Displaying items by tag: Uzbekistan

Exports are the theme this week with news that the value of Turkey’s cement exports fell by 26% year-on-year in April 2020. Reporting from the Trend News Agency showed that the export market has been stable so far for the year to date, with some countries, like Kazakhstan, increasing exports and others, like France, decreasing exports. However the change in April may mark the start of a new trend.

As Tamer Saka, the chairman of the Turkish Cement Manufacturers’ Association (TÇMB), said earlier in the year, his country is one of biggest cement exporters in the world and among its most important markets are the US, Israel, Ghana and Ivory Coast. To look at one of these countries, United States Geology Survey (USGS) data shows that cement and clinker imports from Turkey to the US grew by 26% year-on-year to 1Mt for the first quarter of 2020 but that exports fell by 24% year-on-year to 0.11Mt in March 2020. Each of these countries is being affected in different ways by the coronavirus pandemic and at different times. Overall though, Saka’s and the TÇMB’s forecast in February 2020 that exports would rise by 15% year-on-year in 2020 is looking decidedly shaky. Any knock to the export market in Turkey is particularly unwanted given the poor state of the Turkish economy at the moment.

What would be useful to know here is how other major cement exporters are coping with the global situation. Data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics shows that Pakistan’s cement exports dropped by 31% year-on-year to 0.36Mt in April 2020. Data from the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers Association (APCMA) for the same month tells a similar story. Its data shows a 57% drop in exports to 0.25Mt in April 2020, with a bigger share lost by plants in the north of the country than those in the south.

The other country to note is Vietnam. Here, data from the General Department of Vietnam Customs shows that cement exports fell by 9.7% year-on-year to 7.73Mt in the first quarter of 2020. This follows the announcement by Vietnam Cement Association (VCA) chair Nguyễn Quang Cung in May 2020 that all cement plant projects scheduled to begin in 2020 would be suspended. Luckily those currently being built avoided this fate. This has included a new line at Thanh Thang Group Cement’s integrated Bong Lang cement plant, which Germany’s Loesche has just sent a pair of clinker mills to this week.

These changes from the major cement exporters are bad for their host countries but the other side of the chain is how their destinations are affected. For example, Australia’s clinker imports nearly doubled between 2010 – 2011 and 2018 – 2019 to 4.1Mt. This compares to local clinker production of 5.6Mt in 2018 – 2019, according to the Cement Industry Federation and the Australian Bureau of Statistics. With this in mind, this week saw the resolution to a legal dispute between Wagners Holdings and Boral over a cement supply contract. Boral found a cheaper source of cement from Cement Australia in early 2019 and the two parties argued over their contract. This dispute may have nothing to do with foreign import levels but Wagners Holdings, Boral and Cement Australia all operate standalone clinker grinding plants and will all be subject to general market pricing trends. Higher international clinker levels may add pressure to pricing issues surrounding cement supply contracts in Australia and elsewhere.

Finally, cement trade flows aren’t the only commodity that has been affected by coronavirus disruption. The mass movement of workers home and then back to work is expected to complicate India’s return to business, as discussed in last week’s column. In this context it’s pleasing to come across one sign of normality. Local press in Hubei, China reported this week that workers from Huaxin Cement finally flew back to Uzbekistan. They were originally meant to commission a new plant in March 2020 but became stranded at home when they returned for the Chinese New Year. Commissioning of the plant is now planned for later in June 2020.

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Uzbekistan: Huaxin Cement has announced that 112 of its employees took the first charter flight from Hubei Province since the coronavirus lockdown began, arriving in Jizzakh, Jizzakh Oblast on 6 June 2020. Hubei Daily News has reported that Huaxin Cement’s upcoming 1.5Mt/yr integrated Jizzakh cement plant, previously scheduled for commissioning in March 2020, will now start operation in June 2020. Huaxin Cement thanked the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Civil Aviation authority for their support.

Uzbekistan: Imported cement has begun to enter Uzbekistan after the government ended a ban on the ‘import of cement products’ on 23 May 2020. Uzbekistan Daily News has reported that the protectionist measure was lifted due to a spike in cement demand from the construction sector following an easing in the country’s coronavirus lockdown.

