Displaying items by tag: Spain

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.

Spain: A regional court has ruled in favour of Cementos Cosmos in a case brought by local environmental group Bierzo Aire Limpio. The protestors alleged that the company had violated regulations at its Toral de los Vados cement plant in El Bierzo, León. The court ruled that the producer had acted correctly and in continuous communication with the administration.

Spain: Oficemen, the Spanish cement association, reports that domestic cement consumption fell by 10% year-on-year to 13.3Mt in 2020 from 14.7Mt in 2019. Consumption at this level was last reported in 1967. The 12-month accumulated consumption figure began to fall in April 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions and the association does not expect growth in 2021 despite an improvement in December 2020. Cement and clinker exports fell by 3.4% to 5.99Mt from 6.20Mt. It has forecast anything between a 3% rise and a 3% fall in consumption in 2021, due to coronavirus-related uncertainty.

The figures suggest that capacity utilisation in the cement industry is at roughly 60% nationally, according to the El Economista newspaper. Oficemen president Víctor García Brosa said that this level ‘cannot be indefinitely maintained.’ The association called for a recovery plan committed to infrastructure development, residential construction and rehabilitation and energy efficient transport.

Spain: Mexico-based Cemex has supplied 30,000t of cement and 100,000m³ of concrete for an expansion of Teruel Airport Platform (PLATA) maintenance, repair and operations airport in Teruel, Aragon. The company said that the expansion consists of a 3km runway, terminals, an expanded parking platform and two new hangars, in addition to an industrial zone and other facilities. The airport's current expansion phase requires a further 40,000m³ of concrete.

Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia regional president Sergio Menéndez said, "Since the beginning of the Teruel Airport project more than a decade ago, Cemex has been present in its construction and continuous expansion. We are proud to have contributed to this infrastructure, becoming an engine of economic recovery.”

Spain: Cemex España has announced plans to invest Euro4m in upgrades to its Buñol, Valencia, Muel, Zaragoza, Raspeig, Alicante and Rubí, Barcelona mortar plants. The upgrades will increase production capacity, safety and efficiency and improve product quality. The company said that the promotion of its range of over 160 special mortars is a main focus of the investment.

Cemex Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia regional president Sergio Menéndez said “We recognise the growing demand for innovative mortar solutions for new and existing buildings to reduce carbon emissions in our cities and support the EU Renewal Wave. Our wide range of mortars for dry silos, in bags and ready to use, is reinforced by expert solutions for paving streets, plastered walls, tunnel solutions, plasters and special sands.”

The group is also investing in upgrades to production and packaging systems in its mortar segment in Poland and the UK.

Cement imports were one of the themes in this week’s news, with stories on the topic from South Africa and Ukraine. The former concerned the latest chapter in that industry’s saga on slowing down imports. The International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC) has started a review on tariffs imposed on cement from Pakistan that were introduced in 2015.

Local producers in South Africa have experienced mixed fortunes since 2015, such as PPC and AfriSam’s failed merger attempt or the introduction of a local carbon tax, and were starting to complain again about imports even before the effects of coronavirus in 2020. This led the Concrete Institute to lobby ITAC in 2019 about rising imports from other nations, principally Vietnam and China.

Back in 2013 cement imports from Pakistan to South Africa were 1.1Mt. This represented the vast majority of all imports to the country. Tariffs of 14 – 77% were imposed on Pakistan-based exporters in mid-2015, initially for six months, but this was then extended. Roughly a year later in mid-to-late 2016, Sephaku Holdings said that imports of cement had ‘significantly’ declined on a year-on-year basis, particularly from Pakistan. By the end of June 2016 approximately 0.16Mt had been imported compared to 0.5Mt in the previous period. However, it noted that 75% of the volume was from China. Since then imports started to creep up. Cement imports reportedly rose by 84% year-on-year in 2018 and then by 11% in 2019. Data from construction industry data company Industry Insight suggests that Vietnam accounted for 70% or 0.47Mt of the 0.68Mt of cement imported into South Africa in the first nine months of 2020. The remaining 30% or 0.20Mt came from Pakistan. In this kind of environment it seems unlikely that ITAC will do anything other than extend tariffs.

