Sri Lanka: Insee Cement is the first cement company to use the newly diversified Hambantota International Port. Bulk carrier Ithaca Patience docked at Hambantota to discharge 27,150t of slag, according to the EconomyNext. Thusith Gunawarnasuriya, Director of Procurement and Logistics, Insee Cement, the consignee of the slag cargo, said that the company is considering monthly or bi-monthly shipments via Hambantota. Insee Cement has previously used ports at Colombo, Trincomalee and Galle.

Philippines: The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) will impose a provisional safeguard duty of US$0.16/bag on imported cement. The decision follows an investigation where it said there were clear elements of a surge in cement imports and that this would cause injury to local producers, according to the Philippine News Agency. The import duty is equivalent to about 4% of the cost of a 40kg bag of cement. Data from the Philippine Cement Importers Association (PCIA) using sources from the Bureau of Import Services showed that of the total 28.6Mt of demand in 2017, local manufacturers supplied 25.6Mt while importers supplied the remaining 3Mt.

Philippines: A shortage of cement is causing delays to infrastructure projects in parts of Pangasinan province. Department of Public Works and Highways Pangasinan 3 District Engineer Gerardo de Guzman said that the region's cement manufacturer Northern Cement was not producing enough cement to support the region, according to the Manila Bulletin newspaper. Cement is being rationed as a result.

Philippines: Belorussian company Belaz has sold dump trucks to the Philippines for the first time. 7555 Series 55t trucks will be used to operate in the sand quarry of APO Cement, a subsidiary of Cemex. The trucks include extended bodies, multiple-disk oil cooled brakes and additional fuel filters.

Paraguay: Industria Nacional del Cemento (INC) is planning to upgrade the ventilation system for the kiln at its Vallemí cement plant. The state-owned cement producer has money left over from bonds it issued in 2018, according to the La Nacion newspaper. The work is expected to increase the productivity of the kiln.

China: China National Building Material (CNBM) says that its profit will rise ‘substantially’ in 2018. It has attributed this to rising cement prices.

More details from HeidelbergCement this week on its divestment strategy. It has sold its half-share in Ciment Québec in Canada and a minority share in a company in Syria. A closed cement plant in Egypt is being sold and it is working on divesting its business in Ukraine. Altogether these four sales will generate Euro150m for the group. Chairman Bernd Scheifele said that the company expects to rake in Euro500m from asset sales in 2018. It has a target of Euro1.5bn by the end of 2020.

In purely cement terms that is something like seven integrated plants. So the usual game follows of considering what assets HeidelbergCement might consider selling. The group offered a few clues in a presentation that Scheifele was due to give earlier this week at the Commerzbank German Investment Seminar in New York.

First of all the producer said that it was hopeful for 2019 due to limited energy cost inflation, better weather in the US, the Indonesian market turning, general margin improvement actions and sustained price rises in Europe. It then said that its divestments would focus on three main categories: non-core business, weak market positions and idle assets. The first covers sectors outside of the trio of cement, aggregates and ready-mix concrete. Things like white cement plants or sand lime brick production. Countries or areas it identified it had already executed divestments in included Saudi Arabia, Georgia, Syria and Quebec in Canada. Idle assets included depleted quarries and land.

The first obvious candidate for divestment could be the company’s two majority owned integrated plants in the Democratic Republic of Congo. These might be considered targets due to the political instability in the country. However, this is balanced by the potential long-term gains once that country stabilises. Alternatively, some of the plants in Italy seem like a target. The company had seven integrated plants, eight grinding plants and one terminal in 2018.

The presentation also pointed out the sharp rise in European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) CO₂ emissions allowances, from around Euro5/t in 2017 to up to Euro20/t by the end of 2018. In late 2018 Cementa, a subsidiary of HeidelbergCement in Sweden, said it was considering closing Degerhamn plant due to mounting environmental costs. The group reckons it can fight a high carbon price through consolidation, capacity closure, higher utilisation, limited exports and pricing. It also pointed out that it is a technology leader in carbon reduction projects. It will be interesting to see how environmental costs play into HeidelbergCement’s divestment decisions.

Finally, a tweet by Sasja Beslik, the head of sustainable finance at Nordea, flagged up a few cement companies as being the worst companies for increasing CO₂ emissions between 2011 and 2016. HeidelbergCement was 19th on the list after LafargeHolcim and CRH. Sure, cement production makes CO₂ but it’s far from clear whether the data from MSCI took into account that each of these companies had expanded heavily during this time. In HeidelbergCement’s case it bought Italcementi in 2016. Cement companies aren’t perfect but sometimes there’s just no justice.

Mexico: Cemex has made a number of changes to the organisation of its senior level positions with effect from 1 February 2019.

Juan Romero Torres, currently president of Cemex Mexico, has been appointed Executive Vice President of Global Commercial Development. This new role aims to build on the progress that Cemex says it has achieved in its Customer Centricity strategy, providing it with a formal structure that will allow new opportunities to add value to customers and markets. Ricardo Naya Barba, current president of Cemex Colombia, has been appointed president of Cemex Mexico.

Jaime Gerardo Elizondo Chapa, currently president of Cemex Europe, has been appointed Executive Vice President of Global Supply Chain Development. This new role aims to grow Cemex´s Supply Chain capabilities to gain additional efficiencies in end-to-end operations. Sergio Mauricio Menendez Medina, currently Distribution Channel Vice President for Cemex Mexico, has been appointed president of Cemex Europe.

Zimbabwe: Lafarge Zimbabwe has appointed Siame Kaulule as its chief executive officer (CEO). Kaulule succeeds Amal Naiel, who has spent five years in the post. Kaulule, a Zambian citizen, joins the company from LafargeHolcim in the UK where he was general manager for retail and has previously served as executive in other European and African markets for the company, according to the Business Report newspaper. He has previously worked as the regional marketing director for the southern Africa cluster including Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi.

Australia: Adelaide Brighton has appointed Theresa Mlikota as its chief financial officer (CFO). She will start the role on 15 April 2019. Darryl Hughes will continue as Acting CFO until then.

Mlikota holds 30 years’ experience in the resources and construction sector. She is currently the CFO of mining services company Ausdill and previously held the role of CFO with Fulton Hogan, Thiess, Macmahon and Barminco. She is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and a member of the Financial Services Institute of Australasia (FINSIA).