Qatar: The Qatari Investors Group has appointed Faisal Abdulla al-Mana as the managing director of its subsidiary, Al Khalij Cement Company. Al-Mana was elected as member of the board of directors of the group in 2011. He has also been the vice chairman of Redco Construction Company since 2004.

It is hoped that his appointment will bring about further progress and prosperity, enhancing confidence and further development within the cement company. He brings a wealth of experience in the sector, which plays an important role Qatar's economic development, according to an Al Khalij spokesman.

Qatari Investors Group chairman Abdulla bin Nasser al-Misnad expressed optimism and confidence in al-Mana's abilities and visions, as his performance as one of the members of the board of directors of the Qatari Investors Group had been 'outstanding'.

Two trends have put the squeeze on the Indian cement industry this week. Firstly it emerged that producers were slashing prices ahead of the coming monsoon season. Then the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) proclaimed that it expected cement prices to rise by 5.9% in the 2013 financial year.

Producers cutting prices in May, before the monsoon, is important because it suggests that overall cement demand is already down. Once the rains come demand will go down even more. A slowdown in construction, particularly in infrastructure projects, a labour shortage and a sand shortage have all been blamed. Looking ahead however, as the CMIE has done, suggests that prices have to go up due to the increase in railway freight charges announced in March 2012 and the excise duty hike announced in the Union Budget 2012-13. All that remains in the middle are the profit margins that the cement industry has become accustomed to.

Back in January 2012 Fitch Ratings predicted a 'negative outlook' for the Indian cement industry in 2012, based on overcapacity and higher interest rates. Now it seems that total capacity utilisation is down in 2012 compared to 2011, from 76.2% to 71.3%. Throw in the railway and duty increases and one might be tempted to feel that Fitch went easy on the subcontinent.

Yet, the cement producers have already found one silver lining in the monsoon season. Industry sources were soon reported as using price increases in the country's south zone and price decreases in the north zone as evidence that cartel-like behaviour couldn't possibly be happening. In a country as large as India perhaps they should have added the words 'nationally coordinated.' Despite the price drops, prices in the cities have been reported at an all-time high due to supply shortages - a situation that may be familiar to some consumers in Saudi Arabia.

Colombia: Cementos Argos has announced the appointment of four new vice-presidents following of internal reorganisation. Following the promotions Jorge Mario Velasquez, president of Argos, commented that the moves had met the right balance of youth and experience.

Juan Luis Munera, a commercial law attorney with seven years service with Argos, has been appointed to vice president for legal and sustainability. Carlos Horacio Yusty, an engineer specialising in industrial management systems with 16 years service with Argos, has been appointed to vice president of finance. Mauricio Ossa, a business manager with 15 years service with Argos, has been appointed regional vice president of the company's Caribbean operation. Tomas Restrepo, currently vice president of innovation with five years service with Argos, will serve as regional vice president of Argos' Colombian units.

Two stories this week on alternative fuels illustrate their current place in the cement industry succinctly. Sumitomo Osaka Cement in Japan plans to increase the sales of power generated in-house at its Tochigi Prefecture plant using wood biomass fuel. Meanwhile on the other side of the Pacific Cemex US is planning to cut costs and carbon emissions by installing wind turbines at its Victorville site in California.

At the recent Global CemTrader conference on supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), coal and petcoke and logistics for the global cement industry, Patrick Peenaert of Lafarge delivered a presentation entitled the 'Global Overview of Worldwide Coal & Petcoke.'

In his talk Peenaert revealed, unsurprisingly, that fossil fuels dominate the global cement industry for the energy consumption of the top four international producers, with coal and petcoke making up over 70% of usage. However, alternative fuel usage has grown from 13% in 2008 to 18% in 2011. As price pressures on fossil fuels grow from other industries so too will investment into alternative fuel options.

The Japanese story demonstrates this well, especially given that the economic fallout of the 2011 earthquake on the Japanese power industry has made an alternative fuel process considerably more valuable for a plant with a temporary closed kiln. By contrast the US story is more nonchalant: operations will proceed at the Californian plant regardless of whether the turbines are built or not.