Uzbekistan: Namangan Cement has announced the beginning of work at its 0.3Mt/yr integrated cement plant in Namangan region on a second line to boost the plant’s capacity to 1.2Mt/yr. The National News Agency of Uzbekistan has reported that the project will be completed in late 2021, creating 250 jobs. It will cost US$49m, of which Namangan Cement will provide US$14m directly, with the remaining US$35m taken on loan from Hamkorbank.

Uzbekistan: Eurocement subsidiary Akhangarantsement has reported the successful installation of rotary kiln housing at its upcoming 3.0Mt/yr integrated Akhangarantsement plant. The Uzbekistan Daily newspaper has reported that workers completed internal and external welding on the kiln body, while work on jaw and hammer crushers for the raw materials and clinker grinding plants is ongoing. The project is on schedule for completion in mid-2020.

Uzbekistan: The total volume of cement produced in January and February 2020 in Uzbekistan was 1.02Mt, down by 20% year-on-year from 1.22Mt in the first two months of 2019. February 2020 production rose by 16% month-on-month and fell by 13% year-on-year, to 551,000t from 474,000t in January 2020 and 659,000t in February 2019.

Uzbekistan Newsline has reported that the level of utilisation of Uzbekistan’s 11.1Mt/yr cement production capacity in January and February 2020 was 55%.

Uzbekistan: Uzbekistan imported 3.27Mt of cement in 2019, down by 6.8% year-on-year from 3.51Mt in 2018. The value of cement imported fell by 13% to US$154m from US$176m. Trend newspaper has reported that cement imports from Kazakhstan fell by 32% to 0.97Mt from 1.43Mt. Imports from Tajikistan and Turkmenistan also fell, but rose by 85% from Iran, to 0.59Mt from 0.32Mt.

Uzbekistan, which has a 12.9Mt/yr installed cement production capacity, removed its zero rate of customs duty on cement in October 2019 in order to help align domestic demand with production.

Uzbekistan: The State Committee on Ecology and Environmental Protection (SCEEP) has suspended operations at SingLida’s 0.1Mt/yr integrated Ahtachi plant in Andijan region. Trend News has reported that, following an audit of clinker production between 12 February 2019 and 21 February 2019, the cyclones had failed to meet lawful standards of dust collection. Rates varied between 53% and 61% dust collection, compared to a design capacity of 100%. The government body said that it had given ‘instructions for prompt elimination of deficiencies and reduction of pollutant emissions into the air,’ and has suspended operations of the clinker line and mill until such a time as the problem is resolved.

Uzbekistan: The State Committee of Uzbekistan for Ecology and Environmental Protection plans to create a system of monitoring stations for automatic measurement of air pollution, including particulate matter (PM), throughout the country. Part of this will include the installation of automatic emissions sampling and analysis stations at a number of industrial plants, as well as static monitoring stations within and near plant sites, including in the cement sector. Installation will be at the cost of the industrial facility.

In late 2019 the State Committee for Ecology, together with the Ministry of Health and Uzhydromet, took samples of air from 13 cement plants, finding that five greatly exceeded international norms for dust emissions. Based on the results of the audit, the committee has developed a draft government decree on strengthening environmental control over cement plants. If the document is approved, then all existing cement manufacturers will be obliged to install automatic sampling stations for analysis of air pollution by 1 January 2022, as well as stationary posts in the adjacent territory at their own expense.

Tajikistan: Tajikistan produced 4.20Mt of cement in 2019; up by 11% from 3.80Mt in 2018. Cement exports in the period rose by 11% year-on-year to 1.55Mt from 1.40Mt. 2018’s exports amounted to 0.89Mt (64%) to Uzbekistan, 0.58Mt (41%) to Afghanistan and 0.08Mt (5.8%) to Krygyzstan. Asia-Plus News has reported that tightened pollution legislation in China has driven Chinese-based producers, which accounted for over 90% of Tajik production in 2018, to relocate operations to their country’s western neighbour.