Poland: Lafarge has appointed Jacek Patyk as new director of the Malogoszcz cement plant. He will replace Miroslaw Majchrowicz, who will be in charge of Lafarge's cement plant in Beocin, Serbia

This week saw the announcement that Cemex and Holcim are both upping their stakes in Nicaragua to increase production. The companies have stated that they expect cement demand to grow significantly in the near future.

Holcim has started work on a US$10m project to increase production by 30% to 400,000t/yr at its Nagarote grinding plant. A second expansion phase will see production raised another 30%. Cemex, for its part, is building a US$55m, 440,000t/yr grinding plant in Ciudad Sandino. Completion is expected by 2017.

These new developments will make significant additions to Nicaragua's cement industry. Currently, it consists of one Cemex-owned 600,000t/yr integrated plant and one Holcim-owned 300,000t/yr grinding plant.

Nicargua has the dubious honour of being Central America's least developed economy and one of the poorest among all of the Americas. In recent years, however, its economy has grown dramatically, with significant expansion in the construction and mining sectors, indicating that Holcim and Cemex are right to bet on Nicargua. Indeed, late in 2014 president of the High Council of Private Enterprise, José Adán Aguerri said that the country had a significant cement shortage and was currently importing from Mexico and Colombia to meet its needs.

Driving cement demand in Nicaragua is the residential housing sector boosted by the growing population, much-needed infrastructure projects and the country's most controversial project, the Nicaragua Grand Canal. The canal will be, according to local media, a 'commercial waterway that will reshape commercial shipping, reap a windfall for investors and haul one of the hemisphere's poorest nations out of poverty.' Heavily backed by Chinese investors, it is deeply unpopular with industry experts and locals alike. There have been lots of questions as to whether there is enough demand for the canal, while its construction will divert scant resources, particularly water, away from agriculture, the country's main industry. The project will, however, contribute significantly to cement demand until its completion, which is expected in 2019.

So is Nicaragua the place to be? Its near-future economic and construction sector outlooks certainly look strong, but the cement industry relies heavily on long-term infrastructure plans, which are sorely lacking. Additionally, none of Nicaragua's neighbouring countries have noteworthy cement deficits. This means that export market opportunities from Nicaragua are in short supply. Nicaragua's future depends overwhelmingly on its leaders' long term-planning abilities...

Europe: In the framework of their proposed merger of equals, the boards of directors (BoD) of Holcim and Lafarge have nominated their candidates for the future BoD of LafargeHolcim, subject to closing of the transaction. The designated BoD will consist of 14 members due to be elected at the Holcim Extraordinary General Meeting on 8 May 2015.

The candidates are:

• Wolfgang Reitzle, Co-Chairman (currently Chairman of the BoD of Holcim);
• Bruno Lafont, Co-Chairman (currently Chairman of the BoD and Chief Executive Officer of Lafarge);
• Beat Hess, Vice-Chairman (currently Deputy Chairman of the BoD of Holcim);
• Bertrand Collomb (currently Honorary Chairman of Lafarge);
• Philippe Dauman (currently member of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Paul Desmarais Jr. (currently member of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Oscar Fanjul (currently Vice-Chairman of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Alexander Gut (currently member of the BoD of Holcim);
• Gérard Lamarche (currently member of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Adrian Loader (currently member of the BoD of Holcim);
• Nassef Sawiris (currently member of the BoD of Lafarge);
• Thomas Schmidheiny (currently member of the BoD of Holcim);
• Hanne Birgitte Breinbjerg Sørensen (currently member of the BoD of Holcim);
• Dieter Spälti (currently member of the BoD of Holcim).

Subject to the execution and completion of the merger project, Anne Wade and Jürg Oleas will resign from their office as members of the BoD at Holcim with effect as of the completion of the merger project.

Europe: The boards of directors of Lafarge and Holcim have approved the appointment of Eric Olsen as future Chief Executive Officer of LafargeHolcim, to be in office as from the closing of the merger project.

At present Eric Olsen is Lafarge Executive Vice-President of Operations. He has been a member of the Group's Executive Committee since 2007. Aged 51, Olsen has dual American and French nationalities. He has extensive international experience and has held senior positions in operations and in the fields of finance, human resources and strategy.

Commenting on the appointment, Wolfgang Reitzle, Chairman of the Holcim Board and future co-Chairman of LafargeHolcim, said, "I very much welcome Eric Olsen as future CEO for LafargeHolcim. With his broad international experience and insights in key markets, he is best positioned to lead the combined company for the benefit of employees, shareholders and customers. Bruno Lafont and I will support Eric in creating a new joint culture that will be the key driver for our premier competitive position."

Lafarge Chairman and CEO, and future LafargeHolcim co-Chairman, Bruno Lafont, added, "I have every confidence in his ability to deliver the synergies announced and ensure the development and the success of LafargeHolcim."

