Italy: At their annual general meeting held in Bergamo, the shareholders of Italcementi SpA elected the Board of Directors for the next three years, until approval of the financial statements for 2015.

The members of the new Board are Pierfranco Barabani, Giorgio Bonomi, Fritz Burkard, Victoire de Margerie Federico Falck, Lorenzo Renato Guerini, Italo Lucchini, Emma Marcegaglia, Sebastiano Mazzoleni, Jean Paul Méric Carlo Pesenti, Giampiero Pesenti, Carlo Secchi, Elena Zambon (all elected from the majority list presented by Italmobiliare SpA) and Giulio Antonello (a candidate from the minority list presented by First Eagle Global Fund).

Brazil: Dirce Navarro de Camargo, who became Brazil's richest woman when she inherited the Camargo Corrêa industrial conglomerate, has died at the age of 100.

Camargo died on Saturday 20 April 2013. Her age was disclosed by an executive close to the family who asked not to be named because the matter is private. She controlled a fortune valued at US$13.8bn and was the 62nd richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg.

Founded in 1939 by her late husband, Sebastiao Camargo, the conglomerate has played a key role in developing Brazil's infrastructure. It participated in the construction of Brazil's new capital, Brasilia, in the 1950s. Today, its interests range from publicly-traded cement maker Cimpor Cimentos de Portugal to a flip-flop manufacturer.

Camargo's three daughters, Regina de Camargo Pires Oliveira Dias, Renata de Camargo Nascimento and Rosana Camargo de Arruda Botelho, are poised to inherit the family fortune. The company spokesman declined to comment on how that fortune will be split up.

King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia has issued an urgent edict ordering the import of 10Mt of cement. As one of Global Cement's many followers on Twitter playfully reacted, "that's a bloody big patio."

Humour aside, the Kingdom desperately needs cement for several infrastructure projects. It committed US$373bn for development and infrastructure projects from 2010 to 2014 in its Ninth Development Plan, including building six 'economic cities.' Following this investment, an export ban on cement was introduced in February 2012 and then an import ban was repealed in March 2012. The three Saudi cement firms on whose first quarter financial results we report upon in this week's Global Cement Weekly - Yamama Cement, Arabian Cement Company and Yanbu Cement - all logged increased profits attributed to increased demand and sales.

Back in February 2013, Arab News reported that an estimated 500 trucks had been queuing outside the Yanbu plant near Jeddah. Some of whom said they had been waiting for up to five days in an attempt to receive deliveries! Abdullah Radwan, chairman of the contractors' committee at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was quoted at the time as saying that the high price of cement in the country was due to a lack of cement plants in the country. The following month in March 2013 the Northern Region Cement Company was forced to halt production due to a road closure.

At the close of 2012, Saudi Arabia's cement product capacity was just over 50Mt/yr. Analysts predict that by the close of 2017 the country's demand will be over 80Mt/yr, with only 25Mt/yr of additional capacity commissioned by the same date. What happens to all that production capacity once the building is done may be giving producers across the Gulf region sleepless nights. On a separate note, Iran also reported this week that it hopes to increase its cement exports by 6Mt in the 2013 – 2014 year. The timing may be right - if regional rivalries can be put aside.

France: Ciments Français, a subsidiary of Italcementi Group, has appointed Jean Paul Méric chairman of the board and Fabrizio Donegà as chief operating officer. Outgoing chairman Yves René Nanot, who has reached the statutory age limit, has been nominated honorary chairman of the company and will continue as a director.

Méric, aged 69, studied at the École Polytechnique and the École Supérieure d'Electricité. He began his career with EDF before moving into the cement industry, first with CERILH (Centre d'Études et de Recherches de l'Industrie des Liants Hydrauliques) then Ciments Français in 1985. He became the executive vice-president for Ciments Français in 1991 and was appointed chief operating officer in 2010.

Donegà, aged 49, is a graduate in Mechanical Engineering from Genoa University and a postgraduate in Corporate Finance from Bocconi University (Milan) and Management Development from Harvard Business School (USA). He started his career with Italcementi, first as Technical Assistance Manager in 1990 then as Plant Manager. In 1999 he was appointed manager in charge of Greece and Bulgaria. Since 2007 he has been the executive vice-president of Ciments Français.

Camargo Corrêa came out fighting this week when it announced plans to invest US$1.5bn into the Brazilian market. The move represents the serious readjustment to the Brazilian cement industry that's been shadowed ever since the government approved the Cimpor takeover in 2012.

