by 2050.”

Spain: Cementos La Cruz has partnered with other building materials, construction and waste management companies and the Murcia Technological Centre for Construction to support a study by the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT). The Europa Press newspaper has reported that the research aims to develop geopolymeric concretes from industrial and urban waste, without the use of cement. The study is 80% financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

UPCT science and advanced construction technology research group coordinator Carlos Parra said, “Stopping the use of concrete is not the solution, as it is a relatively accessible material that allows access to housing and multiple services for millions of people around the world and is also a material with high resilience against natural catastrophes such as floods, hurricanes and resistant to the passage of time.”

Spain: Cementos Portland Valderrivas has made donations worth Euro3000 of food and sanitary products to host communities in the neighbourhood of its Alcalá de Guadaíra cement plant in Seville. The company says that the donations are intended to support vulnerable families and groups affected by the coronavirus crisis.