Yet hedging one's bets with power sources is increasingly seen to be a prudent long term strategy in an uncertain world. A familiar refrain in the recent batch of cement producer financial reports has been mounting energy costs. This week's half-year results for the Pretoria Portland Cement in the bullish African market is no exception.

Watch the video of Patrick Peenaert's presentation at the Global CemTrader 2012 conference, and all the other presentations

India: Martin Kriegner has been appointed CEO of Lafarge India as part of the current group-wide reorganisation drive. He will hold responsibility for all of Lafarge's cement, aggregates and concrete activities in the country.

"I am happy to return to India as Country CEO, at a time when the construction sector is evolving quickly in the country. By combining all of our activities together we will be able to support this evolution by offering integrated and innovative solutions at an earlier stage of construction in close proximity with our customers, allowing the full benefits of our innovative products and services to be realised," said Kriegner.

Martin Kriegner, an Austrian citizen, joined Lafarge in 1990 and became the CEO of Lafarge Perlmooser AG, Austria in 1998 before he moved to India as head of the cement activity in 2002. Prior to this assignment he served as regional president, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Lafarge has four cement plants in India: two plants in the state of Chattisgarh and a grinding plant each in Jharkhand and West Bengal.

Given the legal scuffles over the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) emissions timetable it was nice to see this week how Ash Grove Cement is responding at its Midlothian plant in Texas. The plant is seeking tax breaks on potential upgrade work that it is planning to implement before the current 2013 deadline for the EPA legislation.

For those following the fight between the EPA and the US cement industry here is a recap on the story so far:

The EPA issued a national emission standard for hazardous air pollutants rule to reduce the sector's air toxics in September 2010, alongside a new source performance standard to cut criteria pollutant emissions. In May 2011 the EPA both partly granted and denied petitions from cement industry representatives and environmentalists. In December 2012 the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia remanded the cement air toxic rule back to the EPA, delaying the deadline for the cement industry to seek a rehearing or review. Then in April 2012 the cement industry agreed not to seek a rehearing if the EPA extended its deadline until September 2015. The EPA has now sent for the White House Office of Management & Budget (OMB) to review its proposed revisions to its emissions rules, ahead of a tentative 15 June 2012 deadline.

While the EPA and the cement sector continue to battle it out plants like Ash Grove can do little except keep an eye on the bottom line until the dust settles... in whatever legally mandated fashioned is eventually approved. The Global Cement Directory 2012 lists 22 wet and semi-wet kilns in the US. While some are mothballed, others are likely to be affected by the rules. While the arguments continue the upgrade timetables of these plants hangs in the balance.

France: Gérard Lamarche has been appointed as a director at Lafarge at its Ordinary General Meeting in Paris on 15 May 2012.

Lamarche graduated from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve with a Bachelor's degree in Economic Sciences and a specialisation in Business Administration and Management. He also completed the Advanced Management Program for Suez Group Executives at the INSEAD Business School.

He began his professional career in 1983 with Deloitte Haskins & Sells in Belgium, and became a mergers and acquisitions consultant in the Netherlands in 1987. In 1988, he joined the Venture Capital Department of Société Générale de Belgique as an investment manager. He became the special projects advisor to the president and secretary of the Suez board of directors in 1995 where he later became the group's senior vice president in charge of planning, control and accounts management. He was appointed senior executive vice president – finance of the Suez Group in March 2004, becoming executive vice president - finance of GDF SUEZ, and member of the management and executive committees of the GDF SUEZ Group in July 2008.

Lamarche is a director of Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (Belgium) and has been a managing director since January 2012. Lamarche is also a Director of Total and Legrand.

Five of the big European producers posted their first quarter results this week and the figures were frosty.