To show how high the stakes are, in October 2012 Votarantim, the Brazilian cement market leader, released early plans to invest US$160m for a 0.75Mt/yr plant in the Treinta y Tres region of Uruguay to meet demand for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. At these prices the Camargo Corrêa spend could represent projects creating up to 7Mt of cement production capacity in Brazil. This is close to the current capacity gap between Camargo Corrêa (15Mt/yr) and market-leader Votarantim (23Mt/yr)! It's no killer blow for Camargo Corrêa but it does put the two producers in the same 'weight' category.

Although SNIC, the Brazilian cement industry association, recently downgraded estimates for growth in the market to 5.5% in 2013, this still represents very strong demand growth. A previous estimate by Research & Markets put the figure at 9%/yr until 2016. Either way that puts Brazilian capacity at between 87Mt/yr and 100Mt/yr in 2016 with Camargo Corrêa poised to snare a hefty chunk all for itself.

Yet before onlookers count Votorantim out, the company filed for an Initial Public Offering on 9 April 2013. No amounts were revealed but Dow Jones reported a figure of US$2.95bn in mid-January 2013 for expansion both inside and outside of Brazil. Also, the sale of shares must be approved by the Brazilian Securities and Exchange Commission. The industry heavyweight isn't going down without a fight! International companies have also shown interest with Lafarge's announcement in January 2013 that it would invest US$500m in the country, just one of many such moves on the way. Whatever happens, the Brazilian cement market is shaping up for one hell of a scrap.

For more information see our article on the Brazilian cement industry in the February 2013 issue of Global Cement Magazine. In early 2014 Global Cement will hold the first Global Cement CemBrazil Conference and Exhibition. Dates are to be confirmed.

South America: Gebr. Pfeiffer, Inc., the US-based subsidiary of Germany's vertical roller mill manufacturer Gebr. Pfeiffer SE, is pleased to announce the recent appointment of Adriano Greco as Sales Director of the South American market.

Greco has gained extensive, world-wide industry experience through his numerous years in various management positions at GRECO Burners Company in Brazil, Austria, China and Spain. More recently, he served as General Director of ATEC GRECO in Brazil and GRECO Combustion Systems Europe GmbH in Austria.

In 2005, he was instrumental in creating the Brazilian Cement and Lime Conference. He is fluent in Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian and French.

Last week's news that Sinoma is considering European acquisitions may seem a little odd considering that Sinoma saw its profit halve in 2012. Yet the Chinese cement equipment builder and cement producer's income (US$3.42bn) puts it level with the likes of European producers, like Italcementi (US$5.75bn) and Buzzi Unicem (US$3.58bn), and the company still made a sizeable profit (US$123m).

Now what really seems odd is the amount by which each of the major Chinese cement producers' profits fell in 2012. Each of the top five producers by capacity, including Sinoma, saw their profits decrease by 40% to 50%. CNBM 'forgot' to report its profit drop but in November 2012 it recorded a 40% fall. Anhui Conch Cement's profit fell by 45.6% to US$1.03bn. Jidong Cement hasn't released any figures but was expecting a 50% drop in late October 2012. China Resources' profit fell by 44.4% to US$300m. Compare that with the diversity of profits reported by the top five European cement producers.

As has been clearly signposted by the Chinese government, the country is overproducing cement. Just how much we can't be sure but the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology declared that 220Mt/yr of 'obsolete' capacity was eliminated in 2012. The country's entire output was placed at 2.18Bt in official figures.

Outmoded capacity is being shut down and industry consolidation encouraged for the main players. Given the state-owned nature of Chinese heavy industry some level of coordination between bad results is to be expected. To give readers an idea of the challenge facing Chinese central planners, Anhui Conch added 28.3Mt/yr of additional cement production capacity in 2012. This is equivalent to the entire capacity of Nigeria or Germany!

Of interest here are China's cement export figures that the government's General Administration of Customs recently released. Exports hit a peak of 33Mt in 2007 and then declined by 68% to 11Mt in 2011. In 2012 they increased slightly to 12Mt. That's 20Mt of cement not leaving the country any more. Plus, the 'Shenzhen sea-sand in concrete scandal' can't be helping the industry's reputation abroad either.

Also of note last week, a Kyrgyzstan minister proposed restricting imports of Chinese cement to his country. Cement produced at Chinese-owned plants will be much harder to block. The next prong of the Chinese plan to tackle its cement industry is direct overseas expansion and this is what we're seeing from the likes of Sinoma and Anhui Conch. Sinoma, as mentioned above, appears to have cash to spend and in 2012 Anhui Conch began its first international project in Indonesia.

Sri Lanka: Philippe Richart, formally responsible for the Ready Mix Concrete business in Holcim Vietnam, has been appointed CEO of Holcim Lanka.