The news this week that construction companies in the Indian state of Telengana are considering cement imports from China in order to circumvent a local dispute over cement prices highlights several issues. Firstly, state politics in India can create some interesting and not altogether logical situations. Secondly, it throws the spotlight on the changing situation in China, where the cement industry will be increasingly squeezed from all sides in the coming years. Thirdly, it shows that the global cement industry is exactly that – Global.

The first reaction when hearing of Chinese imports into India might reasonably be one of shock. How can it be that it is cheaper (21% less by local estimates) to import cement from 5500km away, into the world's second-largest cement producer, than it is to send it down the road from Andhra Pradesh? Overall, India is 'swimming in' excess cement capacity, which should make it cheap across the board. Large, well-run and efficient plants, coupled to current low diesel (transport) prices, should give the industry significant advantages on the international stage. So what's going on?

Poor local and national infrastructure is the 'obvious' culprit here, but it is only part of the story. The Telengana state government has imposed extra taxes on trucks bringing cement into the state from neighbouring Andhra Pradesh. By suggesting imports from China, it is possible that the Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) wants to make a point to the state government. Spotting a local imbalance of cement supply and demand, Telengana appears, in this instance, to have acted to make a quick buck. However, it has done so to the detriment of many other stakeholders. The extra tax deprives cement producers of higher sales, robs hauliers of business and stops the public getting a fair market price for cement. This highlights that India has not only physical infrastructure to build (in terms of highways and new railways), but also a more effective political infrastructure that can put aside state-on-state one-upmanship. This is a long-term task and not straightforward when you consider India's 1.25 billion inhabitants.

Of course the fact that China has been mentioned by CREDAI as a likely source of cement is far less surprising. The largest cement producer in the world has had excess capacity for several years now (regardless of who is supplying the statistics) and takes the opportunity to export whenever it can.

However, the sands are shifting under China at the moment. The country has not been able to rely on domestic demand to keep its over-inflated cement industry in business for many years now. It is indeed highly questionable whether it ever needed a cement industry the size of the one that it built.

Indeed, economic growth is slowing for the economy as a whole and this week there were even calls for the national housing bank to reduce interest rates for lower and middle income earners, effectively propping the sector up. This comes on top of tax breaks for home-buyers, which came in at the end of March 2015. Falling house prices have bred uncertainty and a lack of demand for new constructions and hence cement. Could China's absurd cement demand bubble finally be about to pop?

Whether or not the bubble pops next week or in a couple of years, the government has long been making preparations, in the cement sector at least. It has started to aggressively remove older and inefficient capacity, encourage cement exports and helped finance new plants overseas. China is changing its emphasis from cement production to cement plant project management. This is a good move, especially as there will be fewer opportunities for conventional exports in the coming years. Neighbouring Vietnam expects to have an incredible 20Mt of cement for export at less than US$50/t in 2015, flooding China's traditional sphere of influence. At the same time, the number of countries that are self-sufficient in terms of cement production are on the rise, meaning fewer importers.

Even opportunities for Chinese firms to build cement plants outside China are likely to become fewer and further between in the future. The most promising markets in Africa already have Chinese cement plants or cement plant projects, joined this week by Zambia. Chinese cement and cement engineering firms also have interests in Central Asia, Nepal, Mongolia and elsewhere. These markets, while promising, will have nothing like the potential to consume cement like China did in the recent past. As China reduces its capacity, its growing cement plant engineering sector may well find it hard to do enough business to survive...

Germany: Uwe Väth has assumed control over operations of the Schenck Process Group, effective 1 April 2015. In this role, he will be responsible for global manufacturing, supply chain and purchasing and will report to Andreas Evertz, president and CEO. At the same time, he will become joint managing director acting from the company headquarters of Schenck Process GmbH, which plays the leading and coordinating role for all European countries as well as Russia and parts of Africa. Uwe Väth comes from the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The appointment reflects the enormous importance of operations for the Schenck Process Group. In the future, Horst Klein will take on responsibility as the vice president of purchasing and thus ensure continuity and further development. In this capacity, he will report directly to Uwe Väth.

"Thanks to his comprehensive expertise and many years of experience in the area of operations, Väth will intensively drive the development of the Schenk Process Group forward. Through his activities as a consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, he has already gained insights into our company, meaning that both sides can seamlessly build upon this cooperation. I'm very pleased to welcome him as part of the management team," said Andreas Evertz.

As a graduate engineer, Uwe Väth worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers AG in Frankfurt am Main for many years, where he had been a partner since 2011. He had also built up the strategy and operations division and oversaw projects together with his teams in the areas of purchasing, supply chain, production and tool manufacturing, quality and logistics. International customers that are active in the areas of industrial production, process industry and plastics processing were catered to.

The other big cement producer merger collapsed this week when PPC announced that it had terminated discussions with AfriSam. Details were scant due to a confidentiality agreement between the South African cement producers. However, the CEO of PPC, Darryll Castle, confirmed that neither party could agree the terms of the merger. PPC's shares rose by 5% on the news of the breakdown.

