Displaying items by tag: US

Iran/US: The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) says it has reached a settlement of around US$133,000 with an unnamed US citizen for violating Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations by accepting payment in connection with a clinker deal. OFAC says the individual received payment in the US of around US$133,00 on behalf of an Iran-based company selling Iranian-origin clinker to another company for a project in a third country. Whilst OFAC considered that the individual knew they were flouting the US-based regulations it did view the individual’s apparent minimal benefit from the activity as a mitigating factor. The individual had previously submitted a licence request to OFAC in connection to other transactions but this was denied.

US: LafargeHolcim has acquired Marshall Concrete Products. The newly acquired subsidiary supplies concrete products and services in the Minneapolis/St Paul metropolitan area in Minnesota.

Chief executive officer Jan Jenisch said “This acquisition is another step in our Strategy 2025 to become the global leader in innovative and sustainable building solutions. We welcome the employees of Marshall Concrete Products and look forward to building on their strong customer service focus, which made them a partner of choice in the Twin Cities area for decades. This acquisition strengthens our presence in this strong growth market while contributing to Holcim’s overall strategy to expand our range of low-carbon products and solutions.”

US: The commissioners of Grayson County in Texas have agreed to take legal advice to try and stop Black Mountain building an integrated cement plant. The Herald Democrat newspaper has reported that the administration plans to launch its claim on the basis of air quality. The city councils of would-be host communities Dorchester and Sherman will contend the plans on the basis of other issues within their respective powers.

Sherman mayor David Plyler says that the plan would interfere with the area’s aim of attracting high-tech industry and investment. District court judge Bill Magers said “The county doesn't normally step into fight city battles, but the county feels that the proposed plant would be bad for the county overall.”

US: Cement companies in the US produced 57.8Mt of clinker in the first nine months of 2021, in line with production in the corresponding period of 2020. Cement shipments including imports rose by 4.2% year-on-year to 79.9Mt from 76.7Mt, according to the United States Geological Service (USGS). The lead cement consuming states by total shipments were Texas, California and Florida. Texas received 11.4Mt of cement (14% of the national total), down by 8.5% from 12.4Mt, California received 8.19Mt (10%), up by 7.8% from 7.6Mt and Florida received 5.4Mt (6.8%), up by 5.6% from 5.11Mt.

US: The Portland Cement Association (PCA) has announced the winners of its Energy and Environment Awards 2021. The awards recognise cement plants’ outstanding environmental and social efforts beyond what is required.

CalPortland’s Mojave plant in California won the Energy Efficiency award for an efficiency-increasing upgrade to its vertical roller mill, which included the introduction of a bottom hopper cone on each of its cyclones and a replacement of its mill fan housing. Argos USA’s Calera plant in Alabama won the Land Stewardship award for its conversion an 8.5ha lime kiln dust stockpile into grassland. The area now forms a vibrant ecosystem including wetland habitats. The producer also installed ponds with the additional purpose of stormwater management. Titan America’s Pennsuco plant in Florida won the Overall Environmental Excellence award for its conversion of the plant’s kiln to natural gas from coal use. The upgrade has also enabled the plant to begin to substitute alternative fuel (AF) in the kiln. The Pennsuco plant plans to produce 100% Portland limestone cement (PLC) by ‘as early as 2023.’

Other awards went to Roanoke Cement’s Troutville, Virginia, plant in the Environmental Performance category and to Cemex USA’s Victorville, California, plant in the Outreach category.

PCA President and CEO Michael Ireland said “The US’s cement manufacturers continue to focus on researching and developing new and innovative ways to reduce their environmental footprint. These accomplishments and industry commitment to carbon neutrality across the entire value chain demonstrate PCA members’ dedication to energy efficiency and a more sustainable future.”

Cementos Argos announced this week that it is starting the process for an initial public offering (IPO) for its US business. It said that this had followed several months of consideration by its board of directors. Getting listed on the New York Stock Exchange is expected to help the company ‘optimise’ its capital structure and promote growth, due in part to the recent approval of the US$1Tn Infrastructure Bill in the US and a general positive cycle expected for the local construction materials sector over the next decade.

Argos’ decision to go public in the US comes hot on the heels of several recent attempts in Colombia to buy stakes in two of the major shareholders of Grupo Argos, the parent company of Cementos Argos and Argos USA. First, Grupo Gilinski tried to buy a majority stake in Grupo Nutresa in early November 2021. Then, at the end of November 2021, Grupo Gilinski put in an offer for a large minority share, up to 32%, of Grupo SURA.