Mirroring the north-south fault-line tearing Europe's economies apart, Germany's HeidelbergCement, Switzerland's Holcim and France's Lafarge showed improvements in overall sales volumes for the first quarter. Italy's Italcementi and Greece's Titan saw total sales volumes fall.

Looking closer, the results revealed that Western Europe was a dead zone for everybody. Despite its restructuring, Lafarge's sales fell by 11% in the region for the quarter. Similarly HeidelbergCement's sales fell by 6%, Holcim's sales fell by 13% and Italcementi's sales fell by 11%. Titan, by contrast, posted a 4% decline in sales in its heartland in Greece and Eastern Europe. Unsurprisingly it attributed the fall to the collapse of the construction sector in the wake of the Greek debt crisis. Even the weather seemed to be against European production, with more than one report blaming an unusually cold February 2012 for the poor results.

As is usual for European cement news in recent years the action in the first quarter of 2012 was all elsewhere, and this is where new profits have been found for these European producers, specifically in Asia and the Americas. It's in these places that Lafarge, Holcim and HeidelbergCement have reported sales increases of 10% and above for the quarter. Unfortunately 'elsewhere' for Italcementi and Titan has included Egypt with all its ongoing political and economic uncertainty, and the US where demand is in a sustained slump.

Bruno Lafont, CEO of Lafarge, summed it up nicely: "Emerging markets continue to be the main driver of demand and Lafarge benefits from its well balanced geographic spread of high quality assets." In a bid to capture some of that spread, it was also announced this week that the Italcementi subsidiary, Ciments Français, is striving to acquire a 6.25% stake in West China Cement. No wonder!

Each of the five producers are continuing to find savings in Western Europe through restructuring efforts but how painful will it become before the market revives? Unfortunately HeidelbergCement's outlook is the most candid. "In the Western and Northern Europe Group area, HeidelbergCement expects further economic growth but a slight overall dip in demand and falling sales volumes in cement and aggregates." Yes, it's going to get worse. Let's hope it's a warm winter in 2013.

Columbia: Columbia's largest cement company, Cementos Argos (Cemargos), has named Jorge Mario Velásquez as its chairman.

A civil engineer with over 30 years' experience in cement, Velásquez replaces José Alberto Vélez, who remains at the head of parent company Grupo Argos. The changes are part of the company's ongoing corporate restructuring process, which includes splitting off non-cement assets to its investment arm, Inversiones Argos.

UK: If Tarmac and Lafarge go through with their proposed JV tie-up in the UK, Lafarge will be obliged to sell its long-established Hope plant in Derbyshire, in the heart of the Peak District National Park, as well as its top-quality limestone quarry and rail depot connections. The Competition Commission has indicated that it would like an 'outsider' to buy the package, which also includes significant other assets in aggregates and readymix. The question is, who might be interested to buy it?

The UK is now a mature market, which has contracted significantly over the last decade, so that heady growth is not a possibility. The competition authorities will ensure that there is real competition in the UK building materials markets, so that only 'normal' margins of 5-10% can be expected - rather than inflated cartel-like or oligopolistic margins of 20% and beyond. Given that the return on capital invested is going to be quite low, why would anyone want to commit their cash (or their credit) to buying into the UK construction materials market? Why not put your money into bio-tech, or telecomms or even into a micro-development bank in the developing world?

I guess that it is largely down to a calculation of risk versus reward (as usual). The rewards of investing in a cement plant and integrated building materials business in the UK may be (relatively) low, but then the risks are also low: the UK is a fairly safe bet for long-term moderate growth, with strong population growth and robust GDP per capita.

Who would buy? A company that wants to balance its portfolio (perhaps a company with most of its eggs currently in the fast-growth/developing world basket), is cash rich (or has access to cheap credit), which is already in cement and aggregates and which might wish to carry home some of the technical knowledge from the deal might be interested. Perhaps some of the Chinese state-owned enterprises or ambitious mid-tier companies from the Middle East would be interested. As ever though, whether a deal is done depends on the price asked - and in the end, the price asked might be too high for anyone.