Meanwhile in the northern hemisphere, in Ukraine this week a court in Kiev dismissed a challenge by the Belarusian Cement Company to remove cement import tariffs from Russia, Belarus and Moldova that were introduced in mid-2019 for five years. Notably, a law firm representing Dyckerhoff Cement Ukraine, HeidelbergCement Ukraine, Ivano-Frankivsk Ukraine and CRH subsidiary Podilsky Cement commented favourably upon the court’s decision to uphold tariffs. These producers form UKRCEMENT, the association of cement producers of Ukraine. However, the association doesn’t include Russia-based Eurocement, which operates Ukraine’s largest cement plant at Balakleya. Relations have been poor between Russia and Ukraine since a war between the countries that started in 2014. So any trade tariffs implemented upon Russia and/or Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) members will inevitably carry the whiff of geopolitics. Yet, in Ukraine’s defence, it also started an anti-dumping investigation into cement imports from Turkey in September 2020. Nationalism may be relevant but let’s not discount hard-nosed economics just yet.

Turkey’s involvement in Ukraine leads to last week’s presentation at Global Cement Live by Sylvie Doutres, DSG Consultants on cement and clinker trade in and out of the Mediterranean region. Readers can watch the presentation here but the headline story here was the trend of reducing exports away from southern European countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece, to greater exports from North African countries and Turkey over the last decade. Turkey particularly has pushed its share of exports even more in 2020 despite (or perhaps because of) a tough domestic market. The general trend here away from southern Europe has been blamed on European Union-based (EU) producers becoming less competitive often against newer plants in nearby countries.

Battles between producers and government tariff policies are a perennial feature of any market in commodities such as cement. The ebb and flow of import and export markets cover many factors including production costs, distribution networks, tariff structures and more. Distinctive features of cement trading, for example, are the high cost of transporting heavy building materials over land and the world’s chronic cement production overcapacity. In the EU’s case one reason that often gets blamed is the emissions trading system (EU ETS) and the mounting cost it is imposing upon cement production. For example, today’s story that Holcim España wants to convert its integrated Jerez plant into a grinding unit has been blamed on falling exports and a reduction in ETS credits. It is noteworthy then that the EU ETS rate breached the Euro30/t level in December 2020. This may be good news for the sustainability lobby but the exodus of exports away from Southern Europe tells its own story. What form the EU ETS carbon border adjustment mechanism takes as part of the EU Green Deal will be watched closely by producers both inside and outside the EU.

Global Cement Live continues on 21 January 2021 with Kevin Rudd, Independent Cement Consultants, presenting 'Independent or third party factory acceptance testing of major cement plant equipment and critical spare parts and the challenges of Covid’

Spain: LafargeHolcim subsidiary Holcim España has informed the works council and employees of its Jerez de la Frontera cement plant of possible planned changes to the plant’s production structure. The company intends to convert the cement plant into a grinding-only facility. The reasons for the decision were regional overcapacity, falling export volumes and prices and reduced allocations of EU CO₂ emissions credits. It says that under the plan the new grinding plant would continue to serve the market in the region. The communication constitutes the beginning of a collective dismissal process.

General director Isidoro Miranda said that the company wants “to work with the social partners to reach an agreement that allows the continuity of our activity in the town of Jerez.”

Spain: Cementos Molins has increased its stake in concrete design specialist Escofet to 76% from 37%. The company says that it hopes to retain the public architecture producer’s management team. It said that it will integrate the subsidiary under its prefabricated concrete division to combine industrial expertise with design excellence.

Chief Executive Officer Julio Rodríguez said that the company’s 2020 – 2022 strategy prioritises “both organic and inorganic growth,” seeking new acquisitions while “maintaining financial discipline and selecting projects where the return on investment is clear."

Spain: LafargeHolcim has successfully demolished a 78.5m high silo at its Los Barrios Port Terminal in the Port of Algeciras. The company is currently dismantling its unit at the port. A specialised company was hired by the cement producer to conduct the operation following a survey.