Argos, Nutresa and SURA are all part of a highly interconnected group of companies known as the Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño (GEA), which each own stakes in each other. In part this structure helps to prevent hostile takeover attempts. However, Grupo Gilinski appears to be trying to challenge this, in the eyes of some market observers. Grupo Argos is the next obvious target for such an attempt after Nutresa and SURA. In response Grupo Argos has said that it won’t take part in Grupo Gilinski’s public acquisition offer to buy shares in Nutresa (it owns around 10% itself). Instead it has accelerated its plans for Argos USA and also wants to consolidate its interests in road and airport concessions, energy and real estate into a single entity, also to be listed in New York. All of this can be seen as action intended to make any further moves by Grupo Gilinski on GEA harder. Corporate tussles between Grupo Gilinski and GEA also hark back to a long-running legal dispute from the late 1990s over the formation of Bancolombia.

It is reasonable for the US subsidiary of Cementos Argos to want to raise funds from an IPO. The business has gradually been expanding over the last 15 years or so. First it acquired ready-mix concrete operations in the southern US from 2005. Then it purchased two integrated cement plants from Lafarge in 2011, at Roberta in Alabama and Harleyville in South Carolina respectively. This was followed by the integrated Newberry plant in Florida from Vulcan Materials in 2014, along with two grinding units in Florida. Finally, it picked up the integrated Martinsburg plant in West Virginia from HeidelbergCement in 2016. More recently it has been divesting some of its concrete plants in the US. At present Argos USA is the ninth largest cement producer in the country by cement production capacity.

Its cement sales volumes have grown by 4.5% year-on-year to 4.6Mt in the first nine months of 2021 and earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation (EBIDA) rose by 25% to US$239m although sales revenue dipped very slightly to US$1.09bn. Ready-mixed concrete sales volumes have also fallen, by 12% to 3.98Mm³. The growth has been attributed to both residential and commercial markets and the Infrastructure Bill is expected to keep demand brisk for the next few years. Looking at the wider picture, cement generated about 64% of Grupo Argos’ revenue in 2020, its biggest share after energy generation and a concessions business. A third of Cementos Argos’ revenue so far in 2021 came from the US.

It’s fascinating to glimpse what may be some of the inner corporate workings of Grupo Argos and the various things it has to consider for its US cement business. The US subsidiary is clearly a major earner for it with a buoyant future. The Portland Cement Association (PCA) was forecasting cement consumption growth of nearly 8% in 2021 and 2% in 2022 in its summer summary and that was before the infrastructure bill made it into law. Further expansion in the US by Argos is to be expected and the planned IPO underlines this. Meanwhile whether this and other actions are enough to stymie Grupo Gilinski remain to be seen.

US: France-based Saint-Gobain has entered into a deal to buy GCP Applied Technologies for around US$2.3bn. It said the move was a ‘decisive’ step in helping it to become a leader in construction chemicals with total sales of over Euro4bn. It is also expected to promote the group’s strategy as leader in light and sustainable construction. Saint-Gobain expects to conclude the deal by 2023 and will finance the acquisition through cash on its balance sheet.

Benoit Bazin, the chief executive officer of Saint-Gobain, said, “The acquisition of GCP is an excellent and significant step for Saint-Gobain to further reinforce its worldwide leadership in construction chemicals and strengthen its geographic presence in North America and emerging markets, both objectives being at the core of our ‘Grow & Impact’ strategic plan.” The proposed purchase follows Saint-Gobain’s acquisition of Chryso, another constructions chemicals company, for Euro1.02bn in October 2021.

GCP Applied Technologies is a global producer of specialty construction chemicals with approximate revenues of US$1.0bn/yr, 50 manufacturing plants in 38 countries and it employs around 1800 employees. It manufactures cement additives, concrete admixtures and products for infrastructure and commercial and residential waterproofing.

US: Australia-based Boral has agreed to sell its US fly ash business to Eco Material Technologies for US$755m. The parties expect to conclude the transaction by the start of 2023. The proceeds of the sale will add to Boral’s surplus capital.

Boral’s chief executive officer Zlatko Todorcevski said “Together with the sale of our North American building products business and our stake in Meridian Brick, we will have divested the North American businesses for more than US$3bn.” He added “This is a significant milestone that supports our strategy to refocus on our construction materials business in Australia.”

US: Cementos Argos plans to begin trading publically in mid-late 2022 with the launch of an initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange.

The company said “The listing in the US will contribute to the purpose of fully capturing the business value of the company, optimising the capital structure and obtaining the necessary resources to continue executing the growth strategy that the company plans to achieve in that country as a result of the recent approval of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for US$1tn and the positive cycle expected for the construction materials industry in the residential, commercial and civil works segments during the next 10 years.”

US: ASGCO has launched its Grizzly Screw-Splice, a conveyor belt splicing and fastening system. The splice is available in various rubber compounds with a tensile strength of up to 1650PIW. The supplier says that the product is stronger, wears less and has a lower-profile silhouette than traditional metal fasteners for conveyor belts. It features self-tapping and self-drilling screws that uphold the toughness of the conveyor belt by passing through the belt carcass instead of creating holes.