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Displaying items by tag: UAE
UAE: The shareholders of RAK Cement have approved the conditional of the Newtec cement plant and Al-Banna quarry in Fujairah. The purchase was originally announced in late February 2019. It planned to buy the assets for around US$123m.
Oman: Raysut Cement’s sales revenue rose by 27% year-on-year to US$236m in 2018 from US$187m in 2017. However, its operating profit fell by 85% to US$7.02m from US$17.5m. It blamed this on lower prices due to imports from the UAE, higher packaging costs, higher shipping costs and other general costs. Its cement sales volumes increased by 13% to 3.33Mt from 2.94Mt. The cement producer noted that excess production capacity in the UAE reduced prices in that country as well as in northern Oman.
Update on the UAE
27 February 2019The UAE is having a moment. Over the last week Fujairah Natural Resources, a new entrant to cement, said it is going to build a clinker plant at Habbab in Fujairah. It’s also looking likely that Raysut Cement might buy UAE-based Fujairah Cement Company’s shares in Sohar Cement in Oman. Then, Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Cement announced that it had purchased the Newtech cement plant. What’s happening here?
The last couple of years have been tough ones for Emirati cement producers, which have been fighting falling sales and beleaguered profits. The largest producer, Arkan Building Materials - a group majority controlled by the Abu Dhabi government, reported flat sales growth for the first nine months of 2018. It blamed this on falling sales of clinker due to imports from Iran and a tough pricing environment. Its profits were hit by rising clinker production costs due to its reliance on imported limestone from Oman whilst it resolves problems with its own local quarry. Arkan had closed its Emirates Cement plant in Al Ain following revenue and profit falls in 2016. This story thread reached its end earlier in February 2019 when Arkan sold the closed plant for around US$14m. National Cement reported a similar experience in its nine months results, with growing revenue but sales sapped by mounting costs.
Data from Riyad Capital in early-2018 suggested that the UAE only consumes about half of its own cement production. The rest is exported to the Middle East and North African region, particularly Oman and Egypt, and African countries. The country has 14 integrated cement plants with a production capacity of 31.4Mt/yr and eight grinding plants with a capacity of 10.4Mt/yr. These are owned by a mixture of local companies and multinationals.
The European producers still have a presence through LafargeHolcim’s Lafarge Emirates plant in Fujairah and a grinding plant run by Cemex. Although how long LafargeHolcim will remain seems uncertain given a report by Bloomberg earlier in February 2019 suggesting that the group is seriously looking at exiting the Middle East and Africa. Oman’s Raysut Cement holds a plant too via its Pioneer Cement subsidiary but the majority of the foreign-owned plants are Indian. Their presence has been steadily growing.
Aditya Birla/UltraTech Cement, JK Cement and Shree Cement all run plants in the UAE and JSW Cement said in mid-2018 that it was going to build a 1Mt/yr integrated plant in Fujairah. UltraTech Cement renamed its grinding plant UltraTech Nathdwara Cement in December 2018. This plant was formerly a Binani Cement plant and part of the rancorous bidding war between UltraTech Cement and Dalmia Bharat.
The background to all of this has been a country that is very willing to spend big on infrastructure projects when the need arises. Forbes reckoned, for example, that the UAE had awarded US$20.7bn on infrastructure projects in 2018 in the first nine months of 2018. Impending projects like the Expo 2020 are still generating construction activity and longer ones like Dubai Metro are in progress. However, the country is in a dynamic place geographically between the two-major economic and cement-producing powerhouses of Saudi Arabia and Iran. For the cement industry this explains the prominence of the grinding sector and the growing interest from Indian companies looking to expand overseas. For the new project and acquisition this week it’s looking more like local variation in the market at this stage. In this context though the fourth quarter results from local producers will make interesting reading to see if anything bigger is going on.
RAK Cement buys Newtech plant and quarry for US$123m
26 February 2019UAE: Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Cement has purchased the Newtech cement plant and the Al Banna quarry from Mohammed Ali Omar Saleh Al Buraiki for around US$123m. RAK Cement operates an integrated plant at Ras Al Khaimah.
Raysut Cement preparing to buy Sohar Cement
26 February 2019Oman: Raysut Cement has signed a letter of intent with the shareholders of Sohar Cement to buy all of its shares. The terms of the acquisition are being discussed, according to the Oman Daily Observer newspaper. Sohar Cement runs a 240t/hr grinding plant at the Suhar Industrial Estate. Sohar Cement holds a 70% stake in the business, with UAE-based Fujairah Cement Company owning the remaining share.
Fujairah Natural Resources to build US$150m clinker plant in UAE
22 February 2019UAE: Fujairah Natural Resources plans to build a clinker plant at a cost of US$150m at Habbab in Fujairah. Production at the site will start in December 2019, according to Emirates News Agency. The project is intended to boost the cement industry in Fujairah.
ZAG settles with US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control over Iranian clinker
22 February 2019US: ZAG has reached a US$506,250 settlement with the US Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) over breaches on trade sanctions with Iran. Between mid-2014 and early 2015 OFAC says that ZAG purchased 263,563t of Iranian produced clinker via a company based in the UAE. The government body added that ZAG knew that the clinker came from Iran although it was assured at the time by the supplier that it was not subject to US sanctions. The clinker was then sold to a company in Tanzania. However, OFAC said that since ZAG voluntarily disclosed its violation of sanctions to the office it viewed the case as a so-called a ‘non-egregious case‘ and the resulting fine was far below the maximum.
UAE: Arkan Building Materials has sold the closed Emirates Cement plant for US$13.6m, according to Mubasher. The unit was originally closed in late 2016 on a temporary basis due to rising gas and electricity costs. It later decided to permanently close the plant. The company continues to run its Al Ain Cement plant.
Fives sets up new subsidiary in Middle East
31 December 2018UAE: Fives Group’s Mineral Business Line has set up a new subsidiary in the Middle East to support customers with services and technical assistance. Based in Dubai and referring to the Services Department, the new division aims to support Fives' customers through a local presence and by offering its services including upgrade and revamping projects, technical assistance, supply of spare parts, on-site machining and so on.
Binani Cement renamed UltraTech Nathdwara Cement
14 December 2018India: UltraTech Cement has renamed its Binani Cement subsidiary UltraTech Nathdwara Cement. The leading Indian cement producer finally acquired Binani Cement in late November 2018 when the Supreme Court supported the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal’s (NCLAT) approval of its bid for Binani Cement following a legal fight with a consortium led by Dalmia Bharat group.
Binani Cement’s production assets include a 4.85Mt/yr integrated plant at Nathdwara and a 1.4Mt/yr grinding plant at Neem ka Thana, both in Rajasthan. The company also operates plants in China and the UAE. UltraTech Cement’s acquisition will increase its production capacity in the north of the country to around 24Mt/yr, increase its access to limestone reserves and offer it synergies in logistics and procurement.