Financially the decision may have made sense. As an unlisted company AfriSam doesn't publish its financial results but PPC did report a revenue of US$742m in 2014. Comparing cement production capacity in South Africa gives PPC 4.75Mt/yr and Afrisam 3.50Mt/yr. Roughly this is a 58:42 split although this doesn't take into account both companies' aggregates, ready-mix concrete and other product concerns.

It's possible that disagreements over the value of the two companies caused the breakdown. At the time the merger was first proposed in December 2014 PPC was reeling from the resignation of its CEO Ketso Gordhan in September 2014. Some media commentators viewed the proposal as opportunistic on the part of AfriSam given all the internal problems PPC was coping with. Also, given that the combined companies would have held a 60% share of the market, it is likely that the Competition Commission of South Africa would have taken a keen interest.

The uneven ratio of sizes between the two companies considering merging is similar to the problems now facing Lafarge and Holcim. The European building materials companies started out trumpeting their merger of equals before Lafarge's relative poor financial performance and fluctuating currencies made a mockery of this parity. Once this became clear then major shareholders in Holcim started to question the merger.

Back to Africa, the question with PPC and AfriSam is whether they should have swallowed their differences in view of future growth. With Dangote expanding across the continent and Lafarge consolidating its local activity under the Lafarge Africa banner it seems like the time to merge resources and expand.

AfriSam has been saddled with debt since a buyout in 2007 when Holcim reduced its share from 85% to 15%. In 2011 it agreed to pay a penalty of US$16m, representing 3% of its 2010 cement annual turnover in the Southern African Customs Union, due to cartel activity. Then in 2013 investment holding company Pembani Group reduced AfriSam's debt for shares and a controlling say on its board. By contrast PPC has been expanding across Africa, in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, Algeria and Mozambique, to boost foreign sales to 40% by 2017. The programme is anticipated to raise PPC's cement production capacity from 8Mt/yr to 12Mt/yr.

Domination at home in South Africa and firm plans for continental expansion suggest that this deal wasn't in PPC's interest, although its domestic cement sales have declined which may have also made the case for consolidation more tempting. Dangote's progress in west African must be both inspiring and troubling for South African cement producers.

Nigeria: Seven directors have resigned their appointments from the Board of Ashaka Cement with effect from 10 March 2015. Umaru Kwairanga (chairman), John William Stull (vice chairman), Sen. Muhammed A. Muhammed, Kolawole Babalola Jamodu, Abubakar Ali Gombe, Lamido Abba Tukur and Hamra Imam have all resigned.

The board has appointed Mallam Suleiman Yahyah as the new board chairman with effect from 12 March 2015. They also appointed three as non-executive directors, Anders Kristiansson, Edith Onwuchekwa and Rabiu Abdullahi Umar, with effect from 12 March 2015.

This week Beijing announced that it would close the last of its four largest coal-fired power plants, the China Huaneng Group Corp's 845MW power plant, in 2016. The four coal-fired plants will be replaced by four gas-fired plants with 2.6 times more electricity capacity than the former coal plants. China's policy makers are also encouraging increased use of hydroelectric power, solar and wind and is trying to restart its nuclear power programme.

In the same week, the Independent reported that Costa Rica had achieved a renewable energy milestone, having used 100% renewable energy for the preceding 75 days. The achievement was reportedly made possible by heavy rainfall, which powered four hydroelectric plants. Costa Rica has an impressive track record when it comes to energy sources. In 2014, 80% of its energy came from hydropower and 10% came from geothermal energy. In total, 94% of its energy requirements were met by renewable energy.

However, this week we also heard that Dangote is building the world's biggest oil refinery, which will process 650,000b/day. It will also be Nigeria's first oil refinery. Aliko Dangote, owner of Dangote Group, decided to up the initial design from 450,000b/day because he believes that Nigeria, as a leading producer of crude oil, should also be credited with local refining capacity. Currently, Nigeria produces crude oil, but has to buy refined products from abroad. The refinery is expected to be fully operational by 2017.

Efforts to increase renewable energy should be strongly encouraged - the benefits to the planet and its population are undeniable. However, renewable energy technology has a way to go (if ever) before it can entirely replace fossil fuel-derived energy, which makes Dangote's investment a safe bet. As renewable energy like solar and wind power is entirely reliant on nature, supplies can never be assured.

While sporadic supplies to houses and small businesses may be part of the price we eventually have to pay for a greener world, larger businesses like supermarkets and cement plants, which could lose millions (or billions) from power outages, will surely have something to say, and a lot of sway, when it comes to relying completely on renewable energy. In addition, power outages to essential services like hospitals are unthinkable when it comes to the health of our loved ones. Ultimately, the argument for relying on renewable energy may well be won by utilitarians' 'greater good' argument, but how would it feel to know that your sick child could have been saved by fossil fuel-derived energy?

Europe: Lafarge has identified two potential chief executive candidates for LafargeHolcim, according to local media. Lafarge chief financial officer Jean-Jacques Gauthier and vice president Eric Olsen have both been named. The companies need to find a new chief executive after Holcim demanded a change to the initial agreement that would have installed Lafarge chief Bruno Lafont as head of LafargeHolcim.