The change of CEO, which was announced in February 2013, was part of a generational change in the company's leadership. Philippe joined Holcim Group Support in 2004 as a Commercial Project Manager for the Aggregates and Constructions Materials function, working on aggregates market development and performance improvement in various regions of the Group.

In 2007 he was appointed RMX director for Holcim Vietnam and successfully brought the division into the leading position in South Vietnam.

Before joining Holcim, Philippe held various roles in construction project management and business development for Lafarge Cement and Metso Minerals in Taiwan, USA, China and France. He holds a Master's Degree in Civil Engineering from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Industrielles (Lille, France) and an MBA from George Washington University (DC, USA).

The Mineral Products Association (MPA), which looks after the interests of the cement industry (and other allied industries) in the UK, has said that it welcomes a temporary tax-freeze relating to climate change announced in the UK Budget of 20 March 2013. The MPA singled out the decision to freeze the indexation of the Aggregates Levy until April 2014 and the decision to introduce the Climate Change Levy mineralogical and metallurgical exemption for energy-intensive industries such as cement and lime.

Both of these moves by UK Chancellor George Osborne have been welcomed because they bring some relief to the UK cement industry and wider construction activities. MPA members make money from such activites and any potential cost that can be eliminated or delayed, even for a short time, is welcome amid the current slump that is the UK economy. This is especially true as the UK weathers the one of the longest and most severe winters for 50 years. So far, so much sense.

However, how does this reaction to the Climate Change Levy exemption tie in with the MPA's February 2013 announcement that it thinks that the UK cement industry's total CO₂ emissions should be reduced by 81% by 2050? What should UK cement producers make of this?

The MPA's cement industry CO₂ reduction targets are certainly bold. On the face of it, they look achievable given the progress that has been made to date by the UK cement industry, although much is left to the imagination as to which areas could and should contribute most to the reduction target. The 81% reduction target includes the successful future commercial development of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies. It also relies on an increased proportion of renewable sources for the electricity that the cement industry will receive in 2050, something else that is totally out of the industry's control.

However, much hard work has already been done by cement companies in the UK. As in other EU countries and developed nations, total dust and toxic emissions have fallen dramatically in the UK cement industry since 1990. The country's alternative fuel substitution rate has now hit ~40%. Yet, as the MPA highlights in its document detailing the targets for 2050, much of the low-hanging fruit has already been taken. Further reduction in overall CO₂ emissions will be significantly affected by both regulations and cement company progress. 

Cement companies can increase their consumption of 'wastes' and fit waste-heat recovery systems. Through such measures they can achieve further reductions in emissions. Some kilns have hit alternative fuel substitution rates of 100% for limited periods and examples from the near continent show that 80% alternative fuels can be the norm. However, unlike these 'bottom-up' approaches, which can be introduced at a plant in a period of months, regulations take years to evolve and come into force, often involving slow and lengthly debate by politicians, associations and consumers.

To discourage the government from seeking to impose stricter environmental regulations for the cement industry by welcoming the exemption, is the MPA undercutting its own calls to reduce CO2 emissions in the UK cement industry? From a cement producer's perspective, it looks like the MPA could hold two contradictory opinions on the same subject: that you can welcome reductions in climate regulation while also calling for stricter emissions regulations. This phenomenon was famously termed 'double think' by George Orwell in his classic novel '1984,' but the MPA's situation is far more subtle. Often the regulators and those being regulated can agree on the same target but not on how that target should be reached. The next 37 years will show whether or not this target is even possible.

Russia: Former President and CEO of SibCem Andrey Muraviev has been nominated for the holding company's board of directors. SibCem shareholders hoped that their decision would help the Russian cement producer to recover its market share and financial performance.

Muraviev is a US-educated Russian entrepreneur, who ran SibCem since 2004 and led the company as its president for its first four years until 2008. During these years, the company brought under its umbrella all the cement assets it controls, stepped up investment in innovative technologies and made an initial public offering.

SibCem was Russia's second largest cement producer by mid-2008. Muraviev quit as CEO in August 2008 over disagreements with SibCem's Chairman Oleg Sharykin. Muraviev is currently President of Parus Capital, a Russia-dedicated investment fund which is a member of the Investor Rights Protection Association.

"I believe SibCem is now one of the most undervalued cement companies the world. I see the main reasons for this in its low transparency and poor corporate governance, lack of new assets and inefficient personnel management," commented Muraviev on his possible return to Sibir Cement. Since Muraviev left in 2008 the company has had its entire top management team and all its directors replaced. SibCem's annual revenues also declined by 75%.