Displaying items by tag: construction

Venezuela: Venezuelan Chamber of Construction (CVC) president Mauricio Brin has estimated a capacity utilisation of 12.5% - corresponding to a production of 1.5Mt of cement from an installed capacity of 12Mt/yr. Noticias Financieras has reported that, according to Brin, production, which was hampered by power shortages, was sufficient to meet the construction sector’s demand. “Public construction has stalled and private investment is restricted to limited office developments in state capitals,” said Brin. He estimated a contraction of 95% year-on-year in construction compared to 2018.

Pakistan: The Peshawar High Court has rejected a petition by local residents to prevent the construction of a US$245m cement plant in Haripur by the military Frontier Works Organisation. The Balochistan Times has reported that the project will entail the relocation of people from an area of 0.66km2 and the felling of ‘thousands of trees.’ The Supreme Court gave a preliminary hearing to the case on 2 December 2019, giving the Attorney General, Advocate General Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Defence Ministry until 9 December 2019 to submit their replies.

India: The India Cements, south India's largest cement maker by volume, has stated that it may have to delay its planned capital expenditure projects, if the Indian economy continues its relative ‘slump.’ The company’s proposed projects include an investment of US$195m on a greenfield plant in Madhya Pradesh and a grinding plant in Uttar Pradesh.

India is going through what many consider to be a ‘unprecedented’ economic slowdown following GDP growth of ‘a mere 5% in the third quarter of 2019, a six year low. This has led to a slowdown in government spending, directly affecting cement consumption and capacity utilisation rate at The India Cements’ plants.

“We may hold back capital expenditure," said N Srinivasan, the company’s Vice Chairman and Managing Director. “I want to expand. I want to go there, but I want to be sure before I go!"

Interesting news from Holcim Mexico this week with the announcement that it is planning to invest US$40m towards building a 0.7Mt/yr grinding plant in the state of Yucátan. The unit will be supplied with clinker from Holcim Mexico’s Macuspana and Orizaba integrated cement plants. This follows the news in August 2018 that Elementia’s cement company, Cementos Fortaleza, had started to build a new 0.25Mt/yr grinding plant at Merida in Yucatan. That project has a budget of US$30m.

These two projects offer a contrast to comments made by the head of Cemex Mexico, Ricardo Naya Barba, who was lamenting the state of the market to local press at the start of the month. He said that sales volumes of cement, concrete and aggregates had fallen by 12 – 15% in the first seven months of 2019. He blamed the decline partly on falling national infrastructure investment. This marked a slight improvement on Cemex’s Mexican results for the first of 2019 where sales, sales volumes and earnings were all down. At this time as well as slowing infrastructure projects the situation was also attributed to a residential sector hit by the slower-than anticipated start of the new programs.

Elementia’s Mexican cement business, Cementos Fortaleza, reported a similar picture in the second quarter of 2019. Its net sales fell by 6% year-on-year to US65.4m from US$69.7m. This was attributed to a market contraction affecting all of Elementia’s businesses in the country, as well as the redefinition of its core products for the Building Systems business unit. Earnings fell also and this was further attributed to mounting energy and freight costs. Cementos Moctezuma faced many of the same issues. Its cement sales fell by 13% to US$147m in the second quarter of 2019. It is expecting a similar picture for the remainder of the year.

Data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI) shows that the value of cement sales in Mexico fell by 7% year-on-year to US$1.21bn in the first quarter of 2019 from US$1.30bn in the same period in 2018. Cement sales volumes fell by 8.2% to 10.9Mt from 11.9Mt. This was the lowest figure since 2014.

The one larger Mexican cement producer that doesn’t seem to have been overly troubled so far in 2019 is Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC). Earlier in the year the company was considered to be the Mexican cement producer most at risk from potential US tariffs due to higher reliance on exports than its competitors. Yet Mexico’s National Chamber of Cement (CANACEM) publicly said that that it didn’t consider US tariffs a significant barrier to the local industry. GCC reported growing net sales and cement sales volumes in the second quarter of 2019 due to industrial warehouse construction, mining projects and middle-income housing at the northern cities.

Two new grinding plants in a particular region of Mexico don’t necessarily reflect the state of the country’s industry as a whole. Yucatan may suit the grinding model due to a lack of raw materials or strong shipping links. The region may also be defying the gloomy national state of affairs in the construction sector. Alternatively, producers may be chasing low-cost and low-risk expansion plans in a tough market. The grinding model wins out over the clinker producing one in this scenario. In the wider picture in August 2019 Cemento Cruz Azul ordered two petcoke grinding mills from Germany’s Loesche and Austria’s Unitherm Cemcon said it had been awarded the supply of an MAS DT burner to an unnamed cement plant. These suggest that, although the sector may be having a bad year so far, things are expected to get better.

Zambia: The majority government-owned Zambia Consolidated Copper Mine (ZCCM) Investment Holdings has appointed Mabvuto Chipata its chair. ZCCM’s cement division faces the challenge of national overcapacity due to market saturation as it moves ahead with the US$600m construction of a 1.6Mt/yr integrated cement plant and 57MW power station in Masaiti, Copperbelt province. Thierry Charles, speaking on behalf of the Euronext minority shareholders, expressed relief at ‘the definitive turning of a page on several years of hazardous, inconsistent and disastrous investments.’

US: The Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) will host the 6th International LafargeHolcim Awards, North America, in 2020. The awards seek sustainable design in the construction sector and are open for entries until 25 February 2020. Reed Kroloff, Rowe Family Dean of the College of Architecture, IIT, heads the panel of nine judges.

Iraq: The Ministry of Finance has approved construction work to restore the capacity of a cement plant in Kufa, Nafaj governorate, damaged in recent conflict. Thompson Reuters reported that work is set to commence pending the imminent release of the funds. Member of Parliament Fadhil Al-Fatlawi of the Labour and Social Care Committee has expressed the expectation that, at its full capacity of 0.18Mt/yr, the plant will accelerate the country’s restoration.

Panama: The economic slowdown and a strike by the Trade Union of Construction Workers, combined with a fall in consumption and construction permits have hit the cement sector hard. It is expected that this will mean a 13% fall in cement demand in 2018, according to José Luis González Habas, Cemex's planning director. Cemex is the country’s only integrated cement producer.

González said that the cement sector had been growing by 13-14% and that infrastructure was growing even more. However, he was worried by the situation, stating that it was intolerable that the sector could be so unstable.
Héctor Ortega, president of the Panamanian Chamber of Construction has suggested a reduction in paperwork to help free up planning procedures and ensure infrastructure growth.

Argentina: Both the sale and consumption of cement grew by 17% in August 2018 compared to July 2018, according to the national government. With sales of 1.1Mt, August 2018 also grew 0.1% compared to August 2017.

"The August figures are very positive in this economic context, which shows that construction, public and private, continues to advance,” said Guillermo Dietrich, Minister of Transportation. “The sale of cement maintains the same values as in August 2017, setting a historical record. We are facing the most ambitious infrastructure plan in history and that does not stop."

Sri Lanka: Tokyo Cement plc, which operates grinding plants and bulk cement terminals in Sri Lanka, lost US$3.78m in the three months to 30 June 2018 due to falling revenues, as well as a one-off loss of US$2.37m on the sale of a ship. The group had reported a profit of US$5.04m in the same period of 2017.

In the three months to 30 June 2018 Tokyo Cement’s gross profit fell by 27% year-on-year to US$9.36m, with revenues falling by 4% to US$48m and costs rising by 4% to US$39m.

Tokyo reported to its shareholders that delayed local government polls had halted small projects country-wide, leading to a slowdown in the construction sector.